Jac Venza dead: Veteran PBS producer and creator of 'Great Performances,' dies aged 97

Jac Venza, a key figure in the transformation of American public television during the 1960s and '70s including Great Performances and Live From Lincoln Center, died at the age of 97. According to Deadline, he died on May 28 at his home in Lyme, Connecticut and his death was confirmed by his spouse, Daniel D. Routhier.

As a television producer, Venza was recruited in the early 1960s to work with a group of innovators brought together by the Ford Foundation. Their mission was to evolve a limited service into what became National Educational Television, and subsequently the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

Venza championed the idea of making high art accessible to the public, proposing, “Why don’t we entertain them, too?” He introduced groundbreaking programs such as NET Playhouse, Theater in America, Live From Lincoln Center, Great Performances, and, inspired by the National Endowment for the Arts, Dance in America. He also brought popular BBC productions like Brideshead Revisited to American audiences.

Venza collaborated with prominent figures such as choreographers George Balanchine and Martha Graham, composer Leonard Bernstein, and playwright Tennessee Williams. Notably, Dustin Hoffman starred in his first television role in the 1966 NET production of Ronald Ribman’s play The Journey of the Fifth Horse, and Meryl Streep made her onscreen debut in the William Gillette play Secret Service on Great Performances.

Before retiring in 2004, Venza and his productions for WNET, the PBS flagship station, garnered 57 Emmy nominations, a record only surpassed in 2010, according to the broadcaster. He personally won 10 Primetime Emmys, an International Emmy for lifetime achievement, and a Governor’s Award for lifetime achievement. In 1997, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting honored him with the Ralph Lowell Award for outstanding achievements.

Venza is survived by his spouse, Daniel as well as nieces and nephews. His sister, Eileen Mitchell, died earlier.