Snapp Chats Alumni Notes from Martin Snapp, J.D. ’72
And presiding over it all is executive producer Harvey Myman, who got his bachelor’s from Cal in English literature in 1970 and his master’s in journalism in 1992. “I think I hold the record for the amount of time between my coursework and my thesis,” he says. “I came back to the J-school to give the commencement address, and the dean said, ‘Harvey, it’s embarrassing that you haven’t gotten your degree.’ So I finally finished my thesis.” By then he was the managing editor for news at the Orange County Register and was instrumental in turning the paper from an afterthought into a Pulitzer Prize winner with a national reputation. The first Pulitzer was for the photo coverage of the 1984 Olympic Games, which he supervised. It was a complete makeover. The company that owned the Register, Freedom Newspapers, had a deep libertarian bent that affected all parts of the operation. “They had word lists. Martin Luther King could not be referred to as Dr. King; public schools were ‘tax-supported schools.’ It was insane.” One of the assurances he was given coming in was that the newsroom would be completely separate from the editorial page. And that independence was occasionally reflected in editorials that would complain about the news coverage. “It was like starting from scratch. We were a little like the old Oakland Raiders. We had these wildly talented people, a lot of whom were misfits that we brought in from around the country. For whatever reasons, things didn’t quite work out for them at the New York Times or the Dallas Morning News; but they were terrific writers and phenomenal reporters, and we created a home for them.
Mastermind: Harvey Myman went from managing editor to network executive to independent producer of Masterpiece Theater’s Miss Scarlet & the Duke.
“On the day we found out we were one of the finalists [for the Pulitzer], I called the five photographers into my office, and said, ‘I would love you guys to win this; but win or lose, it doesn’t make what you guys did any better or worse.’ But when we won, it was like a World Series locker room, with champagne everywhere.” Other papers soon came calling, including the New York Times. “Because of the nature of newspapers, at some point you become kind of cute and popular. But I thought, ‘Do I really want to do another newspaper? Or do I want to do something completely different?’ And I started exploring the notion of going to entertainment. I didn’t feel confident that I could sit down and write spec scripts, so I basically sold myself as a guy who can read and write English and manage people.” He started at ABC as a programming executive.
“After about a year they moved me to comedy development, and I worked on a bunch of them, including Roseanne and Home Improvement. Looking back, they gave me a lot of difficult shows and some of the more difficult showrunners because writers have always been my people, and most executives are terrified of writers. So all those managing editor skills translated to being an executive, and ultimately an executive producer.” After about five years at ABC, Myman joined the Carsey-Werner company, home of That ’70s Show and 3rd Rock, then moved to Sony as an executive, then to HBO before forming his own production company, Element 8 Entertainment, with two partners, one of whom is also an Old Blue, Jin Ishimoto ’90. Their first production: Miss Scarlet. “We basically shot the six episodes in season one in 50-some-odd days straight. Everybody was out to pull together; this was not a luxury cruise. We
CAL4 CALIFORNIAMAG.ORG
Snapp_SUM21_fnl3_crx.indd 4
5/21/21 3:51 PM
05212021175307
CAPITOLO: COURTESY OF JENNIFER CAPITOLO; STEVENS: COURTESY OF ERIC AND AMANDA STEVENS
year, both British period productions. One was no surprise: All Creatures Great and Small, which already had a built-in audience from the original series that ran from 1978 to 1990. But the other came out of the blue: Miss Scarlet and the Duke, a detective story set in 1880s Victorian England, featuring a plucky heroine, a dashing but slightly sketchy leading man, plot twists, and a will-they-won’t-they tension that harks back to Moonlighting in its prime.
MYMAN: COURTESY HARVEY MYMAN; MISS SCARLET: ELEMENT 8 ENTERTAINMENT
PBS’S MASTERPIECE FRANCHISE HAD TWO RUNAWAY HITS THIS
