The cast of creators behind ABC’s handsome-looking period drama Homefront includes several of the principals responsible for Dallas and Knots Landing, including David Jacobs.
For the real hands-on work, forming an idea for a series about a group of people in a small Ohio town adjusting to the changes brought about by the end of World War II, Jacobs relied on producers/writers Lynn Marie Latham and Bernard Lechowick.
As the show was being introduced to the press last fall, Jacobs, Latham, Lechowick and several cast members gathered for a press conference in an ornate room off the main hall of Los Angeles’s grand old Union Station, scene of innumerable postwar reunions.
The conversation quickly took a philosophical turn.
Jacobs was asked why he thought viewers today would care about the situation America faced almost 50 years ago.
“You know,” said Jacobs, “not to be too academic about this, but the ends of every century are reflective times, I think. You don’t have to search for reasons. You’re going gung ho into the new century, but you want to look back and make sure you haven’t left anything valuable behind. After all, there was a reason for the Renaissance in 1494.
“Also, I wanted to participate in this, frankly, because - as one of the producers – I find it very difficult personally to deal with a lot of subjects that I like to deal with as contemporary dramas. I feel self-conscious dealing with them in a modern setting. That’s why I tried to do the Western.” Jacobs produced the short-lived Paradise. It didn’t work, but nevertheless it gave me the opportunity to feel a little freer with some of the issues we raised.
“I think it’s more interesting to set drama in different periods. I think it takes us out of ourselves. That’s something I think we need to do, all of us. We need to be reminded we didn’t invent everything, the bad and the good.”
His colleague, Lechowick, jumped in, saying, “This particular period was a very exciting time. It was a time that was the genesis – not the beginning of the women’s movement, certainly not the beginning of the civil-rights movement, and not the beginning of the union movement, but a catalytic milestone in our country in this century, after which things changed rapidly and began to be very different. And, looking at it for dramatic potential, people changed.
“And it was that change – the effect of the war on people and what they did when they came back and started their lives – that interested us,” Lechowick said. “It was a time of a start, a sort of mid-century ‘re-beginning.’ Barbara Bush was 20 years old. Gloria Steinem was 7 or 8. Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead was 3. Muhammed Ali was 2.
“It was an exciting time for storytelling.”
“And the music was great.”
Among the large cast of Homefront are Kyle Chandler, Sterling Macer Jr., David Newsom, Harry O’Reilly, Sammi Davis-Voss, Tammy Lauren, Wendy Phillips and Jessica Steen.