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General Release

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
AMERICA’S MOST “ELECTRIC” FOUNDING FATHER
PREMIERES ON PBS

Peabody Award-Winning Team Brings to Life the Genius of Benjamin Franklin Featuring Tony Award-Winner Richard Easton as Benjamin Franklin

Parts One and Two Premiere on Tuesday, November 19 from 9-11 P.M. ET/PT
90-Minute Part Three Concludes on Wednesday, November 20 at 9 P.M. ET/PT

Radical. Brilliant. Diplomatic. Scientific. Witty. Driven. Benjamin Franklin was an American genius who revolutionized his times with the scope of his intellect, the charm of his wit and the passion of his belief that ordinary men, and women, could shape their world. Born in obscurity, Franklin became the most famous American of his day, helping to give birth to the modern age and to a whole new nation. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN brings this extraordinary man and his breathtaking times to life in an innovative documentary biography that is as lively and groundbreaking as its subject.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, which premieres Tuesday, November 19 from 9-11 P.M. and concludes the following night from 9-10:30 P.M. (check local listings), is a production of TPT/Twin Cities Public Television, Minneapolis-St. Paul in association with Middlemarch, Inc. the Peabody Award-winning collaboration that produced LIBERTY! The American Revolution.

The three-part series vividly recreates Franklin’s mind and his world. Tony Award-winning Broadway actor Richard Easton portrays Franklin, speaking directly and intimately to the viewer and scripted entirely with Franklin’s own words. “Richard Easton’s performance does for Benjamin Franklin what Hal Holbrook did for Mark Twain. He captures the wit, humanity, joie de vivre, brilliance and foibles of this remarkable American,” says Gerry Richman, executive in charge of production. The distinguished cast also includes Dylan Baker as young Franklin, Blair Brown as his loving sister Jane Mecom, Peter Donaldson as his nemesis John Adams and Roberta Maxwell as his wife Deborah. The actors portraying Franklin’s contemporaries address the viewer as a confidant, bringing to life emotions and anecdotes preserved in letters and diaries.

It is a fascinating tale they tell. The series follows Franklin’s career from his humble origins in Boston to prosperity as a self-made businessman, publisher and civic citizen in Philadelphia, to international superstardom as a scientist and revolutionary, a founding father and America’s first diplomat to France. Noted Franklin experts, including H.W. Brands, author of a current Pulitzer Prize-nominated Franklin biography, Nobel Prize-winner Dudley Herschbach and journalist and Franklin history buff, Walter Isaacson (chairman of CNN), provide historical context and commentary.

“Though there have been many biographies of Franklin, there has never been an in-depth television portrayal revealing the many sides of this classic over-achiever,” says TPT executive producer Catherine Allan. “Think of a combination of Bill Gates, Dave Barry, Rupert Murdoch and Henry Kissinger and you begin to have some idea of the scope of his talents, his achievements and his fame.”

The story of an epic life – part Dickens, part Horatio Alger – BENJAMIN FRANKLIN spans most of the 18th century and crosses the ocean from the New World to the Old. To immerse the viewer in the sights and sounds of this tumultuous era, the production company traveled to Lithuania where they simulated the squalid urban alleys and sumptuous palaces of London and Paris, and staged evocative historical scenes at colonial sites in Philadelphia, Historic Deerfield and Colonial Williamsburg. Other innovative cinematic techniques contribute a level of realism and drama to the series that pushes the envelope of the documentary genre.

Born in 1706, the 15th son of a candlemaker in Boston, the precocious young Benjamin escaped apprenticeship in his older brother’s print shop to seek his fortune in Philadelphia. Industrious and determined, he matured his craft as a printer, his savvy as a businessman and the gift for writing that would ultimately make bestsellers of Franklin publications such as The Way to Wealth and Poor Richard’s Almanac. As one of America’s first volunteers, he formed a social club of other young men bent on self-improvement and gathered fellow citizens together to create lasting institutions, from Philadelphia’s first public hospital, police and fire departments to the colonies’ first lending library.

But it was as a self-taught scientific amateur that Franklin astonished the greatest minds of his day by discovering the relationship of lightning to electricity and winning the Copley Medal, the 18th century’s highest scientific honor, equivalent to today’s Nobel Prize. As a leading figure of the Enlightenment, Franklin believed in the power of human reason to improve the world. The lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a system of street lighting, a more efficient post office, a better system of government – all were products of a fertile mind that could recognize a problem and solve it with startling ingenuity.

In the second half of an already accomplished life Franklin would distinguish himself as a persuasive diplomat, ultimately spending large spans of time abroad. Living in England for almost 18 years, he at first championed the British Empire, but as the colonies’ grievances against England multiplied, Franklin became a passionate revolutionary. At 70, an age when most of his contemporaries were retired or dead, Franklin began the greatest role of his life as America’s first envoy to France during the American Revolution. Franklin’s worldly sophistication, astute political strategies and even his charm with the ladies of the French Court, all helped in securing a French treaty that was decisive to America’s victory.

In the final chapter of a long career, Franklin, weary and ailing, participated in the Constitutional Convention, debating the balance of states’ rights and federal power that would govern the new country. With the flourish of his familiar signature, Franklin was the only man who signed all three documents that established the new nation: the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War, and finally, the U.S. Constitution. Radical to the end, he was the only founding father to actively campaign against slavery, a battle for freedom that would come to dominate the next century.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN is produced and directed by Ellen Hovde and Muffie Meyer of Middlemarch Films. Catherine Allan of TPT/Twin Cities Public Television is executive producer. Ronald Blumer is writer and co-producer. Editors are Donna Marino, Eric Davies, and Sharon Sachs; Tom Hurwitz is the director of photography; Richard Einhorn composed the score. Gerry Richman is executive in charge of production.

A companion Web site for BENJAMIN FRANKLIN at www.pbs.org/benfranklin provides a robust resource for additional information on Franklin’s life and times, his wit and wisdom. Created by TPT and Popular Front Interactive, the Web site includes extensive classroom materials.

Sole corporate funding for the series is provided by the Northwestern Mutual Foundation. Additional major funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Public Broadcasting Service. Additional funders include the Humana Foundation and the Eberly Foundation.