{"id":366819,"date":"2021-11-14T08:01:12","date_gmt":"2021-11-14T05:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/network-boys-kicked-me-out-the-door\/"},"modified":"2021-11-14T08:01:12","modified_gmt":"2021-11-14T05:01:12","slug":"network-boys-kicked-me-out-the-door","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/network-boys-kicked-me-out-the-door\/","title":{"rendered":"#Network boys ‘kicked me out the door’"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Network boys ‘kicked me out the door’<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n

On November 13, 1990, TV was changed forever with the premiere of \u201cReal Sex\u201d on HBO. The docuseries<\/a> was raw and explicit, covering everything from masturbation classes to bisexual strip<\/a> clubs.<\/p>\n

And Sheila Nevins, the producer and VP of Original Programming who brought the show to HBO, was thrilled to see just how much she could get away with.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could now show penises,\u201d she said to author James Andrew Miller, for his new oral history, \u201cTinderbox: HBO\u2019s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers Hardcover\u201d (Henry Holt), out Nov. 23. \u201cBut we couldn\u2019t show it upright. No erect ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to remember today, when sexually explicit content has become so ubiquitous \u2014 thanks to the Internet \u2014 but 30 years ago, shows like \u201cReal Sex\u201d were dangerous and groundbreaking. \u201c\u2018Real Sex\u2019 was the birth of the R-rated documentary,\u201d says Nevins. \u201cIt was the highest-rated show on HBO bar none.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sheila
Nevins won HBO some 135 awards, including Oscars and Emmys.<\/figcaption>
FilmMagic<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Long before \u201cThe Sopranos,\u201d \u201cThe Wire\u201d and \u201cGame<\/a> of Thrones,\u201d Nevins helped establish HBO as the place to find shows you couldn\u2019t see on network TV. She was often ahead of her time, producing shows like 1985\u2019s \u201cWhat Sex Am I?\u201d \u2014 which chronicled the personal and professional struggles of transgender people \u201cat a time when even support for gay marriage was still a minority view,\u201d writes Miller \u2014 and 1987\u2019s \u201cAIDS: Everything You and Your Family Need to Know \u2026 But Were Afraid to Ask.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody thought I did the sex shows so I could make serious docs, like Peter to pay Paul,\u201d continues Nevins. \u201cBut that wasn\u2019t true at all. I liked them as much as I liked the serious docs. The people in them lived a life I couldn\u2019t live.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevins, who\u2019s now 82, first joined HBO\u2019s documentary division in 1979, serving as president since 2004, and during her reign won 26 Oscars, 32 Primetime Emmy Awards, 35 News<\/a> and Documentary Emmys and 42 Peabody Awards. She won so many awards that HBO created a Nevins trophy room and nicknamed it \u201cthe Holy Shrine of Sheila.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"Spike
Spike Lee, who worked with Nevins on \u201cWhen the Levees Broke,\u201d said, \u201cMore times than not, what she suggested was better than my original thought.\u201d<\/figcaption>
Charles Sykes\/Invision\/AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Spike Lee, who collaborated with her on \u201cWhen the Levees Broke,\u201d a 2006 documentary about the devastation in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, says Nevins could be aggressively opinionated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe wouldn\u2019t just let you go and make what you wanted to make and not say anything,\u201d Lee says. \u201cMore times than not, what she suggested was better than my original thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

But all the accolades weren\u2019t enough. In 2017, the New York Times reported<\/a> that Nevins, the \u201cprofane, glamorous and gloriously inapp<\/a>ropriate\u201d president of HBO Documentary Films, had decided to step down.\u00a0She told the Times that \u201cI have deprived my life of a life. All I did was work. I was, like, born at HBO and I don\u2019t have to die there.\u201d<\/p>\n

But five years later, Nevins tells Miller that this was a complete lie.<\/p>\n

Nevins was, in fact, pushed out of HBO after 38 years, and as she filled a garbage bag with her office belongings, she felt more confused than content about how her career was ending.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy was I beaten up and kicked out the door?\u201d she asked. \u201cWas I too old? Was I costing them too much money?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Nevins grew up in the \u201950s and \u201960s on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the child of a Russian immigrant bookie and a mother suffering from Raynaud\u2019s disease, which resulted in the amputation of her left arm below the elbow. Watching the way people responded to her mother, sometimes with pity but often with revulsion, inspired Nevins to \u201cchampion stories about those less fortunate \u2026 anonymous victims of unfairness, deprivation and poverty,\u201d writes Miller.<\/p>\n

During the \u201970s, she bounced between TV producing jobs until 1985 when she was made HBO\u2019s Vice President of Documentary Programming. She brought to the network a clear vision of how HBO could stand apart.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy should you pay for television when you can get it for free?\u201d Nevins asks. \u201cWe\u2019re going to give you hot stuff at night. We\u2019re going to tell you things you don\u2019t know about, plus things you\u2019re curious about. And we\u2019re not going to rub your nose in liberal-only thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\""Real
\u201cReal Sex\u201d was Nevins\u2019 first big documentary series success at HBO.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Her first big success was \u201cReal Sex,\u201d followed in \u201995 by \u201cTaxicab Confessions,\u201d where New Yorkers were secretly recorded in cabs sharing \u201cpoignant tales of loss and longing to ribald stories of semi-salacious sex,\u201d Miller writes. \u201cThere were even scenes of actual fornication in the backs of cabs.\u201d<\/p>\n

As she raked in critical acclaim, HBO gave her complete creative autonomy. \u201cThey left me alone,\u201d says Nevins, who was promoted to president of Documentary and Family Programming in 2004. \u201cThey gave me money. I worked within that amount of money. And they never told me I did a good job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTaxicab Confessions,\u201d which ran till 2006, could be vulgar and titillating, but according to co-creator Harry Gantz, it also \u201chelped you see the humanity in people who were different from you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gantz remembers visiting a sex workers convention in Las Vegas and receiving a standing ovation. Prostitutes were frequently featured on \u201cTaxicab Confessions,\u201d sharing details of their lives that weren\u2019t usually portrayed in the media<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Sheila
Nevins left in 2017, saying it was time to have a life. But she now reveals she was pushed out the door.<\/figcaption>
Jesse Dittmar\/Redux<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe gave them a voice to talk about their experiences rather than deciding who they were ahead of time,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople began to realize that this was a transformative show, because it took the shame out of confessing, of sharing the parts of yourself that you were ashamed about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

By the 2010s, Nevins had been at HBO longer than almost any other exec, but she didn\u2019t worry about appearing old and out of touch in a youth-centric industry. \u201cI knew they couldn\u2019t afford to lose me,\u201d she says. \u201cI was wily. I think I learned it from the hookers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeff Bewkes, one-time CEO of Time Warner, HBO\u2019s parent company, calls the network a boys\u2019 club, but adds, \u201cThere were a lot of strong women who took no shit and gave as good as they got,\u201d pointing to Nevins as one of them.<\/p>\n

Even Chris Albrecht, a former Chairman and CEO of HBO between 2002 and 2007, often credited with spawning a Golden Age of television with shows like \u201cThe Wire\u201d and \u201cSix Feet Under,\u201d knew better than to interfere with Nevins. \u201cWhat am I gonna tell Sheila about a documentary?\u201d he says. \u201cIt didn\u2019t do me any good to have a turf war with Sheila.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ted
When HBO was in talks to bring on Ted Koppel, Nevins defended her turf \u2014\u00a0and got rid of him.<\/figcaption>
Brian Hineline\/Retna<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some learned this the hard way. In 2005, when venerated ABC anchor Ted Koppel was in negotiations with HBO to create original programming, Nevins \u201cwent on a scorched-earth campaign, the likes of which you\u2019ve never seen before,\u201d says Jon Alpert, a filmmaker and longtime Nevins collaborator.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fearing that she would be replaced, Nevins spent weeks \u201cscreaming and swearing on the phone\u201d to HBO execs, according to Alpert. Koppel finally gave up on the network. <\/p>\n

\n
\"HBO
A colleague alleges in \u201cTinderbox\u201d that HBO CEO Richard Plepler \u201cwas out to f\u2013k [over] Nevins from day one.\u201d<\/figcaption>
FilmMagic for HBO<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cIt really wasn\u2019t worth the stress that we were going to cause,\u201d Koppel told Miller, adding that \u201cSheila is a lovely woman, and I enjoy her a great deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevins\u2019 memory of that moment isn\u2019t as rosy. Months after Koppel\u2019s HBO deal fell apart, she said she ran into the news anchor at the Canyon Ranch spa, and he called her \u201ca snake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevins didn\u2019t respond, but says she thought to herself, \u201cF\u2013k you, mister, I got you out.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

She also had a less than amicable relationship with Richard Plepler, the two-decades younger HBO exec who became CEO in 2013. \u201cRichard knew how to work her,\u201d says Mike Lombardo, who served as HBO\u2019s co-president with Plepler in 2007. \u201cHe would do this for years, he would be like, \u2018How old is she again?\u2019 He was out to f\u2013k her from day one. I\u2019d watch him with her. He was a master at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The animosity between Plepler and Nevins wasn\u2019t just down to their age difference. \u201cNevins and Plepler had different tastes in documentaries,\u201d Miller writes. \u201cPlepler veered toward projects built around celebrities and big names, whereas Nevins maintained an interest in grittier, more journalistic stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Nevins enjoyed any opportunity to rub shoulders with A-listers like Mike Nichols and Steven Spielberg, \u201cshe wasn\u2019t all that interested in telling their stories,\u201d Miller writes. \u201cAs time went on, Nevins had long felt she had to push harder and harder to keep HBO\u2019s documentaries rooted in real-world subjects.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\""Going
Emmy winner \u201cGoing Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief\u201d was produced under Nevins\u2019 stewardship.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Nevins was slowly being pushed out, and not just at the office. \u201cPlepler hosted renowned, hoity-toity salons and dinner parties, but Nevins was not invited to them,\u201d Miller writes. \u201cShe never cracked into his inner circle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was aware of conflicts that were coming down the pike,\u201d says Alex Gibney, an Emmy-winning documentarian who collaborated with Nevins on the 2015 HBO hit \u201cGoing Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.\u201d \u201cSome of my projects were green-lit, not by going to Sheila but by having them green-lit out of LA through Mike Lombardo. You could tell Mike and Richard were making decisions over her head and that she was losing the power to run her department.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both sides tell very different stories. Lombardo recounts trying to get an Elvis Presley doc made at HBO but Nevins \u201cdidn\u2019t want to do docs about people,\u201d he says. When Nevins found out he went over her head to get the documentary made, she called him in a rage. \u201cShe raised her voice on the phone to me,\u201d Lombardo remembers. \u201cThings got really heated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevins recalls conversations with Lombardo in which he<\/em> called her<\/em> screaming. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was tyrannical,\u201d she says. \u201cHe was disturbed. I started crying.\u201d Lombardo didn\u2019t just dislike her, she says, he \u201chated me. He wished I was dead. Destroyed me. Destroyed my soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"Filmmaker
Filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi called Nevins \u201ca foulmouthed truth-teller.\u201d<\/figcaption>
Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

On December 16, 2017, Nevins announced she was leaving. To the world, it was presented as her decision. Plepler gave her a hero\u2019s send-off. \u201cThe word \u2018legend\u2019 is often thrown around loosely in our business,\u201d he wrote in a statement. \u201cBut in Sheila\u2019s case, it actually applies.\u201d She was given an undisclosed severance and a glowing profile in the Times, but after 2018, most of the shows she helped create for HBO, from \u201cReal Sex\u201d to \u201cTaxicab Confessions,\u201d were quietly removed from the network\u2019s streaming services.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many of the filmmakers who worked with Nevins knew the real reasons she left. \u201cShe was a 79-year-old woman,\u201d says Alexandra Pelosi, a director who sold several films to Nevins (and is also the daughter of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi). \u201cCorporate America doesn\u2019t respect 79-year-old women.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also didn\u2019t help that Nevins is a \u201cfoulmouthed truth-teller,\u201d says Pelosi. \u201cNobody likes truth-tellers at their parties. They say inappropriate things out loud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevins acknowledges her reputation. \u201cI never would have worked for me,\u201d she admits. \u201cNever. Not in a million years. What a bitch! But I felt that I had earned the right to be difficult because I was being difficult for the product.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\""76
Nevins got sweet revenge on her former bosses at HBO when, in her new job, she won MTV its first Emmy for a documentary, for \u201c76 Days.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Her departure all came down to a fundamental difference between how Nevins and Plepler saw the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cRichard hangs around in a society where the food miraculously appears on your table, but you never meet the people in the fields who harvest it,\u201d says filmmaker Rory Kennedy, directed the 2003 HBO docuseries \u201cPandemic: Facing AIDS\u201d under Nevins\u2019 watch. \u201cSheila comes from the Lower East Side, went to Communist sleepaway camp.\u201d (Pleper later left the network in 2019, stating that he had been with HBO \u201cnearly 28 years.\u201d He is now running his own production company, and declined to comment on Nevins or her departure from HBO for Miller\u2019s book.)<\/p>\n

Nevins, meanwhile, accepted an offer by MTV to start up their Documentary Films division two years after leaving HBO. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was hired by MTV because I was a brand,\u201d she says. \u201cThey didn\u2019t care how the f\u2013k old I was. I just gave clout to their reality stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ultimate revenge? In September, just two years after Nevins moved to MTV, the network scored its first-ever Emmy Award for a documentary with \u201c76 Days<\/a>,\u201d chronicling the Wuhan lockdown in 2020. <\/p>\n

And who did she beat to win it? HBO.\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Network boys ‘kicked me out the door’” On November 13, 1990, TV was changed forever with the premiere of \u201cReal Sex\u201d on HBO. The docuseries was raw and explicit, covering everything from masturbation classes to bisexual strip clubs. And Sheila Nevins, the producer and VP of Original Programming who brought the show to HBO, was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":366820,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/11\/sheila-nevins-koppel-lee-pepler.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1012","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[118973,1524,118971,118972],"class_list":["post-366819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-11-14-21","tag-hbo","tag-richard-plepler","tag-sheila-nevins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}