Gordon Hyatt | |
|---|---|
 Hyatt on October 15, 2012 | |
| Born | Massachusetts, US |
| Nationality | American |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Occupation | Television producer, writer |
| Spouse(s) | Carole Hyatt |
| Children | Ariel Hyatt |
Gordon Hyatt is an American writer and television producer. Hyatt is most well known for his work writing and producing CBS television documentaries, but has also been involved with public broadcasting as well as various civic and public service activities.
Gordon Hyatt is the son of Mr. and Mrs. S. G. Hyatt of Lee, Massachusetts. Hyatt attended Lee High School for secondary education, and attended Boston University from 1952 to 1956, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree magna cum laude in theatre and drama criticism. [1] [2]
He is married to author Carole Hyatt, and they have one daughter, Ariel. [3] Gordon and Carole live in New York City and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The conservatory of their Stockbridge home has been featured in New England Home magazine for its striking gothic revival architecture and design. [4]
While in college, Hyatt became the technical director for the Berkshire Playhouse in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. [1] After graduating, he worked as a stage manager for a New York City revival of The Iceman Cometh , a play by American playwright Eugene O'Neill, starring Jason Robards, at the Circle in the Square Theatre. [5]
In 1961, Hyatt began writing and producing documentaries for WCBS-TV, the CBS flagship television station in New York City. His critically praised 1961 film Our Vanishing Legacy is cited as the first prime time broadcast advocating historical preservation efforts in New York City. [6]
In 1962, Hyatt worked with reporter Robert Trout to produce a documentary on mansions and residential architecture in Manhattan. Titled La Vie Elegante, the film featured the homes of Joseph Pulitzer, Leonard Jerome, Henry Villard and Otto Hermann Kahn. [7] Later Hyatt produced and wrote A Question of Values, reporting on the evolution of the luxury apartment in Manhattan. [8] He also worked with Trout on the 1964 documentary Reflections on the Fair, a critical review of the 1964 New York World's Fair focusing on four different pavilions. [9]
Further production work with CBS included work with journalist Mike Wallace writing and producing critically lauded documentaries on pop art and op art, two major forms of modern art in the 1960s. Hyatt wrote an article for the Columbia Journalism Review regarding this experience. [10]
Many of Hyatt's other CBS documentaries focused on the culture, history and future of New York City, including architecture, the modern art scene, and residential trends. [8]
From 1974 to 1976, Hyatt was the executive producer of the 51st State, a WNET a weekly television news series focusing on New York City. The series was critically praised, and in 1976 he received a New York Emmy Award for this work. [11] [12]
At the end of the 1970s, Hyatt produced, wrote and directed a documentary film titled Sadat's Eternal Egypt featuring Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and correspondent Walter Cronkite. [13]
Notable production work continued into the 1980s, with the 1988 PBS broadcast of Into the Mainstream, a half-hour biographical documentary of Ivonne Mosquera, a young blind girl from Venezuela learning to cope with life in Manhattan as well as similarly aged children with sight. [14]
Hyatt continued producing into the 1990s, producing a WNET special on energy conservation titled Smart Choices and a TLC educational program about Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. [15] [16]
As a result of his CBS films encouraging historical preservation in New York City, Hyatt was elected as secretary of the Municipal Art Society from 1973 to 1982. While serving, he traveled on the 1976 Landmarks Special train to Washington, D.C. along with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, writer Brendan Gill, and several hundred protesters who successfully demonstrated in support of the Landmarks Law, which the Supreme Court subsequently upheld, defeating the plans of a developer who wanted to demolish Grand Central Terminal. [6]
In 1980, Hyatt was appointed to the Art Commission of the City of New York by mayor Ed Koch. While on the commission, he initiated a major restoration of the Governor's Room in New York City Hall. [6] After completing his term, he served as president and as secretary of the Associates of the Art Commission. [17]
As project director celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the publication of Moby-Dick , Hyatt produced a gala benefit at Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood on October 13, 2001, hosted by Peter Jennings and featuring Sam Waterston, Ossie Davis, Fritz Weaver, Tina Packer and Edward Herrmann performing excerpts from the novel. [18] For the Nathaniel Hawthorne bicentennial celebrations in 2004, Hyatt produced Hawthorne Revisited, a collection of essays covering Hawthorne's life, career and literary reputation. He also directed a Hawthorne exhibition at the Lenox Library and produced "Hawthorne Revisited'" on October 9, 2004, which was a gala at Ozawa Hall featuring Mike Wallace, Jane Fonda, David Strathairn and Marisa Tomei. [19] [20]
In October 2012, Hyatt conceived and produced "Celebrating Moby-Dick," a South Street Seaport Museum benefit performance featuring actors Matthew Broderick, Jonathan Epstein and John Douglas Thompson representing characters in Herman Melville's novel with narration by author and historian Nathaniel Philbrick. [21]
Hyatt served on the Chesterwood Council, an organization dedicated to the preservation of Chesterwood, the estate and studio of American sculptor Daniel Chester French. [22] At Chesterwood, he produced the 75th anniversary celebration of the Lincoln Memorial, with a Tanglewood concert presenting Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait . [23] Hyatt also serves along with his wife Carole as a board member of Shakespeare & Company, a theatre company located in Lenox, Massachusetts. [24]
Hyatt's 1966 documentary about photographer John Albok, titled John Albok's New York, won a CINE Golden Eagle award, was nominated for a New York Emmy, and was a finalist for the Martin Luther King Jr. Film Festival. [25] [26]
In 2006, the Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America and the New York Preservation Archive Project sponsored a film series featuring a selection of six of Hyatt's films, honoring his contributions to the studies of 1960s-era New York City. [8]
Berkshire County is a county on the western edge of the U.S. state of Massachusetts. As of the 2020 census, the population was 129,026. Its largest city and traditional county seat is Pittsfield. The county was founded in 1761. The Berkshire Hills are centered on Berkshire County. Residents are known as Berkshirites. It exists today only as a historical geographic region, and has no county government, with the exception of the retirement board for former county workers, and certain offices such as the sheriff and registry of deeds.
Stockbridge is a town in Berkshire County in Western Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,018 at the 2020 census. A year-round resort area, Stockbridge is home to the Norman Rockwell Museum, the Austen Riggs Center, and Chesterwood, home and studio of sculptor Daniel Chester French.
Daniel Chester French was an American sculptor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, best known for his design of the monumental statue of Abraham Lincoln (1920) in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Lenox is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. Set in Western Massachusetts, it is part of the Pittsfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 5,095 at the 2020 census. Lenox is the site of Shakespeare & Company and Tanglewood, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Lenox includes the villages of New Lenox and Lenoxdale, and is a tourist destination during the summer.
The Berkshires are a highland geologic region located in the western parts of Massachusetts and northwest Connecticut. The term "Berkshires" is normally used by locals in reference to the portion of the Vermont-based Green Mountains that extend south into western Massachusetts; the portion extending further south into northwestern Connecticut is grouped with the Connecticut portion of the Taconic Mountains and referred to as either the Northwest Hills or Litchfield Hills.
Tanglewood is a music venue in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. It has been the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1937. Tanglewood is also home to three music schools: the Tanglewood Music Center, Days in the Arts and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. Besides classical music, Tanglewood hosts the Festival of Contemporary Music, jazz and popular artists, concerts, and frequent appearances by James Taylor, John Williams, and the Boston Pops.
A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys (1851) is a children's book by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne in which he retells several Greek myths. It was followed by a sequel, Tanglewood Tales.
Clemens Kalischer was an American photojournalist and art photographer. He was born in Germany and immigrated to the United States.
The Berkshire Eagle is an American daily newspaper published in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and covering all of Berkshire County, as well as four New York communities near Pittsfield. It is considered a newspaper of record for Berkshire County, Massachusetts.
Elm Court is a former Vanderbilt mansion located on Old Stockbridge Road, straddling the town line between Lenox and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and until July 2012 was owned and operated as a hotel by descendants of the original owners.
America's Gilded Age, the post-Civil War and post-Reconstruction era, from 1865 to 1901 saw unprecedented economic and industrial prosperity. As a result of this prosperity, the nation's wealthiest families were able to construct monumental country estates in the Berkshires in Massachusetts.
Wheatleigh is a historic country estate on West Hawthorne Road in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, United States. Built in 1893 to a design by Peabody and Stearns, it is one of the few surviving great Berkshire Cottages of the late 19th century, with grounds landscaped by Frederick Law Olmsted. Its estate now reduced to 22 acres (8.9 ha), Wheatleigh was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. It is now operated as a hotel.
Chesterwood was the summer estate and studio of American sculptor Daniel Chester French (1850–1931) located at 4 Williamsville Road in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Most of French's originally 150-acre (61 ha) estate is now owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which operates the property as a museum and sculpture garden. The property was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965 in recognition of French's importance in American sculpture.
The Lenox Library is the principal public library of Lenox, Massachusetts. It is managed by the non-profit Lenox Library Association, founded in 1856, and is located at 18 Main Street, in a former county courthouse that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Tanglewood Music Festival is a music festival held every summer on the Tanglewood estate in Stockbridge and Lenox in the Berkshire Hills in western Massachusetts.
Antoni Milkowski (1935–2001) was an American minimalist sculptor.
Lenox station is a former Housatonic Railroad train in Lenox, Massachusetts. Built in 1902, it served as the town's railroad station, on a line of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, until 1970. Now home to the Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum, it serves as a stop on the heritage railroad service provided by the museum. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989 as Lenox Railroad Station.
Yokun Ridge is a ridge in the Taconic Mountains in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, consisting of a well-defined series of contiguous peaks including West Stockbridge Mountain and Lenox Mountain. The name "Yokun Ridge" was invented for the area in 1971 by a land conservation and environmental advocacy organization called the Berkshire Natural Resources Council, and was accepted in 2009 by the United States Board on Geographic Names. Yokun Ridge is 9 miles (14 km) long and contains a conservation planning area called the Stockbridge-Yokun Ridge Reserve designated in 1993 by the U.S. Forest Service under its Forest Legacy Program. The ridge is notable for outdoor recreation and scenic beauty, as well as its conserved land and proximity to the tourist destinations of Lenox and Stockbridge. Yokun Ridge is located within West Stockbridge, Stockbridge, Lenox, Richmond, and Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Approximately one-third of the ridge is protected as open space reserve, municipal watershed, and wildlife sanctuary.
Carole Hyatt is an American author and career development professional. She is known for authoring several books and for developing the Leadership Forum, a program to provide leadership guidance and advice for women in executive or entrepreneurial business roles.
Gertrude Robinson Smith was an arts patron, philanthropist and a founder of the Berkshire Symphonic Festival, which came to be known as Tanglewood. At the height of the Great Depression, Smith gathered the human resources and secured the financial backing that supported the festival's early success. Her leadership from the first concerts in August 1934 through the mid-1950s has been recognized as foundational to assuring the success of one of the world's most celebrated seasonal music festivals.
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