- Norma Percy
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Norma Percy is an American-born award winning documentary film maker and producer. The documentaries produced in collaboration with Brian Lapping have covered many of the crises of the 20th Century and were described by the Wall Street Journal as "the Rolls-Royce of documentary-making".[1]
Contents
Early life
Percy was born[when?] and brought up in in New York, She studied politics at Oberlin College in Ohio, later studying for a Masters degree at the London School of Economics.[2][3] She then became a researcher at the House of Commons where she spent six years; in her time there, she worked as a researcher for the MP John Mackintosh, who recommended her to the Granada Television producer Brian Lapping when he was looking for a researcher for a documentary on the workings of Parliament called The State of the Nation.[2]
Career
Percy produced the 1985 Granada series End of Empire, which explored the effects of the end of the British Empire in various former colonies, and worked with Lapping on the 1987 drama-documentary Breakthrough at Reykjavik, a reconstruction of the Reykjavík Summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986.[4]
After fifteen years at Granada, Percy joined the newly-formed production company Brian Lapping Associates in 1988. (When that company later merged with Brook Associates in 1997, she was a founding director of the new company Brook Lapping.)[3]
The Percy-produced documentary series Watergate aired on the BBC and the Discovery Channel in 1994. Narrated by Daniel Schorr and directed by Mick Gold. this five-part series chronicled the Watergate scandal and featured exclusive interviews with many of the key participants in the events, including H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, John Dean and G. Gordon Liddy as well as former President Gerald Ford.[5][6][7] The series won an Emmy Award.[3]
The Death of Yugoslavia, with Lapping as co-producer, followed in 1995, which covered the events that led to the collapse of the former Yugoslavia and the aftermath. The series again contained interviews with many of the major participants, including Slobodan Milošević and Radovan Karadžić. The series won a BAFTA as Best Factual Series at the 1995 awards.[8] The Balkans were revisited in the 2001 series The Fall of Milosevic which dealt with the fall from power of the Serbian leader.[9]
Awards and recognition
Percy, along with Brian Lapping, was awarded the Alan Clarke Award (for outstanding contribution to Television) at the 2002 BAFTA awards.[10]
She was made a Fellow of the Royal Television Society in 1999[11] and was awarded the Judges Prize by that society at the 2010 RTS Awards.[12] In 2009 at the Grierson Awards, she, along with colleagues from the Brook Lapping production company, won the Best Documentary Series award for Iran and the West; Percy also given the Trustee's Prize by the Grierson Trust for her contributions to documentary film over the previous 30 years.[13][14] The Special Prize for Lifetime Achievement was given to her at the Orwell Prize ceremony in 2010.[15]
Personal life
In 2004 she married the geneticist Steve Jones[16]
Filmography
- Iran and the West (2009)
- Israel and the Arabs: Elusive Peace (2005)
- Endgame in Ireland (2001)
- The Fall of Milosevic (2001)
- The American Experience - Nixon's China Game episode producer (2001)
- The Death of Yugoslavia (1995)
- Watergate (1994)
- Timewatch
- Countdown to War (1989)
- End of Empire (1985)
References
- ^ Robert Hanks (3 October 2005). "Making a drama out of a crisis". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/making-a-drama-out-of-a-crisis-509416.html. Retrieved 22 May 2011.
- ^ a b "The History Maker". The Oldie. http://www.theoldie.co.uk/detail.php?item_id=377&page_id=7. Retrieved 22 May 2011.
- ^ a b c "Grierson Trust - Grierson 2009". The Grierson Trust. http://www.griersontrust.org/past-awards/grierson-2009.html. Retrieved 22 May 2011.
- ^ Baker, Maxine (2006). Documentary in the digital age. Focal Press. pp. 122–138. ISBN 0-240-51688-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=EElCPUGP9osC&pg=PA128#v=onepage&q&f=false.
- ^ Richard Zoglin (8 August 1994). "TELEVISION: Nixon Without Nostalgia". Time. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,981225-1,00.html. Retrieved 23 May 2011.
- ^ Walter Goodman (6 August 1994). "TELEVISION REVIEW; Principal Players of Watergate Reprise Perfidies and Inanities". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/06/movies/television-review-principal-players-of-watergate-reprise-perfidies-and-inanities.html. Retrieved 23 May 2011.
- ^ Ron Miller (7 August 1994). "Watergate - 20 Years Later". Orlando Sentinel. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1994-08-07/entertainment/9408040788_1_nixon-watergate-scandal-watergate-building. Retrieved 23 May 2011.
- ^ "Past Winners and Nominees - Television - Awards - 1995". British Academy of Film and Television Arts. http://www.bafta.org/awards/television/nominations/?year=1995. Retrieved 22 May 2011.
- ^ Thom Shanker (26 August 2003). "TELEVISION REVIEW; The Bad Old Days of Yugoslavia's Fallen Dictator". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/26/arts/television-review-the-bad-old-days-of-yugoslavia-s-fallen-dictator.html. Retrieved 23 May 2011.
- ^ "Past Winners and Nominees - Television - Awards - 2002". British Academy of Film and Television Arts. http://www.bafta.org/awards/television/nominations/?year=2002. Retrieved 22 May 2011.
- ^ "RTS Fellows". Royal Television Society. http://www.rts.org.uk/rts-fellows. Retrieved 23 May 2011.
- ^ "Royal Television Society Awards shun talent shows". The Telegraph. 17 Mar 2010. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/7460124/Royal-Television-Society-Awards-shun-talent-shows.html. Retrieved 23 May 2011.
- ^ Tara Conlan (4 November 2009). "Norma Percy wins two Grierson awards". The Guardian. http://theorwellprize.co.uk/winners/norma-percy/. Retrieved 23 May 2011.
- ^ "Percy wins two gongs at Grierson Awards". Broadcastnow. 4 November 2009. http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/people/percy-wins-two-gongs-at-grierson-awards/5007667.article. Retrieved 23 May 2011.
- ^ "Norma Percy The Orwell Prize". The Orwell Prize. http://theorwellprize.co.uk/winners/norma-percy/. Retrieved 23 May 2011.
- ^ ‘JONES, Prof. (John) Stephen’, Who's Who 2011, A & C Black, 2011; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2010 ; online edn, Oct 2010 accessed 22 May 2011
External links
Categories:- Living people
- Documentary film producers
- People from New York
- Oberlin College alumni
- BAFTA winners (people)
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