Word: wouk
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That last sentence no one can dispute. Wouk's tale begins in the spring of 1939, with Hitler giving his generals the date for the invasion of Poland: Sept. 1. As the series progresses, other events familiar from the history books fly by: the fall of France, the Battle of Britain, the German attack on the Soviet Union and, finally, the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Wouk, who wrote the screenplay from his 885-page novel, ingeniously invented a witness to these dramatic events, Victor ("Pug") Henry, a commander (later captain) in the U.S. Navy. Sent to Berlin...
Along with Henry's adventures in history, Wouk has constructed various subplots involving Henry's family, particularly his son Byron (Jan-Michael Vincent), and Natalie Jastrow (Ali MacGraw), the American Jew Byron woos and marries. Natalie is an impetuous and headstrong woman who works as secretary to her Uncle Aaron (Houseman), a cultivated historian who lives in Bernard Berenson-style splendor outside Siena...
...days before the Germans storm into Poland, Natalie insists on visiting her fiance Leslie Slote (David Dukes), an American Foreign Service officer stationed in Warsaw, and she drags the love-smitten Byron along with her. Through this credibility-straining contrivance, Wouk brings within his action the German blitzkrieg and the bombing of Warsaw. Later, after Natalie marries Byron, she is trapped in Europe with her uncle; as Jews, both are in grave danger of disappearing into Hitler's Holocaust. The persecution of the Jews is one of the dominating concerns of both the series and its author...
...took Wouk the better part of 16 years to research and write The Winds of War, and its sequel, War and Remembrance, and he jealously guarded the results of his labor. For years he had no trouble resisting the persistent blandishments of film and TV executives. Finally, in 1977, under the ministrations of Barry Diller, a former ABC executive who had become chairman of Paramount, an extraordinary offer won him over. ABC paid Wouk an estimated $1.5 million, gave him approval of director and producer and, to meet his desire for a high-toned context, allowed him some say over...
...needed a general as much as an artist. They turned to Dan Curtis, 55. Though he had an unimpressive list of credits, including a couple of horror movies and the soap opera Dark Shadows, they felt sure that he had the passion, talent and physical stamina for the job. Wouk was put off by Curtis' record. Only after Paramount sent him two nonhorrific Curtis TV specials did the novelist agree to see him. "He came to my home, but he wasn't wearing the bar mitzvah suit I figured a producer would wear upon meeting the author," says...