Episodes

Explore the life of the celebrated artist whose luminous color field paintings helped define the abstract expressionist movement, which shifted the art world epicenter from Paris to New York. Featuring original scenes with Alfred Molina.

Explore a warm and revealing portrait of the charismatic, groundbreaking actor’s journey from his native Puerto Rico to the creative hotbed of 1960s New York City, to prominence on Broadway and in Hollywood. Filled with passion, determination and joy, Juliá’s brilliant and daring career was tragically cut short by his untimely death 25 years ago, at age 54.

Explore the remarkable life and legacy of late feminist author Ursula K. Le Guin whose groundbreaking work, including “The Left Hand of Darkness,” transformed American literature by bringing science fiction into the literary mainstream.

Filmmaker Shane Salerno’s 10-year investigation culminates in the first work to get beyond The Catcher in the Rye author's impenetrable wall of privacy and seclusion. American Masters presents the exclusive, never-before-seen director’s cut of Salinger as the series’ 200th episode, featuring 15 minutes of new material. Salinger is an intricately structured mystery that reveals the author’s private world: how World War II influenced his life and work, his painstaking writing methods, his many relationships with young women, and the literary secrets he left behind after his death in 2010.

Reed was always at the forefront of American avant-garde music, beginning with creation of the Velvet Underground in 1965. Gritty and realistic, the brutal honesty in Reed’s lyrics and sound made him a cultural icon of the disenfranchised throughout the ’60s and ’70s. From punk rock to grunge, he has had an unparalleled influence on the American music scene.

Among the celebrated pantheon of Hollywood royalty, few are as well-respected and universally adored as Gregory Peck. For more than fifty years, he was a major presence in the theater, on television, and most importantly, on the big screen. For many, Peck was a symbol of the American man at his best – a pillar of moral courage and a constant defender of traditional values.

Nichols and Elaine May revolutionized the landscape of American comedy. By perfecting the art of improvisation and introducing it to the public through their appearances in clubs and on television and radio, they forever changed our expectations of comedy, and our sense of humor.

Sam Cooke put the spirit of the Black church into popular music, creating a new American sound and setting into motion a chain of events that forever altered the course of popular music and race relations in America.

Dalton Trumbo was born in Montrose, Colorado in 1905. Shortly thereafter his parents moved to Grand Junction, the largest town on Colorado’s western slope.

Neil Simon is the world’s most successful playwright. He has had dozens of plays and nearly as many major motion pictures produced. He has been showered with more Academy and Tony nominations than any other writer, and is the only playwright to have four Broadway productions running simultaneously.

In the period immediately following the end of World War II, American theater was transformed by the work of playwright Arthur Miller. Profoundly influenced by the Depression and the war that immediately followed it, Miller tapped into a sense of dissatisfaction and unrest within the greater American psyche. His probing dramas proved to be both the conscience and redemption of the times.

Quincy Jones is an American record producer, multi-instrumentalist, singer, and film producer. His career spans over 60 years in the entertainment industry with a record 80 Grammy Award nominations, 28 Grammys, and a Grammy Legend Award in 1992.

Known primarily for his role as the host of television’s THE TWILIGHT ZONE, Rod Serling had one of the most exceptional and varied careers in television. As a writer, a producer, and for many years a teacher, Serling challenged the medium of television to reach for loftier artistic goals. The winner of more Emmy Awards for dramatic writing than anyone in history.

In 1987, singer Aretha Franklin became the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This was a testament to her impact on the music world over the course of her long and exciting career. From her teenage days singing gospel in her father’s church to her ascendancy to rock and roll royalty, “The Queen of Soul” has expressed a passion and intensity that has never failed.

His name conjures up images of premature burial, black cats, forbidden crypts, and crumbling old houses where terrifying secrets dwell. Almost one hundred and fifty years after his death, Edgar Allan Poe’s prose and poetry continue to frighten, influence and inspire writers, composers, artists, poets, and readers all over the world.