LITTLE ROCK — NBC is developing a drama series about George Washington, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Washington: A Life. In that book, author Ron Chernow wrote that the country’s first president “ranks as the most famously elusive figure in American history, a remote, enigmatic personage more revered than truly loved.”
“History is written by winners, yet there are two sides to every story and then there’s the truth,” NBC’s summary for its George Washington project read.
The potential series will be, NBC said, an “unprecedented intimate look at the enigmatic leader who became the father of a nation on one side of the Atlantic and a terrorist on the other.”
And, NBC continued, “he is not the man who chopped down the cherry tree.”
The network has ordered a script from David Seidler, who won the best original screenplay Oscar for The King’s Speech.
“There’s George Washington the national icon, starting from the dollar bill with his supposed mouthful of wooden teeth, and then there’s the George Washington who had an adulterous affair with his best friend’s wife. The George Washington obsessed with social status, finely tailored clothes, his image,” Seidler said.
To recap:
No wooden teeth - check.
No cherry tree chopping - check.
Loads of Sally Fairfax scenes - check.
Barry Levinson will executive-produce the series with Seidler and Tom Fontana should NBC give it a green light. Levinson also had some thoughts about Washington: “The reality was he was a flawed and troubled character who learned over time to mask his tumultuous inner life.”
Jason Sosnoff, head of production and development at Levinson’s Baltimore Pictures, who would also get an exec producer credit, chimed in: “With America’s ongoing dialogue with leadership, there could not be a more important time to tell the story of a man who had tremendous vision and the will to carry it out against extreme polarization.”
We leave you with the comforting thought that, if it goes to a series, George Washington would be shepherded by NBC Universal International’s Carnival production operation - the same operation that distributes PBS’ Downton Abbey.
Style, Pages 50 on 11/25/2012