Deborah Forte is an American producer of family television series and movies, websites and digital media including ''

Clifford the Big Red Dog ''Clifford the Big Red Dog'' is an American children's book series about the adventures of a precocious girl named Emily Elizabeth and her titular pet: a giant, red-furred dog named Clifford. It was first published in 1963 and was written by N ...

'', ''

Clifford's Puppy Days ''Clifford's Puppy Days'' is an animated children's television series that originally aired on PBS Kids from September 1, 2003 to February 25, 2006. The prequel to the 2000–2003 series ''Clifford the Big Red Dog'', it features the adventures o ...

'', ''

Maya & Miguel ''Maya & Miguel'' is an American animated children's television series produced by Scholastic Productions with animation by Starburst Animation Studios and by Yeson Entertainment. It aired on PBS Kids Go! from October 11, 2004 to October 10, 2007 ...

'', ''

WordGirl ''WordGirl'' (stylized as ''W✪RD GIRL'') is an American children's Flash animated superhero television series produced by the Soup2Nuts animation unit of Scholastic Entertainment for PBS Kids. The series began as a series of shorts entitled ' ...

'', ''

The Magic School Bus ''The Magic School Bus'' is an American edutainment media franchise that includes a book series, a TV series, a streaming series, and video games. Each of the stories within the franchise centers on the antics of a fictional elementary sch ...

'', the series ''

Goosebumps ''Goosebumps'' is a series of children's horror fiction novels by American author R. L. Stine, published by Scholastic Publishing. The protagonists in these stories are tweens or young teens who find themselves in scary circumstances usually ...

'', Sony's films ''

'' and '' Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween'', ''

Horrible Histories ''Horrible Histories'' is an educational entertainment franchise encompassing many media including books, magazines, audio books, stage shows, TV shows, and more. In 2013, Lisa Edwards, UK publishing and commercial director of Scholastic Corpor ...

'', '' Dragon'', ''

I Spy I spy is a guessing game where one player (the ''spy'' or ''it'') chooses an object within sight and announces to the other players that "I spy with my little eye something beginning with...", naming the first letter of the object. Other players a ...

'', ''

The Baby-Sitters Club ''The Baby-Sitters Club'' (also known as BSC) is a series of novels written by Ann M. Martin and published by Scholastic between 1986 and 2000, that sold 176 million copies. Martin wrote the first 35 novels in the series, but the subsequent nove ...

'', ''

The Golden Compass ''Northern Lights'' (titled ''The Golden Compass'' in North America and some other countries) is a young-adult fantasy novel by Philip Pullman, published in 1995 by Scholastic UK. Set in a parallel universe, it follows the journey of Lyra Be ...

'', and '' Astroblast''. She created Scholastic Media, a division of Scholastic Inc. She is the founder of Silvertongue Films and under that banner is currently producing a television adaptation of His ''Dark Materials''. She is attached to produce ''The 39 Clues'' and ''Spirit Animals'' for Universal and ''

'' for Paramount. Her productions have won six Emmys, one Academy Award, the Humanitas Prize, and the Annenberg Public Policy Center Award for Outstanding Educational Program on a Commercial Broadcast Station.

Career

Forte began her career in publishing at

Viking Press Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim and then acquir ...

in 1976 before joining Scholastic Productions in 1984 as VP of new business development. Forte became President of Scholastic Media in 1995 and is the lead creative and business executive overseeing all media production including two production studios (Weston Woods and

Soup2Nuts Soup2Nuts (sometimes referred to as Soup2Nuts Studios, and formerly part of Tom Snyder Productions) was an American animation studio founded by Tom Snyder. The studio is known for its animated comedy series, its use of Squigglevision, a techni ...

), Scholastic Interactive, Scholastic Audio Books and Scholastic Media Marketing and Consumer Products. Forte formed Scholastic Entertainment, a part of Scholastic Media, in 1997. At Scholastic, Forte has produced over 300 productions, which includes turning best-selling Scholastic book series ''

'', ''

Dear America ''Dear America'' is a series of historical fiction novels for children published by Scholastic starting in 1996. By 1998, the series had 12 titles with 3.5 million copies in print. The series was canceled in 2004 with its final release, ''Hear M ...

'', ''

Animorphs ''Animorphs'' is a science fantasy series of children's books written by Katherine Applegate and her husband Michael Grant, writing together under the name K. A. Applegate, and published by Scholastic. It is told in first person, with all ...

'' and ''

'' into some of the longest running children's TV series. Her feature film credits include the ''

'' film (2015; Columbia Pictures), ''

The Indian in the Cupboard ''The Indian in the Cupboard'' is a low fantasy children's novel by the British writer Lynne Reid Banks. It was published in 1980 with illustrations by Robin Jacques (UK) and Brock Cole (US). It was later adapted as a 1995 children's film ...

'', ''

Clifford's Really Big Movie ''Clifford's Really Big Movie'' is a 2004 American animated adventure comedy film based on the PBS Kids TV series ''Clifford the Big Red Dog'', itself an adaptation of the book series of the same name by Norman Bridwell. This film was directed b ...

'', ''

The Mighty ''The Mighty'' is a 1998 American coming of age buddy comedy-drama film directed by Peter Chelsom and written by Charles Leavitt. Based on the book ''Freak the Mighty'' by Rodman Philbrick, the film stars Sharon Stone, Gena Rowlands, Gillian A ...

'' and ''

Tuck Everlasting ''Tuck Everlasting'' is an American children's novel about immortality written by Natalie Babbitt and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1975. It has sold over 5 million copies and has been called a classic of modern children's literature ...

''. Forte produced ''

'', an adaptation of Philip Pullman's critically acclaimed trilogy ''

His Dark Materials ''His Dark Materials'' is a trilogy of fantasy novels by Philip Pullman consisting of '' Northern Lights'' (1995; published as ''The Golden Compass'' in North America), '' The Subtle Knife'' (1997), and '' The Amber Spyglass'' (2000). It follo ...

'', which won the 2008 Academy Award for Visual Effects. She produced the 2018 film '' Mortal Engines'', with Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh for

Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...

and will likely produce its TV re-adaptation. She also produced the TV re-adaptation of ''

.''

Filmography

Television

Film

Awards and honors for production

* 1 Oscar Award * 6 Emmy Awards * 1 Humanitas Prize * 11 Cine Golden Eagle Awards * 12 Parents' Choice Awards * 4 Webby Awards * 1 National Education Association Award * 1 American Women in TV and Radio's Gracie Award * 1 National Educational Media Network Golden Apple Award * 1 The Annenberg Public Policy Center Award * 1 Literacy in Media Award * honored by The National Hispanic Federation * honored by The National Wildlife Federation * honored by The Environmental Protection Agency Forte's productions have won over 100 industry awards, including those listed above. In ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' article, "At Scholastic, Turning Books Into the Stuff Of Multimedia", a colleague at Scholastic described her creative direction, by saying, "She takes tremendous care in seeing that our products get developed with the qualities that made them popular in the first place and making sure the new products are right for kids, educationally, developmentally and from an entertainment point of view." In Fast Company's Spring 2014 interview, "How Scholastic Kept Its Relevance in a Digital World", Forte shared that, “We have developed our brand so that it’s relative and meaningful to children when they want to read, when they want to watch and when they want to play." Fast Company remarked that the Bottom Line from her interview was, "Scholastic’s secret sauce is the development of a complementary media strategy across a variety of mediums, without losing focus on the company’s mission. "

Personal life

Forte was a founding member of the Board of Trustees of the

Children's Museum of Manhattan The Children’s Museum of Manhattan is located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded by Bette Korman, under the name GAME (Growth Through Art and Museum Experience), in 1973. The museum became the Children’s Muse ...

and currently serves on the board of the American Center for Children and Media and the International Emmys. She is a member of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences as well as the

British Academy of Film and Television Arts British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

. A native of Newton, Massachusetts, Forte graduated from

Hamilton College Hamilton College is a private liberal arts college in Clinton, Oneida County, New York. It was founded as Hamilton-Oneida Academy in 1793 and was chartered as Hamilton College in 1812 in honor of inaugural trustee Alexander Hamilton, following ...

and lives in New York with her husband, Peter Stone, and their two sons.

References

General references

* * *

External links

*
"Deborah Forte '75 Producer The Golden Compass"
story at Hamilton College website {{DEFAULTSORT:Forte, Deborah American television producers American women television producers American film producers Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women