Doris Kearns Goodwin

Lincoln: a towering subject for History mini-series

Abraham Lincoln was a towering enigma, a sturdy pillar of conflicts and contrasts.
He was a sad man who made people laugh, a rough-hewn rail-splitter who preferred to be inside with a book. He lost four political races … then won the presidency and changed the nation.
“There’s nothing bigger … than the Moby Dick of American history, which is Abraham Lincoln,” said historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose Lincoln documentary debuts on President’s Day weekend (8 p.m. Feb. 20-22) on the History Channel. Read more…

Busy times: from Honest Abe to Joe Exotic

You know life is promising when the news ranges from Abraham Lincon to Agatha Raisin, from Meat Loaf to Joe Exotic. All show up in recent announcements about TV; that includes:
— The “Tiger King” mini-series now has a starting date. The eight-hour film begins March 3 on Peacock, under the title “Joe vs. Carole.”
This is the scripted version of a true-life story originally told in a documentary that became a hit during stay-at-home stages, early in the pandemic. Kate McKinnon (shown here) of “Saturday Night Live” plays animal activist Carole Baskin, with John Cameron Mitchell as the self-named Joe Exotic, a private zookeeper eventually convicted of trying to hire someone to kill her. Read more…

Washington: Big, bold and (sometimes) truthful

Doris Kearns Goodwin had been working her way through the presidents.
Her books had traced the lives of Kennedy, Johnson, Lincoln, Taft and two Roosevelts. They had brought her fame, a Pulitzer Prize and a couple of drinking sessions with Daniel Day Lewis.
What was missing was the first and best-known president. Now she’s produced “Washington” (shown here), the documentary mini-series airing Sunday, Monday (yes, Presidents Day) and Tuesday on the History Channel Read more…