David Raksin

The best in the performing arts from across America and around the world including a diverse programming portfolio of classical music, opera, popular song, musical theater, dance, drama, and performance documentaries.

Biography is a documentary television series. It was originally a half-hour filmed series produced for CBS by David Wolper from 1961 to 1964 and hosted by Mike Wallace. The A&E Network later re-ran it and has produced new episodes since 1987. The older version featured historical figures such as Helen Keller and Mark Twain, or long-dead entertainment figures such as Will Rogers or John Barrymore. The A&E series has placed the emphasis on such people as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Plácido Domingo, Freddie Mercury, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Eric Clapton, Pope John Paul II, Gene Tierney, Selena, Diego Rivera, Mao Zedong and Queen Elizabeth II, and fictional characters like The Phantom, Superman, Hamlet, Betty Boop, and Santa Claus. The program ended up profiling enough figures that in 1999, A&E spun it off into an entire network, The Biography Channel.

With the help of more than 10,000 dedicated Zappa fans, this is the long-awaited definitive documentary project of Alex Winter documenting the life and career of enigmatic groundbreaking rock star Frank Zappa. Alex also utilizes in this picture thousands of hours of painstakingly digitized videos, photos, audio, writing, and everything in between from Zappa's private archives. These chronicles have never been brought to a public audience before, until now.

A biographical documentary about the great British actor and director Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977), from rags to riches, from the slums of London to glory.

With a revived interest in the scores created for Hollywood films in the 1930's and 40's. "Music for the Movies: The Hollywood Sound" explores a segment of that legacy through composers like Max Steiner ("Gone with the Wind"), Franz Waxman ("Bride of Frankenstein") and Erich Korngold ("The Adventures of Robin Hood"), all of whom came from Europe. Steiner was a pupil of Ravel. The American roster includes David Raksin ("Laura") and Alfred Newman ("The Hunchback of Notre Dame"). Host and narrator John Mauceri conducts the BBC National Orchestra of Wales against a backdrop of clips from the various movies.

Documentary about Hollywood.

The best in the performing arts from across America and around the world including a diverse programming portfolio of classical music, opera, popular song, musical theater, dance, drama, and performance documentaries.

Biography is a documentary television series. It was originally a half-hour filmed series produced for CBS by David Wolper from 1961 to 1964 and hosted by Mike Wallace. The A&E Network later re-ran it and has produced new episodes since 1987. The older version featured historical figures such as Helen Keller and Mark Twain, or long-dead entertainment figures such as Will Rogers or John Barrymore. The A&E series has placed the emphasis on such people as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Plácido Domingo, Freddie Mercury, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Eric Clapton, Pope John Paul II, Gene Tierney, Selena, Diego Rivera, Mao Zedong and Queen Elizabeth II, and fictional characters like The Phantom, Superman, Hamlet, Betty Boop, and Santa Claus. The program ended up profiling enough figures that in 1999, A&E spun it off into an entire network, The Biography Channel.