Wolper is one of Hollywood's most successful film and television producers, with over half a century of career highlights that include winning multiple Emmys and an Oscar, and producing cult favorite Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
and the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Olympics. He's boastful about his accomplishments, but then, if you had brought the nation to a standstill for an entire week with Roots, would you keep quiet about it? After a quick recounting of his early career, Wolper gets right into the good stuff, beginning with a 1958 television program about the space race that jump-started his career as an independent television documentary producer; later, he introduced Jacques Cousteau to American audiences and created the first Biography
series in 1965. He branched out into corporate films, produced work for both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, and expanded his TV work to include historical recreations, first for documentaries and later for TV movies. Although he recalls most of the behind-the-scenes complications with good humor, Wolper is clearly still frustrated by television critics' questions about fictional distortions in his earliest docudramas and vigorously defends his commitment to accuracy, even going out of his way to mention that Oliver Stone's JFK
"outraged" him. As the shows start piling up, Wolper's chronology occasionally blurs, but the overwhelming array of celebrity anecdotes will easily distract readers from his occasional missteps. Photos. Agent, Andy Stuart. (Mar. 11)
