PBS has announced that starting today, Aug. 3, it will be making the 2003 documentary American Masters: “The Education of Gore Vidal” available for streaming on the American Masters website and PBS Video to commemorate the life of the eclectic intellectual who passed away July 31 at the age of 86. The web stream will be available for one week, through Aug. 9.
This episode will also air on PBS in select markets beginning Aug. 3 at 7:30pm ET, through Aug. 12 (contact your local PBS station for airdates or check local listings).
The Education of Gore Vidal celebrates the life and work of the dramatist, novelist, screenwriter, actor, and public debater. This 90-minute biographical portrait includes scenes from the Broadway revival of The Best Man in 2000 starring Charles Durning, Spalding Gray, and Chris Noth; the 2000 Democratic Shadow Convention; and with Gore Vidal at his home in Ravello, Italy. The 2003 film features interviews with now-deceased author George Plimpton, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and The New York Review of Books editor and publisher Barbara Epstein, as well as author and friend Jay Parini, the executor of Vidal’s literary estate. Vidal’s closest friends — including Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Eli Wallach, and Anne Jackson — appear in the film, reading excerpts from his writings.
