The Sopranos (1999–2007)
When he came up with an idea for a mob movie in 1995, David Chase was already a veteran of TV, having won a writing Emmy in 1979 for The Rockford Files. In his screenplay, he wanted to tell the story of his own New Jersey family and acquaintances as if they were mobsters. (Tony Soprano’s mother and psychiatrist, for example, are similar to Chase’s.) Chase’s agent told him that the story would work better as a TV show than it would as a movie, so Chase retooled it. None of the broadcast networks were interested in producing a mob drama, but HBO was. They loved the script and in 1997 commissioned a pilot, which they also loved, but then they put The Sopranos on hold for more than a year. When it finally premiered in January 1999, it was an instant sensation. The show received 21 Emmys and 5 Golden Globes over seven seasons. To date, it’s the most profitable series in the history of cable television.
First female nudity on TV: Valerie Perrine in a 1973 PBS broadcast of Steambath.
When he came up with an idea for a mob movie in 1995, David Chase was already a veteran of TV, having won a writing Emmy in 1979 for The Rockford Files. In his screenplay, he wanted to tell the story of his own New Jersey family and acquaintances as if they were mobsters. (Tony Soprano’s mother and psychiatrist, for example, are similar to Chase’s.) Chase’s agent told him that the story would work better as a TV show than it would as a movie, so Chase retooled it. None of the broadcast networks were interested in producing a mob drama, but HBO was. They loved the script and in 1997 commissioned a pilot, which they also loved, but then they put The Sopranos on hold for more than a year. When it finally premiered in January 1999, it was an instant sensation. The show received 21 Emmys and 5 Golden Globes over seven seasons. To date, it’s the most profitable series in the history of cable television.
First female nudity on TV: Valerie Perrine in a 1973 PBS broadcast of Steambath.
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