American Masters

History Series / 14 Seasons

American Masters, committed to producing comprehensive film biographies about the broad cast of characters who comprise our cultural history.

Watch Latest: S39 E1

1h 23m / TV-14

Jascha Heifetz Concerts for 1923 Japan Earthquake Victims

1m 23s

Jascha Heifetz traveled to Japan in 1923, weeks after the earthquake on September 1 that devastated Tokyo, Yokohama and the Kanto region, with casualties near 143,000. He gave outdoor performances there and also gave benefit concerts to benefit Japan. He was a forerunner among musicians to do relief work. This is film outtake from Jascha Heifetz: God's Fiddler, featuring Heifetz' own film footage.

Filmmaker Peter Rosen on Key Assets of Jascha Heifetz Film

5m 34s

Emmy- and Peabody-winning filmmaker Peter Rosen describes his three key assets for making the documentary Jascha Heifetz: God's Fiddler: the home movies by Heifetz that Rosen discovered; a set provided by Heifetz's reconstructed music studio; and the person of musician Ayke Agus, Heifetz's student, accompanist and longtime companion.

Jascha Heifetz: Patriotic Service During World War II

2m 8s

Jascha Heifetz not only had a daily ritual of raising the U.S. flag at his home. He also toured extensively for the USO during World War II. Ayke Agus, his accompanist and longtime companion, shares that the world famous violinist considered one of his greatest performances a concert for a single soldier during World War II.

Jascha Heifetz: Estrellita Encore Song

1m 18s

In 1923 violinist Jascha Heifetz was in Mexico City and realized he didn't have any work by a Mexican composer on his program. While in a cafe, he heard a musician sing a popular song written by Manuel Ponce called "Estrellita" (My Little Star). He took notes on his napkin, and composed an arrangement for violin and piano based on it. "Estrellita" became one of his favorite encore songs.

Jascha Heifetz Lives the Good Life

58s

"After I came to America, my one aim, it seems, was to enjoy myself," said the violinist whose fame grew with his Carnegie Hall debut and first audio recordings made in 1917. Heifetz bought a large home in Narragansett, a car, and camera equipment with which he pursued his beloved hobby of filmmaking. He allowed himself to socialize and have fun, something that was lacking in his childhood.

Clark Terry on Touring the South with All-Black Band

1m 17s

Legendary trumpeter Clark Terry (1920 - 2015) describes an era when touring the South with an all-black big band was a "chore." It was difficult to find a place to eat or lodge and price gouging was common, he says. This film outtake is an original interview for American Masters - Quincy Jones: In the Pocket (2001). Jones began studying under Terry when he was 13 years old.

Clark Terry on Count Basie's Space and Time in Jazz

3m 25s

Trumpeter and composer Clark Terry (1920 - 2015) talks about what Quincy Jones learned from Count Basie: the utilization of space and time. Terry gives examples of how Basie led his band's rhythm section and influenced the classic by trumpeter/composer Neal Hefti, "Li'l Darlin'." This film outtake is an original interview for American Masters - Quincy Jones: In the Pocket (2001).

August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand, Panel Discussion

33m 31s

After showing highlights from August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand on February 9, 2015, the film's director and producer, Sam Pollard, moderated a panel with actors Phylicia Rashad and Ruben Santiago-Hudson; Constanza Romero, Wilson’s widow and costume designer, and Rich Blint, Ph.D., of Columbia University. Co-presented by THIRTEEN and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Scene from "Fences," a Pulitzer Prize-Winning Play

1m 2s / TV-PG

August Wilson's "Fences" won a Pulitzer Prize and four Tony Awards in 1987. In this scene staged for August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand, characters Tony, Rose and Bono have a heated conversation about baseball, Jackie Robinson and the unfairness of discrimination.

Monologue from "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" by August Wilson

47s / TV-PG

"White folks don’t understand about the blues," says Ma Rainey in the play, "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," set in a Chicago recording studio in 1927. This dramatic reading created for August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand is performed by Ebony Jo-Ann. The play premiered in 1984 at Yale Repertory Theatre and opened on Broadway the same year to win a New York Drama Critics Circle award.

August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand

2m 41s / TV-PG

The film premieres Friday, February 20 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings) to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Wilson’s birth, the 10th anniversary of his death and Black History Month. Unprecedented access to Wilson’s theatrical archives, rarely seen interviews and new dramatic readings bring to life his seminal 10-play cycle chronicling a century of African-American life.

Phylicia Rashad Performs "Gem of the Ocean" Aunt Ester Scene

2m 23s / TV-PG

In August Wilson's "Gem of the Ocean," Aunt Ester is a matriarch and former slave. Phylicia Rashad performed the role on Broadway and in a dramatic reading created for August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand, she enacts when Ester reveals the existence of the spiritual and symbolic City of Bones, made from African ancestors who died while crossing the Atlantic Ocean during the Middle Passage.

August Wilson in Seattle

1m 57s

In 1990, August Wilson and his wife, costume designer Constanza Romero, moved to Seattle. After his death in 2005, the Seattle Repertory Theatre and the Seattle Center honored the playwright by naming a promenade August Wilson Way, which includes a doorway portal and a quote from Wilson's play King Hedley II (1991). Romero tells the story of August Wilson Way in this film outtake.

August Wilson's Youth

1m 24s

August Wilson and two of his sisters recall his early school days, when he showed an early love of language and learning, and suffered daily insults for being black at a primarily white school. Wilson describes an instance when he timed his response to a bully to the words of the Pledge of Allegiance. This excerpt is from American Masters - August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson's Skills for "Seven Guitars" Role

54s / TV-PG

Blues music runs through many of August Wilson's plays, particularly "Seven Guitars." Ruben Santiago-Hudson didn't know how to play harmonica when he auditioned for his role in it, but he aimed to have audiences say, "that harmonic player sure can act." Santiago-Hudson won a 1996 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play. This is an outtake from August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand.

Actor James Earl Jones on August Wilson's Plays

In this behind-the-scenes look from August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand, director Sam Pollard interviews James Earl Jones, a Tony Award winner in 1987 for his role in Wilson's "Fences," for which Wilson won the first of two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama. Jones characterizes Wilson's work, saying, "Most of all his plays are about families and the migration from greater pain to lesser pain."

Filmmaker Sam Pollard on His August Wilson Documentary

2m 29s

Filmmaker Sam Pollard's latest documentary for American Masters is August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand. In this filmmaker interview he speaks about Wilson's relevance, interviewing actors and more. The film premieres Friday, February 20 at 9 pm on PBS (check local listings).

Costume Designs for August Wilson Plays

3m 15s

Constanza Romero created costume designs for August Wilson's plays and the two artists married each other in 1994. Romero describes the decisions she made while creating looks for August Wilson's characters in Seven Guitars, Gem of the Ocean and more. This is a film outtake from August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand.

August Wilson on the Dialogue in His Plays

1m 38s

August Wilson describes how dialogue comes to him and guides his character development and the plot. This film excerpt from August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand includes a dramatic reading of the opening scene of "Two Trains Running" (Broadway premiere 1992).

Ricky Jay and Art Spiegelman in Conversation

51m 4s

This web-extra feature is a Hammer Conversation with Ricky Jay and Art Spiegelman, from the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles on November 17, 2007. Sleight-of-hand magician Ricky Jay and cartoonist Art Spiegelman discussed works from "Extraordinary Exhibitions," featuring over eighty 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century ephemeral advertising sheets known as broadsides, from Ricky Jay's own collection.

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