anthology series
An anthology series is a radio, television, video game or film series that spans different genres and presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode, season, segment, or short. These usually have a differ ...
devoted to the arts. It began as a Sunday afternoon local program on
WCBS-TV
WCBS-TV (channel 2) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside Riverhead, New York–licensed independent station WL ...
in New York and ran “for some time”Mercer, Charles, Associated Press writer, Television World column, “Obscure Program Hailed For Daring to Be Different,” The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Thursday 26 January 1956, Volume LXII, Number 127, page 6. before moving to the network on CBS at 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, airing from January 22, 1956, to January 21, 1979, and then moved to
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
in its final year to make way for the then-new ''
CBS News Sunday Morning
''CBS News Sunday Morning'' (normally shortened to ''Sunday Morning'' on the program itself since 2009) is an American news magazine
A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published magazine, radio or television program, usually published ...
'', which incorporated regular segments devoted to the arts. The PBS version ran from October 4, 1979, to July 10, 1980.
''Camera Three'' featured programs showcasing drama, ballet, art, music, anything involving fine arts. The first network presentation was a dramatization of Feodor Dostoevsky’s short story “The Drama of a Ridiculous Man,” with Canadian actor
John Drainie
John Robert Roy Drainie (April 1, 1916 – October 30, 1966) was a Canadian actor and television presenter, who was called "the greatest radio actor in the world" by Orson Welles.
Drainie was most famous in Canada for two long-running roles: the ...
as the “ridiculous man,” and directed by Francis Moriarty.
Said media columnist Charles Mercer of the initial network broadcast, “The concept of ''Camera Three'', as aptly expressed by its moderator James Macandrew, is that ‘television is more than an engineering miracle.’ In the past, it has revealed the artistic dimensions of the medium in multipart dramatizations of '' Moby Dick'', '' The Red Badge of Courage'' and '' Crime and Punishment''. Unquestionably it will go on to do similar superior works.”
One of its most notable presentations was a condensation of
Marc Blitzstein
Marcus Samuel Blitzstein (March 2, 1905January 22, 1964), was an American composer, lyricist, and librettist. He won national attention in 1937 when his pro-union musical ''The Cradle Will Rock'', directed by Orson Welles, was shut down by the Wo ...
's leftist opera ''
The Cradle Will Rock
''The Cradle Will Rock'' is a 1937 play in music by Marc Blitzstein. Originally a part of the Federal Theatre Project, it was directed by Orson Welles and produced by John Houseman. A Brechtian allegory of corruption and corporate greed, it ...
''. Presented on November 29, 1964, it was a dramatic demonstration of how far television had come since its early days, in its willingness to present a work that surely would have been banned from the airwaves during the era of
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visi ...
.
Beginning
''Camera Three'' originated as a Saturday afternoon cultural affairs program on
WCBS-TV
WCBS-TV (channel 2) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside Riverhead, New York–licensed independent station WL ...
. Robert Herridge, who was producing a low-rated educational series, ''It's Worth Knowing'', for the station approached WCBS-TV's head of public affairs, Clarence Worden, with his idea for "a program where there was no area of human experience we couldn't get into ... an open end kind of show -- an open sesame." Worden signed off on the idea and gave Herridge 45 minutes of time on Saturday afternoons and a $1,400 budget.Higgins, Robert. (1964, August 8–14). ''So They Hired Richard Burton for $124: And That's Just One Example of'' Camera Three's ''Resourcefulness''. TV Guide, pp 22-24.
The program's name stemmed from a question Worden asked Herridge: "How many cameras are you using?" After Herridge replied "Three," Worden suggested that Camera Three would make "a great title."
''Camera Three'' continued to be produced by WCBS-TV's public affairs department when it moved to the network, but by the early 1960s its budget had been increased to $5,000 a week.
Successes and failures
''Camera Three'' is recognized as being the first TV program "to use
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
extensively" and the first "to succeed with dramatizations of classics." The program also broke ground in sensitive areas, such as presenting a sympathetic portrayal of
Sacco and Vanzetti
Nicola Sacco (; April 22, 1891 – August 23, 1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (; June 11, 1888 – August 23, 1927) were Italian immigrant anarchists who were controversially accused of murdering Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter, a ...
and casting a black actor, Earle Hyman, in the role of
Othello
''Othello'' (full title: ''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'') is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, probably in 1603, set in the contemporary Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–1573) fought for the control of the Island of Cypru ...
, rather than having the role played by a white actor in blackface, as was the usual custom at that time.
It aired a special episode on
Sojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth (; born Isabella Baumfree; November 26, 1883) was an American abolitionist of New York Dutch heritage and a women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to f ...
Carlos Montoya
Carlos García Montoya (13 December 19033 March 1993) in Madrid, Spain, was a prominent flamenco guitarist and a founder of the modern-day popular flamenco style of music.
Early life
He was the nephew of renowned flamenco guitarist Ramón Monto ...
Ogden Nash
Frederic Ogden Nash (August 19, 1902 – May 19, 1971) was an American poet well known for his light verse, of which he wrote over 500 pieces. With his unconventional rhyming schemes, he was declared by ''The New York Times'' the country's best ...
,
Katherine Anne Porter
Katherine Anne Porter (May 15, 1890 – September 18, 1980) was an American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist. Her 1962 novel ''Ship of Fools'' was the best-selling novel in America that year, but her sho ...
Thornton Wilder
Thornton Niven Wilder (April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975) was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes — for the novel ''The Bridge of San Luis Rey'' and for the plays ''Our Town'' and ''The Skin of Our Teeth'' — a ...
.
During Clare Roskam's tenure as producer of the show, he did an episode that focused on the work of
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarr ...
and purposely omitted an interview with the painter. After the program aired, Dalí phoned Roskam and left a terse message, "I'm not dead, you know!"
While the show was the recipient of several awards, including the Sylvania, the Peabody and the
Emmy
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
, not all its innovations succeeded. An episode consisting of a recording of Bach's '' Goldberg Variations'' against images of a
harpsichord
A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...
and a
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
was "disastrous," according to Roskam. The attempt to adapt Isak Dinesen's ''Deluge at Norderney'' resulted in "a deadeningly talky" episode dismissed by WCBS-TV program director Dan Gallagher as "a real failure."