John Lahr

American Masters is a PBS television series which produces biographies on enduring writers, musicians, visual and performing artists, dramatists, filmmakers, and others who have left an indelible impression on the cultural landscape of the United States.

Ruby was a late-night talk show broadcast on BBC Two in the United Kingdom. The series premiered on 12 May 1997, and was hosted by writer and comedian Ruby Wax. In each episode Wax holds an unscripted roundtable discussion with up to five guests. Framed as a dinner party, guests included actors, writers, stand-up comedians, musicians, journalists and other well-known figures in the entertainment industry. A total of 48 episodes were broadcast between May 1997 and November 2000.

This six part documentary miniseries presents the evolution of the Broadway musical from its inception in 1893 to current day 2004. It presents those influential players both on stage and behind the scenes, as well as a variety of influential Broadway shows, a handful which are known to have transformed the musical into what the audience knows it to be today.

When the young, attractive Joe Orton meets the older, more introverted Kenneth Halliwell at drama school, he befriends the kindred spirit and they start an affair. As Orton becomes more comfortable with his sexuality and starts to find success with his writing, Halliwell becomes increasingly alienated and jealous, ultimately tapping into a dangerous rage.

Consisting of two parts: ‘Revelations’, Bill Hicks’ last live performance in the United Kingdom made at the Dominion Theatre; and a documentary about Hicks’ life ‘Just a Ride’ featuring interviews with friends, admirers, and family.

During World War II, an American serviceman in London decides to impress his English girlfriend by acting as an American gangster, which soon turns deadly.

Exploring the wit, work and world of Joe Orton through his own words, and the testimony of those who knew him and worked with him.

With only an oversized shirt, black tights, and a chair, Elaine Stritch performs her autobiographical one-woman show at London's Old Vic Theatre featuring tales and songs from her 50-plus-year career on stage and screen.

This iconic American story was written in 1900 by L Frank Baum, a Chicago businessman, journalist, chicken breeder, actor, boutique owner, Hollywood movie director and lifelong fan of all things innovative and technological. His life spanned an era of remarkable invention and achievement in America and many of these developments helped to fuel this great storyteller's imagination. His ambition was to create the first genuine American fairytale and the story continues to fascinate, inspire and engage millions of fans of all ages from all over the world. This documentary explores how The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has come to symbolise the American Dream and includes previously unseen footage from the Baum family archives, still photographs and clips from the early Oz films, as well as interviews with family members, literary experts and American historians as it tells the story of one man's life in parallel to the development of modern America.

Sticky My Fingers ... Fleet My Feet is a 1970 short film directed by John D. Hancock. It follows a group of Madison Avenue touch football buffs who are beaten by a teenaged boy and begin to feel their age. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.

Richard Avedon was one of the great geniuses of 20th century photography, famous for his fashion photography done for the likes of Vogue, Versace, and Armani, and equally famous for his black and white portraits of American people, both famous and unknown.

A featurette about The Wizard of Oz (1939).

Documentary portrait of the life of playwright Joe Orton, who was murdered by his lover Kenneth Halliwell in April 1967.

Katie can read minds. Being desirable, the male minds she reads are all thinking of one thing. She always responds by hitting them and storming off without explanation. Daniel is an expert in body language and interprets this as a sign she wants to be pursued. Since Daniel spends most of his time, when not terrorizing his students, pursuing women, Katie gets ever more exasperated that he is treating her exactly as he treats every presentable female from the motorcycle cop to the squeegee girl. She cannot read minds when her eyes are covered, or when minds are thinking in a foreign language, so she misinterprets Sandip's desire for hunger. She also holds Daniel responsible for his subconscious desire for his friend's wife (Caroline).

Clancy Sigal ventured everywhere and accomplished everything a bold spirit possibly can in the turbulent course of a mere lifetime: street-smart city kid, precinct worker, union organizer, soldier, UCLA graduate, Hollywood agent, target of McCarthyism, European emigre, Fleet Street journalist, novelist, staunch leftist disdainful of party lines, enemy of cant of any kind, psychedelic journeyer, skeptical devotee of psychiatrist R. D. Laing, National Book Award nominee, and screenwriter of Frida and other films. An eloquent radical who shook up things in every milieu he encountered, nothing he ever wrote was predictable, except for the compassion, dark humor and demand for social justice always at the core.