King in Finding Your Roots (PBS 09/23/14)

[herbertwest]

Thanks to Bev for the information :


From 1948 to 1961, there was a show called “This Is Your Life,” hosted by Ralph Edwards. In it, an unsuspecting celebrity was lured to a place by a friend or family member where Edwards would surprise them. People from the celebrity’s past would then come out one by one and tell stories of the celebrity’s early life.

A modern-day version of that program is “Finding Your Roots,” the latest in a brilliant series about race, identity and heritage hosted by Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Scheduled to air September 23 through November 25 on PBS. Check your local listings.)

In the aftermath of protests in Ferguson, Missouri, and renewed calls for a serious “conversation” about race, which always seems to end up with the races talking over one another, Gates’ program travels a different road. It is exceptional television and again demonstrates what can be when the medium lives up to its full potential.

While his earlier series dealt mainly with the roots of famous African-Americans, in some cases tracing them back to slave ancestors, this latest series is more of a potpourri.

In the first episode we meet horror novelist Stephen King, actor Courtney B. Vance and Canadian actress-singer Gloria Reuben.

King’s father walked out on his family when Stephen was two and never returned. Courtney Vance’s father committed suicide and Courtney was brought up in a foster home. Gloria Reuben’s father was 78 years old when she was born. When he died he took the secret of his ancestry with him, but not for good. Using genealogy and in some cases DNA, Gates helps each of them to discover family history they never knew.

In the second episode (September 30), Gates features three highly successful athletes: tennis great Billie Jean King, New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter and women’s basketball hall of famer Rebecca Lobo. Jeter, who is the son of an African-American father and Irish mother, is astonished to learn that his ancestors included slaves who were “owned” by a white man named James Jeter.

“The story of America,” notes Gates, “is a patchwork of stories like these.” This is why racism is so incredibly stupid. To hate someone because of race -- or any other attribute for that matter -- is to hate, if not one’s self, then one’s ancestors. We are all “mixed.” There are no “pure-bred humans.” Like wildflowers, we can be seen in many different hues, shapes and origins.

Gates says some scientists believe that great athletes like King, Jeter and Lobo inherit certain traits in their DNA, giving them advantages others don’t have. While he doesn’t deny the role of DNA, he concludes with something more profound: “The source of their greatness was not simply in their DNA, but also in the values that their ancestors passed down to them, even in ways they had never known.”

Isn’t the passing down of immutable values something that has been lost in our “tolerant” culture? Doesn’t their loss explain the cause of so much social turmoil?

“Finding Your Roots” should be assigned homework for every child. It should also be watched by adults because it contains the essence of a healing balm that could, if we let it, repair some of the damage caused by the way we look at ourselves and other people. We aren’t -- or shouldn’t be -- defined by race, gender, class, politics, or anything else.

A common humanity is what separates us from plants and animals. It should not separate us from each other.



Source :
http://www.clarionledger.com/story/opinion/columnists/2014/08/29/thomas-finding-roots-dr-gates/14801023/

Video clips :
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/finding-your-roots/search-fathers-promo/5700/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/finding-your-roots/stephen-kings-progressive-past-clip/5937/

[Shannon]

Sounds interesting. Good find.

[herbertwest]

Does anyone plan on recording it, just in case it's not available online?

[mae]

It should be available here after it airs: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/finding-your-roots/video/all-video/?type=episodes

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/finding-your-roots/profiles/stephen-king/

Stephen King is featured in Episode 1: In Search of Our Fathers, which airs Tuesday, September 23rd at 8PM EST (check local listings).

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father’s family was at the time, and in Stratford, Connecticut. When Stephen was eleven, his mother brought her children back to Durham, Maine, for good. Her parents, Guy and Nellie Pillsbury, had become incapacitated with old age, and Ruth King was persuaded by her sisters to take over the physical care of the elderly couple. Other family members provided a small house in Durham and financial support. After Stephen’s grandparents passed away, Mrs. King found work in the kitchens of Pineland, a nearby residential facility for the mentally challenged.

Stephen attended the grammar school in Durham and then Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966. From his sophomore year at the University of Maine at Orono, he wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper, THE MAINE CAMPUS. He was also active in student politics, serving as a member of the Student Senate. He came to support the anti-war movement on the Orono campus, arriving at his stance from a conservative view that the war in Vietnam was unconstitutional. He graduated from the University of Maine at Orono in 1970, with a B.A. in English and qualified to teach on the high school level. A draft board examination immediately post-graduation found him 4-F on grounds of high blood pressure, limited vision, flat feet, and punctured eardrums.

He and Tabitha Spruce married in January of 1971. He met Tabitha in the stacks of the Fogler Library at the University of Maine at Orono, where they both worked as students. As Stephen was unable to find placement as a teacher immediately, the Kings lived on his earnings as a laborer at an industrial laundry, and her student loan and savings, with an occasional boost from a short story sale to men’s magazines.

Stephen made his first professional short story sale (“The Glass Floor”) to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Throughout the early years of his marriage, he continued to sell stories to men’s magazines. Many of these were later gathered into the Night Shift collection or appeared in other anthologies.

In the fall of 1971, Stephen began teaching high school English classes at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels.

In the spring of 1973, Doubleday & Co. accepted the novel Carrie for publication. On Mother’s Day of that year, Stephen learned from his new editor at Doubleday, Bill Thompson, that a major paperback sale would provide him with the means to leave teaching and write full-time.

At the end of the summer of 1973, the Kings moved their growing family to southern Maine because of Stephen’s mother’s failing health. Renting a summer home on Sebago Lake in North Windham for the winter, Stephen wrote his next-published novel, originally titled Second Coming and then Jerusalem’s Lot, before it became ‘Salem’s Lot, in a small room in the garage. During this period, Stephen’s mother died of cancer, at the age of 59.

Carrie was published in the spring of 1974. That same fall, the Kings left Maine for Boulder, Colorado. They lived there for a little less than a year, during which Stephen wrote The Shining, set in Colorado. Returning to Maine in the summer of 1975, the Kings purchased a home in the Lakes Region of western Maine. At that house, Stephen finished writing The Stand, much of which also is set in Boulder. The Dead Zone was also written in Bridgton.

In 1977, the Kings spent three months of a projected year- long stay in England, cut the sojourn short and returned home in mid-December, purchasing a new home in Center Lovell, Maine. After living there one summer, the Kings moved north to Orrington, near Bangor, so that Stephen could teach creative writing at the University of Maine at Orono. The Kings returned to Center Lovell in the spring of 1979. In 1980, the Kings purchased a second home in Bangor, retaining the Center Lovell house as a summer home.

Stephen and Tabitha now spend winters in Florida and the remainder of the year at their Bangor and Center Lovell homes.
The Kings have three children: Naomi Rachel, Joe Hill and Owen Phillip, and four grandchildren.
Stephen is of Scots-Irish ancestry, stands 6’4″ and weighs about 200 pounds. He is blue-eyed, fair-skinned, and has thick, black hair, with a frost of white most noticeable in his beard, which he sometimes wears between the end of the World Series and the opening of baseball spring training in Florida. Occasionally he wears a moustache in other seasons. He has worn glasses since he was a child.

He has put some of his college dramatic society experience to use doing cameos in several of the film adaptations of his works as well as a bit part in a George Romero picture, Knightriders. Joe Hill King also appeared in Creepshow, which was released in 1982. Stephen made his directorial debut, as well as writing the screenplay, for the movie Maximum Overdrive (an adaptation of his short story “Trucks”) in 1985.

Stephen and Tabitha provide scholarships for local high school students and contribute to many other local and national charities.

Stephen is the 2003 recipient of The National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

[mae]

This is actually a great series that I haven't heard about till now. Watching this episode now, fascinating: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/finding-your-roots/robert-downey-jr-and-maggie-gyllenhaal/2196/

[herbertwest]

Tomorrow, PBS broadcasts "In search of our fathers", with Stephen King
Will anyone record it, just in case the website do not have it?

thx

[racerx45]

I could not find this to record until I searched for “Finding Your Roots”. It looks like they do post the full episodes on the web site so you should be able to view it there.

[Br!an]

Cool.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/finding-your-roots/profiles/stephen-king/

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/finding-your-roots/stephen-kings-progressive-past-clip/5937/

I'll DVR it. If you can't watch it online I can figure out how to get it to you.

[herbertwest]

Thanks. It seem that the previous season has been shared online on some torrent websites, so it may be the same for the upcoming season :)

[mae]

You don't need to pirate it, it's freely available on pbs.org.

[herbertwest]

If you're american.

[racerx45]

Hi herbert west ,

My daughter is living in Paris and I am checking with her to see if she is able to log-in to our DVR on-line. If she can I can send you the log-in so you can watch it.

[mae]

If you're american.

Or use an IP proxy. If you use Firefox, try this add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/anonymox/

[herbertwest]

Thanks everybody for all the tips.
First i'll see if it's available on my favorite t.rrents websites, and if not then i'll find another way :)

@racer : thanks for your efforts. Let's see tomorrow if I managed to grab it first, before annoying your further :)

[EXPLORER]

Stephen;s reactions to the information found is wonderful, touched with grins of pride.

[herbertwest]

Not available on the t.rrent websites. Is it available online?

@racer : did you manage to DVR it? :)

[stroppygoblin]

If you're american.

Or use an IP proxy. If you use Firefox, try this add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/anonymox/

Thanks Pablo, that add-in worked perfectly. Managed to view this today by directly streaming from PBS :thumbsup:

[racerx45]

Not available on the t.rrent websites. Is it available online?

@racer : did you manage to DVR it? :)

Yes I did record it but my daughter said she can’t access our DVR from France, sorry. I think pablo’s IP proxy is the way to go.

[Bev Vincent]

Here's the full episode on PBS: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/finding-your-roots/search-fathers-watch-full-episode/6118/

[mikeC]

Great thank you I forgot about this.

[herbertwest]

If you're american.

Or use an IP proxy. If you use Firefox, try this add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/anonymox/

Thanks Pablo, that add-in worked perfectly. Managed to view this today by directly streaming from PBS :thumbsup:

Doesnt work for me... :-(

[nocny]

Herbert, HERE IT IS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfUbf22-9G8) ;)

[herbertwest]

Thanks !

[Mr. Rabbit Trick]

Its also on Torrents now. "Finding Your Roots S02E01".

[Br!an]

The very opening of the first King segment shows the Sarasoto book signing from earlier this year. The person who just had his book signed, and is in front of the camera, is a member. (I'll let him out himself.) If you look to the back of the visible portion of the line there is a tall bald man. That's me! There are other members in the line there also though I can't see them.

I really enjoyed the show! Very interesting!

[EXPLORER]

I forwarded the link and messaged the member from our gathering and he was thrilled to hear of his appearance on it. "OMG.... Awesome"

[EXPLORER]

The very opening of the first King segment shows the Sarasoto book signing from earlier this year. The person who just had his book signed, and is in front of the camera, is a member. (I'll let him out himself.) If you look to the back of the visible portion of the line there is a tall bald man. That's me! There are other members in the line there also though I can't see them.

I really enjoyed the show! Very interesting!
It took an even closer look staring at early frames to spot you Brian..... however you are outstanding ............in the line.

[Roseannebarr]

Thanks for the heads up explorer!!! this is awesome! i cant believe i am in the first shot of the show! I have worn out the you tube site, showing all my co workers and friends! I loved the show! Very interesting! There is more conversation about the show on Stephenking.com. Someone else asked about his father, which SK apparently found out more information about his father, but prefers to keep that private, according to MS. Mod.

Thanks again! Excellent eagle eye scouting! alot of fun for me!! I was about #100 in line, so it was just luck that i made it in the shot!

[Mr. Rabbit Trick]

Shock Horror Expose!. Stephen King is 99% European. Fu*k you Americans. :)

(His name should be Pollock anyway!)

[DDowner81]

Shock Horror Expose!. Stephen King is 99% European. Fu*k you Americans. :)

(His name should be Pollock anyway!)

Ha ha I laughed out loud you are so funny :smile:
Thank you to whoever shared the posting for this show, I enjoyed it so much!

[skyofcrack]

Good show and series. I prefer Who Do You Think You Are? as that show has more involvement of the guest doing the research.

[Cordial Jim]

I really enjoyed the episode. You could tell it was very emotional for Stephen. What a shocker about the Pollock surname! In Stephen King Country Beahm states that King's father's name was 'Spansky', Donald Spansky. Perhaps that was just one of his aliases?

[Bev Vincent]

I think I figured out where that comes from. On the PBS episode, where they show Donald Pollack in the census, I noticed that the names of the head of household and his wife were listed as Szczepanski. King's grandfather William Pollack died when he was 23 and Donald was around six. His grandmother remarried a couple of years later. It's not a big jump from Szczepanski to the simpler form, Spansky. So Donald Pollack/King grew up in the "Spansky" household.

[stroppygoblin]

This is the video for the Paris signing - anybody else see themselves ? (I'm at around 1:24 - hands in pockets next to guy in red hoody)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkQ_FgysvCY

[herbertwest]

This is the video for the Paris signing - anybody else see themselves ? (I'm at around 1:24 - hands in pockets next to guy in red hoody)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkQ_FgysvCY

9 seconds in, we can see a guy with glasses. On his right, there is a guy that I think is me. But let's get back to the main topic, shall we? :)



So basically the show gives informations about Steve's family... but his father's names?
Would be interesting to know why he then changed to King... but oh well, it was definitely a great decision!

[Gnagsta]

"I have to be the whitest man you've ever interviewed!" LOL

[RichardX]

I was curious about how the primary premise of this show went from learning more about King's father to basically dropping it. Ms Mod indicated they did find out more but wanted to keep it private (which sounds reasonable until you realize this is a TV show and King had dicussed it years ago). A simple Internet search seems to indicate that King knew a bit more than he let on. Including that his father had remarried and had children. As a result they are his half siblings. He claimed he didn't want to make this known to them because it would be bigamy (im not making this up) and he assumed the second wife was catholic because she was from Brazil! So it would be a big deal. LOL My guess is that he simply doesn't want some strangers showing up looking for a handout because they are related.

[Dan]

I was curious about how the primary premise of this show went from learning more about King's father to basically dropping it. Ms Mod indicated they did find out more but wanted to keep it private (which sounds reasonable until you realize this is a TV show and King had dicussed it years ago). A simple Internet search seems to indicate that King knew a bit more than he let on. Including that his father had remarried and had children. As a result they are his half siblings. He claimed he didn't want to make this known to them because it would be bigamy (im not making this up) and he assumed the second wife was catholic because she was from Brazil! So it would be a big deal. LOL My guess is that he simply doesn't want some strangers showing up looking for a handout because they are related.

King was asked about this during the Wichita book event a few months ago. He gave very little info but heavily implied it was information he didn't care to learn or discuss.