Jac Venza, the shoemaker's son who almost single-handedly delivered an oasis of cultural programming, including 'Great Performances,' 'Masterpiece Theater' and 'Live From Lincoln,' to the 'vast wasteland' that was American television in the 1960s and '70s,” the Center for Connecticut Center on Tuesday. He died at his home in Lyme at the age of 97.
His death was confirmed by his spouse, Daniel D. Routhier.
Mr. Venza has never attended college. As an actor, he said he was “terrible.” As an aspiring artist, he began his career in Chicago designing scenery for the Goodman Theater and window displays for the Mandel Brothers department store. But while still in his 30s, he began playing a major role in introducing the arts to public broadcasting.
He was working as a television producer in the early 1960s when he was asked to work with other television innovators assembled by the Ford Foundation to transform a limited service that produced no original programming into National Educational Television, the predecessor of the Public Broadcasting Service.
As fellow producers and other media professionals pondered how best to educate viewers through the nonprofit network, Mr. Venza recalled volunteering, “Why not entertain them too?”
In the 1960s and 70s, he presented “NET Playhouse,” “Theater in America,” “Live From Lincoln Center,” “Great Performances,” “American Masters,” and, at the suggestion of the National Endowment for the Arts, “Dance in America.” ” He also imported popular BBC productions such as “Brideshead Revisited”.
He collaborated with choreographers such as George Balanchine and Martha Graham, composers such as Leonard Bernstein, and playwrights such as Tennessee Williams. Dustin Hoffman had his first leading role on television in NET's 1966 production of Ronald Ribman's play “The Journey of the Fifth Horse.” Ten years later, Meryl Streep appeared on screen for the first time in the William Gillette play “Secret Service” in “Great Performances.”
John Jay Iselin, former chairman of WNET, told The Times in 1982: “I’m not sure there would be performing arts on prime time public television without Jac Venza, the lifeblood of this station.” We take for granted the performing arts as a feature of our entire cultural program. But he was making a show at a time when most people didn't have the production skills or the insight or the originality to make a show really interesting and engaging.''
Before retiring from “Great Performances” in 2004, Mr. Venza and the programs he produced for PBS flagship station WNET received 57 Emmy nominations, a record not surpassed until 2010, the station said. He has won ten Primetime Emmy Awards (International Emmy Award for Lifetime Achievement and Governor's Award for Lifetime Achievement). In 1997, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting awarded him the Ralph Lowell Award for his outstanding achievements.
Mr. Venza has been variously characterized as a brilliant visionary and smart deal maker. He can also be stubborn and assertive. “I've done this well,” he told the New York Times in 1982, “because I have an open mind.”
He is generally known as an executive producer, but he was much more than that. He was a rare artistic polymath who deserved the title “Impresario.”
“Everyone always wonders what an executive producer does,” Mr. Venza told The Times. “He has his eyes on the horizon. He sets goals, whether it’s what the artist wants, a program idea we should pursue, or finding the right person for the project.”
William F. Baker, who succeeded Iselin at WNET, described Venza in an email as “a true pioneer in presenting art on television.”
“He took us into untested media genres,” he wrote. “Other broadcasters have never tried to get involved because they have smaller audiences, are older, and are more expensive to produce. But we felt it was a ‘mission,’ and PBS remains dominant and unrivaled today.”
Mr. Venza was born in Chicago on December 23, 1926, to Rosario and Frances (Roppolo) Venza, Sicilian immigrants. It is unclear what his real name was, but he was known as Jac from childhood. His family lived in two rooms behind his father's shoe repair shop. His mother managed the household.
Jac started shining shoes before she was 10 years old. But he wanted to be an artist. “While other boys were reading comics, I was reading design books,” he told The Times.
After graduating from Roman Catholic High School, he received a scholarship from the father of a classmate to help design sets for Goodman Theatre's productions. (“I was scared,” he told the American Television Archive.)
A colleague who recognized his artistic talent encouraged Mr. Venza to move to New York. After designing sets for the Spoleto Festival in Italy, he settled in the city and worked as a commercial artist, designing store window displays for Bonwit Teller and other Fifth Avenue stores. The first Broadway musical he saw was Cole Porter's 'Kiss Me, Kate.' (He revived the show in “Great Performances” in 2003.)
In 1950, he joined CBS, where he designed sets for “I Remember Mama,” “The Ed Sullivan Show” and the documentary series “Adventure,” produced in collaboration with the American Museum of Natural History. In that series, instead of relying on graphics, he replaced costumed dancers to depict chromosomes and musical notes. He worked his way up from set designer to producer.
In 1964, a few years after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton N. Minow declared television a “vast wasteland,” Mr. Venza began his career in public television. But he did not become an aesthetic snob and recognized what commercial television did best.
“If we're going to present great artists in prime time, we should do it at least as elegantly as CBS does 'Dallas,'” he said, referring to the popular prime-time soap opera in 1982. “Commercial television is the most slick and professionally organized show in the world. It’s manufactured, so when a great artist gives me something, I want to make sure it’s well-produced.”
He recalled his early days: He said, “I realized that the greatest artists are not asked to appear on television in a big way. “For public broadcasting to succeed, results were needed.”
In addition to Mr. Routhier, Mr. Venza is survived by nieces and nephews. His sister, Eileen Mitchell, preceded him in death.
Reflecting on his career at age 75, Mr. Venza said, “There is nothing in my background that should have brought me here.” “Here” refers to professional success, but one that may not have been financially rewarding had he pursued a career in commerce. television.
“I’m going to get out of the system, not owning a big bank account or a swimming pool or one of the shows I produce,” he said.
But he added: “A lot of people on television won’t have what I will have 20 years from now. It won't ruin our program. They will be in schools and video disc collections. What we have will not diminish as we age.”