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00:00Pete Hammond here for Contenders Documentary. Now, I have something that's a very kind of a takeoff on the whole documentary idea. It's not really a documentary. It's everything. It's got elements of everything. It is called The Eyes of the World from D-Day to V-E Day.
00:17And it is part of the American History Unbound series aired on PBS and eligible for Variety Special prerecorded. So it's not even in the documentary categories, but we're so happy to have it here with us today and these wonderful people that are responsible for bringing it to you.
00:37And if you haven't seen it, this is the reason you should go see it, because it is a stirring piece of work. I believe this was taped almost about a year ago in May 2024 with the Boston Pops Orchestra and incredible performances from Broadway stars, singers, opera, mixed in with the narration of the last few months of World War II.
01:03And telling a complete story of that, but also with a unique twist, talking about people that were involved that you might not think about, including Ernest Hemingway, Lee Miller, the great photographer, Robert Capo, a guy named Jerry that we're going to talk about, but you may have heard of him too.
01:24And others, as they have heard of him too, and others, as they have their experiences here in the war. It's extraordinary. And so I want to welcome the key players here. He is the writer, the narrator, the guy that came up with it, the creator of the American Unbound series, as well as this particular show. And his name is John Monsky, a historian as well. Hi, John.
01:51Hi, great to be here, Pete. Thanks for having us.
01:54Absolutely. And we have a veteran producer in television from so many places. I can't name them all. Lifetime, you name it. And she is the president and executive producer of American History Unbound. That is Meredith Wagner. Hi, Meredith.
02:10Hi, thanks for this.
02:12And you may recognize part of his name here. Patrick Hemingway Adams is the great grandson of Ernest Hemingway. And I mentioned that he's a big part of this show. And we're happy to have him along, too, because he is also part of this.
02:31And we're going to talk to him about what it's like to see his great grandfather honored in this way on this show. Hi, Patrick.
02:39Hi, Pete. Thanks for having me.
02:42Absolutely. Now, I believe the last time this particular show, The Eyes of the World from D-Day to V-E Day, was performed was actually in the East Room of the White House in December of 2024 in front of President Biden and some very distinguished guests.
02:59And as it was over, President Biden said since he was 29 years old when he went to the Senate, he has been to hundreds of events in the East Room. This was the very best one. High praise indeed. And that is what the show has received. So welcome, everybody. Before we start talking about it, let's take a look at it. Here's a clip.
03:18It is my honor to introduce you to The Eyes of the World from D-Day to V-E Day, a production that has it all.
03:26June 6, 1944, D-Day. An American landing craft makes its way to the beaches of Normandy, France.
03:38On the morning of August 25th, Jerry makes it to Paris, alive. American and French troops enter the city. The Parisians are overjoyed.
03:59Robert Capa captures the moment with this picture. In the middle of all this euphoria, Jerry decides to find his new friend, Ernest Hemingway.
04:15Hemingway enters Paris with a contention of French soldiers somehow at his command. Nobody knows how.
04:22fighting German snipers that remain behind, he immediately moves to liberate a highly strategic position.
04:33The bar at the Ritz Hotel. According to several accounts, upon entering the bar, Hemingway orders 78 martinis for his French soldiers.
04:45Jerry and Hemingway sit in Hemingway's newly liberated room just above the bar.
04:52Hemingway pours the drinks. And Jerry gets up the nerve to give this world-famous author some of Jerry's short stories.
05:04Wow. It's really, boy, usually when I see variety specials, I learn nothing. I learn so much on this.
05:12And this was particularly fascinating to me, too, because as a film critic and a critic for Deadline,
05:19I've been exposed to a couple of things in the last year I knew nothing about.
05:23One was the movie Lee, which was with Kate Winslet and is all about Lee Miller.
05:28And I knew nothing about her. And then so when I see her as part of this show, too,
05:34it just opened my eyes immediately there, too, as well as the 6888, which is a movie I reviewed, knew nothing about them.
05:41You guys had this covered clearly before any of this stuff has come out, and you were there first.
05:49Now, I'm just seeing it after I've seen these shows. But talk about it, John.
05:53How did you come up with this idea of melding all this together with the Boston Pops and all these singers and history and everything into this kind of a show?
06:02Well, Lee, Pete, I like to say they found me, Ernest Hemingway, Robert Capa, Lee Miller, and Jerry.
06:11And we can talk about Jerry in a minute.
06:13But I collect American flags, and I have a flag that was on a landing craft that came into Omaha Beach
06:20and another one that came into Utah Beach.
06:23And on Utah Beach, at both Utah and Omaha, you had Hemingway, and you had Jerry.
06:30And then Lee Miller shows up, and Robert Capa shows up.
06:34And so the story revolves around those moments.
06:38It starts with those moments on D-Day, and then the whole thing has an arc and a lot of drama until you get to the end of the war.
06:48Yeah, so you started this American History Unbound and doing it in different ways.
06:56Is there a key to your idea here of trying to make history interesting to people that roll their eyes and go,
07:02oh, God, I feel like I'm back in school or something, or making it dull?
07:06You're making it come alive here in ways that I haven't seen done that much.
07:11Well, it starts with the people.
07:12I mean, Hemingway is incredible, what happens to him and his friend Jerry, as well as Robert Capa and Lee Miller.
07:21But we twist it into a more emotional experience because you have a 60-piece orchestra running throughout the whole show.
07:32And then the National Archives is incredible.
07:35We found things in there that just are overlooked and two people that work down there for us.
07:42So you add the photographs, you add the orchestra, you add the core of the story with people like Ernest Hemingway,
07:50and it becomes a pretty dramatic moment.
07:55Are you a natural-born performer and storyteller?
07:57Look, I was always trying to get out of trouble, so, you know, from that point, yes.
08:03But, you know, I think what comes to me is these figures and these characters,
08:12and once you start talking about them, it just comes out.
08:17So Ernest Hemingway and Lee Miller and Robert Capa and Jerry, I just ride with them.
08:23And, you know, you can't make this stuff up.
08:25I could not go into a room and write a script as interesting as what really happened.
08:32Yeah, but bringing them all together is the uniqueness of this and telling that story.
08:37And you keep mentioning Jerry, so to make sure that we're not talking about Jerry Lewis here,
08:43but Jerry is another famous figure.
08:46And why did you decide to make him the mythical Jerry as you go along here before?
08:51Well, when Jerry was over there, he was Jerry.
08:55He wasn't famous at that point.
08:58He was a struggling young guy who was an intelligence officer.
09:03He ended up being thrown into the intelligence unit because he spoke some German and some French.
09:09And so I wanted to leave him as Jerry.
09:14And you could really feel how this young guy bonds with Hemingway.
09:20Hemingway bonds with him, and they carry each other forward.
09:24It's only later that he becomes famous.
09:27Famous.
09:28And should I give away the name?
09:30I'll give you a clue.
09:31I think we could give it away, and then people can – we'll give them a two-second warning if they want the spoiler alert.
09:37Okay, spoiler alert here.
09:39Tell us who Jerry is.
09:41So Jerry turns out to be J.D. Salinger.
09:45Wow.
09:45And J.D. Salinger is a struggling – he's written a few short stories that have been published.
09:52He comes into Utah Beach as an intelligence officer.
09:55And lo and behold, who is embedded in the fourth division where Jerry is assigned as an intelligence officer but Ernest Hemingway.
10:04And it's only fate that brings them together.
10:08And this story unravels this relationship over nine months between Hemingway and Jerry.
10:16Jerry writes later when he's recovering in the hospital,
10:20the only hopeful minutes of the war were the ones I spent with you, referring to Hemingway.
10:27So it's a – but it evolves in a way that, you know, it's hard to imagine how they intersect,
10:36including in the Hurricane Forest where the Americans lost 35,000 troops.
10:41So it's both dark in that way, their connectivity, and it comes out in their work,
10:48and also bright in that they find each other in Paris and have a drink at the Ritz bar.
10:58So Hemingway pours the drinks, by the way.
11:02But my friend Patrick Hemingway knows – still knows how to pour them.
11:06I think he's inherited them.
11:07Patrick, tell us about this and how you see your great-grandfather honored here.
11:13I know you are part of Keeping Up the Legacy of his life, very involved in that.
11:18And so tell us about your feelings about this particular special.
11:23Well, part of my role is working for my family with some other relatives of mine.
11:28And, you know, we're sort of charged with stewarding the legacy and safeguarding it
11:34and proliferating it for the future to make sure it sticks around.
11:39So, you know, when we got together with John and Meredith here,
11:43it was a really interesting kind of collision of enthusiasm and ideas for this stuff
11:49because we're all passionate.
11:51And, you know, what I liked from the family side was the ability to start picking apart stories
11:57that people thought they knew what happened and comparing notes with the people who did.
12:03So John and I, when our first brainstorm, you know, was comparing, you know, legends and facts.
12:08You know, John, did you hear the story?
12:09You know, what about shooting up the toilet in the Ritz with a Luger?
12:12Yes, I heard the story about shooting up the toilet with a Ritz.
12:14You know, and so we had to go kind of find the truth of this thing.
12:18And what came out in the project here in the final version of it was what John alluded to,
12:25we're finally able to tell the story, tell the truthful story that is way more interesting
12:29than what everybody thought happened.
12:31And that, you know, a little backstage story, Pete.
12:36So this incredible story that unfolds between the two of them,
12:40as well as Robert Capa and Lee Miller.
12:43We should come back to Lee Miller because she's so amazing.
12:45But the story unfolds between Hemingway and Salinger.
12:52And now, 80 years later, Patrick Hemingway is here watching this production.
12:59And J.D. Salinger's son comes as well.
13:02And Patrick taps him on the shoulder and says, I'm Patrick Hemingway.
13:07And he says, I'm Matthew Salinger.
13:10Wow.
13:10So 80 years later, they met.
13:12Now, that's a back story, because it's not on the film.
13:16But you will see Patrick Hemingway stand up to honor Ernest Hemingway,
13:22who was Captain Hemingway on his I.D. form.
13:26He had a kind of honorary title in the Army.
13:29And he really did play the role of Captain Hemingway.
13:31And we bring that out.
13:32He thought he was fighting the war.
13:35His editors thought that he was covering it.
13:38But he sincerely thought he was fighting it, too.
13:42We did have an expense report for $13,000.
13:46His editors asked, how did you run up $13,000?
13:49He said, I had to entertain the entire fourth division.
13:53That's unbelievable.
13:54Meredith, so in all these productions you've done, in television and everything,
13:59saying, what was it about this one?
14:01And what were the challenges of you in getting this?
14:03It's aired on PBS.
14:05You have a full orchestra.
14:06You have a big audience.
14:07You know, this is like putting on a Broadway show.
14:10Well, I'm going to speak for John and say,
14:13I think the success of this has exceeded our expectations.
14:16His show started literally in John's living room.
14:18And that was preceded by his childhood flag collection.
14:23So I don't think we ever imagined we would be here talking to you today.
14:29We've been very lucky.
14:29And we've been lucky to be surrounded by incredible people like Patrick,
14:33who've heard about these shows, experienced those shows,
14:37and wanted to join forces with us.
14:41And one of the things that's been very gratifying for me
14:43is bringing the stories of Lee Miller and Martha Gellhorn,
14:49Hemingway's ex-wife, to audiences in these productions.
14:54Having worked at Lifetime, I have a particular affinity for the women's stories
14:57and their front and center in the show.
15:00And you see a lot, Pete, of Lee Miller's work.
15:04The family gave us access to 6,000 of her photographs.
15:10So for those who have watched Lee, this reverberates
15:15because you'll see the actual photographs that Lee Miller took
15:19and how they set every scene in that movie, Lee, off those photographs.
15:23But we tell the story of what's happening in those photographs at that moment.
15:28And Lee Miller is to be admired by anyone and everyone.
15:32She's extraordinary.
15:35I wish we had more time to talk about the 6888 part of it, too,
15:39that you brought out here as being such an important force in World War II,
15:44bringing those letters that were lost, hundreds of thousands of them.
15:49An amazing story there.
15:51There's many things that are going to make people not only watch this show,
15:55but go on beyond it to find out more about all these incredible people.
16:00And this, again, is PBS.
16:03And if you haven't seen it, check it out.
16:06It is really worth your time.
16:07Thank you all for joining us on our Contenders documentary panel today.
16:13And we'll see you around.
16:15Thanks.
16:17Thank you, Pete.