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May 04, 2017
In The Mix

Camelot Recalled

Bullish on its past success, Reelz revisits the Kennedy saga.

Bob Makela

Back in early 2011, Stan E. Hubbard, CEO of the family-owned cable network  Reelz, had a question for then–Showtime CEO Matthew Blank, a friend since their days in the direct-broadcast satellite business.

Hubbard had noticed a pair of news items about the planned History miniseries The Kennedys, starring Greg Kinnear as President John F. Kennedy and Katie Holmes as the First Lady. The first stated that History had dropped the eight-hour project. A week later, he read that Showtime had passed, as Starz and FX would also.

“How bad was it?” Hubbard asked.

Blank said The Kennedys was far from bad. In fact, he called the mini one of the best he’d ever seen.

The project, though, had been dogged by criticism over historical inaccuracies and perceived disparagement of the Kennedy family in early versions of the script. Filmmaker Robert Greenwald led a group of historians and others condemning the show, establishing a website called Stop Kennedy Smears.

Still, Blank recommended that Hubbard pursue the program for Reelz.

“Matt said, ‘Call Abbe Raven [then chairman] at A&E, buy it and you’ll win Emmys,’” Hubbard recalls. “Nobody ever says that.”

Blank was right. The Kennedys — which The Hollywood Reporter called “the most radioactive miniseries ever made” — was nominated for 10 Emmys in 2011 and took home four, including Barry Pepper’s win as outstanding lead actor in a miniseries or movie for his portrayal of Robert F. Kennedy.

Six years later, Reelz is revisiting America’s first family with The Kennedys: After Camelot. Holmes returned to star in the four-hour limited series, which premiered in April and will re-air in May. This installment focuses on the efforts by Jacqueline Kennedy to pick up the pieces after the assassinations of her husband and her brother-in-law. It also examines the struggles of remaining brother Edward M. Kennedy, played by Matthew Perry.

“It’s really hard to identify with the Kennedys as  a family because they were virtually royalty in America,” says Jon Cassar (24), who directed all eight hours of The Kennedys and all but one hour of After Camelot. (Holmes directed the other hour; Cassar, Holmes and Hubbard are also executive producers.)

“What you can identify with,” Cassar continues, “is a mother trying to teach her children without a father. You can identify with Teddy trying to live  up to his brothers. You can identify with these things from a family point of view, not a political point of view.”

Perry embraced the challenge of his role. “I like to think of [Ted] as the most-improved Kennedy,” says the actor, who aged from 38 to 67 in the program. “If I succeeded in my portrayal, it was because I fell for Ted a little bit. He was not presented with an easy path in life, but he did the best he could with it.”

Hubbard is eager to see what his new Kennedy series can do for the family business. The original Kennedys remains the top performer in Reelz’s 10-year history, though he admits the network wasn’t prepared for the attention it drew at the time.

“We didn’t have the depth of programming [that we do now] to keep delivering night in and night out,” Hubbard says. " The Kennedys helped us find a focus as to what this network could be and needed to be. The Kennedys: After Camelot is going to cap it off and really show viewers, distributors and the industry that this little independent network isn’t so little anymore.”


This article originally appeared in emmy magazine, Issue No. 4, 2017

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