About this season
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.
Episodes (8)
1. Miles Davis Birth of the Cool
7.2Aired 3 March 2020 • 90 min
Discover the man behind the legend. With full access to the Miles Davis Estate, the film features never-before-seen footage, including studio outtakes from his recording sessions, rare photos and new interviews.
2. Mae West: Dirty Blonde
3.8Aired 16 June 2020 • 90 min
American Masters — Mae West: Dirty Blonde is the first major documentary film to explore Mae West’s life and career as she "climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong" to become a writer, performer and subversive agitator for social change. West achieved great acclaim in every entertainment medium that existed during her lifetime, spanning eight decades of the 20th century. She possessed creative and economic powers unheard of for a female entertainer in the 1930s and still rare today.
3. Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am
Aired 1 June 2020 • 90 min
Toni Morrison leads an assembly of her peers and critics on an exploration of the powerful themes she confronted throughout her literary career in this artful and intimate meditation that examines the life and work of the legendary storyteller.
4. Unladylike2020: The Changemakers
Aired 10 July 2020 • 90 min
Mark the women’s suffrage centennial with stories of pioneering women who shaped American politics.
5. Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip
Aired 20 October 2020 • 90 min
Meet Walter Winchell, the newspaper columnist, radio commentator and television personality who pioneered the fast-paced, gossip-driven, politically charged journalism that dominates today. At his peak, his audience was 50 million. Stanley Tucci portrays Winchell in a new American Masters documentary.
6. Michael Tilson Thomas: Where Now Is
Aired 23 October 2020 • 90 min
Explore the life and career of the Grammy-winning conductor, pianist and composer. A National Medal of Arts recipient and longtime Grammy-winning music director of the San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas helped set the standard that an American orchestra should champion modern music.
7. Keith Haring: Street Art Boy
Aired 4 December 2020 • 90 min
Explore the definitive story of international art sensation Keith Haring who blazed a trail through the art scene of ‘80s New York and revolutionized the worlds of pop culture and fine art. The film features previously unheard interviews with Haring.
8. Laura Ingalls Wilder: Prairie to Page
Aired 29 December 2020 • 90 min
An unvarnished look at the unlikely author whose autobiographical fiction helped shape American ideas of the frontier and self-reliance. A Midwestern farm woman who published her first novel at age 65, Laura Ingalls Wilder transformed her frontier childhood into the best-selling “Little House” series.