David Wolper, a prolific film and TV producer who brought miniseries The Thorn Birds and most notably Roots to TV, died Tuesday at age 82. (In addition to his TV projects, he produced movies including Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and L.A. Confidential.) In the above clip, he attributes the success of Roots in part to the fact that it was a “family story.” It’s true, in that the miniseries took the legacy of race in America and told it through a frame, the intergenerational journey of one family, that made it approachable in scale while still epic.
