Wilson, Joan (1985)

WILSON, BRETT, SULLIVAN

Posted By: Marilyn Norris Holmes (email)
Date: 1/30/2012 at 12:03:34

The Grinnell (IA) Herald-Register; July 22, 1985

JOAN WILSON DIES IN BOSTON

Joan Wilson, 56, producer of the Emmy Award-winning television series "Masterpiece Theater," died recently in Boston of cancer.

Wilson was a 1950 graduate of Grinnell College who did graduate work in theater at the University of Wisconsin. She later acted and directed at the Brettle Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in other community and regional theaters in the U.S.

Entering the field of radio writing and production, she worked for a Boston station for a time before starting out in television.

Since 1967 she was associated with WGBH-TV, Boston, where she produced "Masterpiece Theater," bringing to American audiences such notable programs as "Upstairs, Downstairs," "I Claudius," and the recent "The Jewel in the Crown."

Winner of Emmy Awards for her "Masterpiece Theater" productions, she also was recognized for the dramatizations she produced of Emmeline Pankhurst's struggles for women's suffrage and of the life of writer George Sand.

Her presentation of a program called "Ballet Shoes" was cited by the Television Academy as a Best Children's Entertainment Special. Wilson received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Grinnell College in 1980.

Among survivors are her husband, actor Jeremy Brett; a brother, John S. Wilson, a 1952 graduate of Grinnell College; and a son, Caleb Sullivan, a 1980 graduate of Grinnell.