The Filmmakers



Director Nancy Porter

Nancy Porter (Producer/Director)

Nancy 
has produced and directed numerous documentaries for PBS first as a producer at WGBH-TV Boston, and for the last 17 years as the owner of her own production company. Nancy has won many awards including a National Emmy®, an American Film Festival Blue Ribbon, three Cine Gold Eagle Awards and a Chicago Film Festival Gold Award. Porter was the first recipient of the Women in Film and Video New England Image Award for Vision and Excellence. In 2004, Typhoid Mary: The Most Dangerous Woman in America, her film for the PBS science series NOVA, was nominated for an Emmy® Award as Best Historical Documentary. Other Porter films for NOVA include High Tech Babies, Can You Still Get Polio?, Will Venice Survive its Rescue?, and Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Porter’s programs for the PBS history series American Experience are Amelia Earhart, The Wright Stuff, Richard Byrd: Alone on the Ice, and Houdini. Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women is Nancy’s first film for American Masters.



Harriet Reisen

Harriet Reisen (Producer/Writer)

Harriet Reisen’s diverse credits include: in media; scripting dramatic and historical documentaries for PBS and HBO, co-producing National Public Radio (NPR) series Blacklisted [for Tony Kahn], and contributing radio commentary to Morning Edition, Marketplace, and Morning Stories. Music: two regional Emmy nominations for Best Song (with Jeanie Stahl) and Best Composer. Lyrics: songs on Rounder Records (Mason Daring, producer), and award-winning video, “Jersey Shore” (with Jeanie Stahl and Tony Kahn). Teaching: film history and criticism at Stanford University, and screenwriting at Harvard Summer School. Journalism: articles about Mexican language schools, Mexican Art, Mexican margaritas, and international adoption in Travel and Leisure, Provincetown Arts, Tin House, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.



Susan-Lacy
Susan Lacy (Executive Producer)

Susan is the creator and executive producer of AMERICAN MASTERS on PBS. The series, founded in 1984, is a celebration and an exploration of creativity in America. Since its premiere, AMERICAN MASTERS has been the only PBS primetime series committed to developing and producing comprehensive film biographies about the broad cast of characters who comprise our cultural history. Fascinating in their individuality as well as in the aggregate, the films that make up the AMERICAN MASTERS series add to an understanding of our heritage and the extraordinary mosaic of the American character. AMERICAN MASTERS has received 22 Emmy nominations, winning a primetime Emmy award for Outstanding Non-Fiction Series, five primetime Emmys for Outstanding Documentary; three Oscar nominations, four Peabody Awards, a Grammy Award and 19 Cine Gold Eagles. AMERICAN MASTERS is a production of THIRTEEN for WNET.