The Herridge Style

The Life and Work of a Television Revolutionary

Robert Herridge, John Sorensen

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN:
  9781985901469
  9781985901452
• eBook ISBN:
  9781985901490
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

Writer, director, and producer Robert Herridge left an enduring mark on the small screen, from his stewardship of Camera Three in the early 1950s through the exciting days of live television. The minimalist Herridge style that placed performers in front of a camera on a nearly empty soundstage, as well as his unique brand of robust morbidity, produced some of the most powerful performances to grace early TV.

Herridge pioneered dozens of innovative productions for the CBS and NBC networks in the 1950s and '60s, ranging from provocative adaptations of works by Shirley Jackson and Tennessee Williams to premier dance collaborations with George Balanchine and Agnes de Mille. He also created important jazz programs featuring the likes of Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis. But for more than sixty years, his groundbreaking work has been almost completely overlooked by critics and historians.

In the first book devoted to Herridge's life and career, editor John Sorensen weaves together Herridge's unpublished memoir with meticulous research into shows that have become cultural milestones. The Herridge Style: The Life and Work of a Television Revolutionary introduces Robert Herridge's experiments on-screen—and his extraordinary personal story—to a new audience that has much to discover and enjoy in the oeuvre of an artist hailed as "Television's Forgotten Auteur."

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• About This Book
• Preface
• Introduction
• Through Darkest Television
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix 1. About Herridge
• Appendix 2. Robert Herridge: Television Productions (1950–1981)
• Index
• Screen Classics