| Production Notes - Striving for Historical Accuracy "A philosophy of mine in making films is to entertain and inform at the same time. I believe the mix of both is what people really want and appreciate, and I try to bring that to every subject I do." David L. Wolper, Executive Producer, "North and South" |
David L. Wolper's fascination with history has been evident throughout his career and his more than 600 films. He
pioneered the television docudrama genre with "They've Killed President Lincoln and his "Appointment with Destiny"
specials. He celebrated the American Bicentennial with "The American Heritage Specials," and profiled 65 2fth-
Century leaders in the Peabody Award-winning "Biography" series. William L. Shirer's "The Rise and fall of the Third
Reich," "Carl Sandburg's Lincoln," Theodore H. White's "The Making of the President (1960 and 1964)," Alex Haley's
"Roots" - all Wolper projects. All presenting history from one author's singular point of view. Wolper's latest
undertaking follows in that tradition - two 12-hour "ABC Novels for Television" based on John Jakes' best-sellers
"North and South" and "Love and War," produced by David L. Wolper Productions and Warner Brothers Television.
John Jakes' forte is historical fiction. Three of his best-selling novels of the American Revolution, "The Kent Family
Chronicles," have already been dramatized on television. The period portrayed in "North and South" - the twenty
turbulent years prior to the Civil War - was new to him. For television, it's new to everybody.
"The American Civil War has a fascination which is worldwide, that other periods in history don't have," he says. "l
think it also has a deep significance in this country. lt is a strong and dramatic canvas because the whole sweep of
the antebellum period leading up to the war was a tearing apart of the nation.
"lt's a virgin area for drama," says Wolper, who also found in "North and South" all the elements of a good yarn -
vividly drawn characters from large, powerful families in an era treasuring grace, beauty and opulence; love,
unrequited and passionately consummated; moral issues not easily decided; evil hidden behind a charming veneer;
combat waged on bloody battlefields and with scorching words.
With sales of "North and South" currently at 2,800,000 copies, it appears the public agrees.
Jakes places his characters against the backdrop of history, and his exhaustively researched novel was the first
source to which Wolper, executive producer Chuck McLain and producer Paul Freeman turned for descriptions of the
events, attitudes, places and people that they would dramatize. But adaptation for the screen creates a whole new
set of problems that the novel, or the novelist, cannot always answer. How do you insure that all the visual elements -
locations, sets, costumes, props – will be historically correct to the smallest detail? Can the actions called for by the
script be logistically and economically feasible to produce?
Chuck McLain began tackling these problems two years before the start of principal photography, while he was still
Warner Brothers' Vice-president for Television Movies and Miniseries. The delicate balance between historical
accuracy and effective drama has commanded his daily attention from the earliest stages of script development,
through five months of shooting, to post-production.
Fortunately, he has had a remarkable collaborator - Ray Herbeck, Jr., whose knowledge of the Civil War period,
coupled with a thorough understanding of film production, made him the perfect individual to serve as technical
advisor on "North and South."
Herbeck's been a Civil War buff since age ten, when he visited the battlefield at pea Ridge with his grandfather, an
Arkansas country doctor. After high school Ray camped at very major Civil War battlefield, lapping up more
knowledge from the hospitable park rangers. He graduated from Utah State in journalism and history, became an
editor at "Billboard" magazine, and then served for three years as the editor of "On Location." Meanwhile, he was
amassing a library of more than 300 books on the Civil War, spending weekends reenacting the Mexican and Civil
Wars with the California-based living history group, "Terry's Texas Rangers," and producing recordings of civil war
period music.
Producer Paul Freeman met Ray when "On Location" covered "The Chisholm’s,” and
remembered his passion for the Civil War when seeking an advisor for "North and South.,, Joining the production
more than a year before the cameras rolled, Herbeck began an outpouring of notes, historical documentation,
corrections and production suggestions that now cram a binder several inches thick.
Distilling the essence of reality into the screenplay was the first concern. For example, Herbeck provided McLain
with a year-by-year breakdown of conversational topics between 1842 and 1861. lt then became up to the writers to
keep these facts accessible to the audience.
"Even if the subject is historically correct," McLain warns, "you have to write the way people talk and make it
dramatic. lt's not enough to learn about the Fugitive Slave Law. You have to write about it in a way that will be
interesting and understandable…
Care was taken to shed light on the causes of the war within the dramatic structure. For example, the escalating
tension between the industrialized north and an agrarian south which considered slavery an economic necessity,
threads through the miniseries. "North and South's" protagonists, Southerner Orry Main (Patrick Swayze) and
Northerner George Hazard (James Read), meet as cadets at West Point, fight together in the Mexican War, and then
go into business together as owners of one of the first southern cotton mills. Most southern factories of the period
utilized slave labor. But, as Ray Herbeck points out, "How could we justify a Northerner who is anti-slavery being
partners with his best friend in a slave-operated mill?' Hence a scene was written in which George insists upon free-
labor as a condition of the partnership.
Research on mid-19th Century etiquette was especially useful in shaping the several celebrations that cement the
friendship between the Hazards and the Mains. "l learned two very important things,” Chuck McLain recalls.
"Gentlemen never quarreled in the ballroom and you never asked ladies a question - for you assumed they would
not have an opinion." (The 2Oth-century actresses playing those ladies, however, were quick to ask questions about
19th-Century values. Cast members Lesley-Anne Down, who play Orry's beloved Madeline Fabray, and Genie
Francis and Terri Garber, who play Orry’s sisters Brett and Ashton, immersed themselves in such source books as
"Mary Chestnut’s Civil War,,, "Voices from Slavery" and "The Confederate Ordeal.”)
In the quest for accuracy, nothing was overlooked. Detailed descriptions of mid-19th Century West Point life were
provided, covering every area from field drills to hazing to blackboard drawings for tactics classes. (Since West Point
today bears little physical resemblance to the Academy of 1842, the West Point scenes were filmed at Historic
Jefferson College outside Natchez. Local military school cadets and ROTC students served as their 19th Century
counter parts and were even granted permission to grow their hair for six months to insure the proper period look.)
Photos and drawings were located of the historic figures who would interact with the fictional characters - including
Abraham Lincoln (Hal Holbrook), Frederick Douglass (Robert Guillaume) and John Brown (Johnny Cash). Pages and
pages of military uniforms became a source for both costume and prop makers.
Herbeck discovered that pro-secessionist South Carolinians wore little pins bearing the state's Palmetto insignia -
called "secession cockades" - and when he couldn't find a model, asked that the producers have them designed
after a photograph. (Spotted on the cast by National Park Service historian David Ruth, the cockades will now be
displayed at the Fort Sumter museum, crediting, “North and South" for their re-creation.
For director Richard Heffron he researched period children's games for background action. At Heffron's
suggestion, Chuck McLain also incorporated a child's word game into the script to reveal the opposing personalities
of Orry Min's younger sisters.
Herbeck insisted upon a shutterless camera in scenes involving 19th photographer, Matthew Brady - and McLain
cast ABC unit still photographer Dean Williams to play the role.
Period music was found to illustrate political attitudes: "Yankee Doodle" for election rallies in the North and the new
anthem "Dixie's Land" for rallies in the South; "Clear the Track," and, ”John Brown's Body" for the abolitionists, and
"Steal Away to Jesus" -- with its hidden message of freedom - for the plantation slaves.
The 4th Georgia Regimental Band, an ensemble of period brass musicians, was recruited to play for several
scenes, and American social dance historian Desmond F. Strobel instructed both principals and extras in dances
including the "Sicilian Circle" and the "Lancers Quadrille." (The grand ball in honor of the two families -' for which
Strobel had go dancers dancing - was held in Natchez, Mississippi’s historic Stanton Hall . . . in the same elegant
room in which Strobel's grandmother was married).
Dialect expert Robert Easton insured the authenticity of the players' speech. He gave Wendy Kilbourne a proper
brogue for Constance Flynn and coached the members of the Main family, from British-born Jean Simmons
(matriarch Clarissa) to Tennessean Lewis Smith (cousin Charles), on the peculiarities of the 19th-century coastal
South Carolinian accent.
One of Herbeck's most exciting contributions was his recruitment of "re-enactors,'- amateur groups who recreate
specific segments of American history for their own enjoyment and education – to bring their living immersion in
authenticity to "North and South.”
In South Carolina, re-enactor units - including descendants of Confederate soldiers who had actually fired upon
Fort Sumter 124years earlier - recreated the shot which began the Civil War. Others portrayed Charlestonians
celebrating Secession Night (December 20, 1860), in scenes filmed on that city's historic church street. Some played
Union soldiers and abolitionists.
Herbeck even found living history groups with the special expertise to recreate the
Mexican-American War battle of Churubusco, (1847) in a field near Natchez, Mississippi. In mid-May, fourteen re-
enactor units from a dozen states took a week's vacation from their regular jobs to stage what was to be the largest
authentic encampment of Mexican War re-enactors ever held. More than 140 strong, they arrived at their own
expense, bringing their own (and for the most part hand-made) period-correct uniforms, hand weapons and artillery,
caissons, limbers, battery wagons, field ambulances, tenting and camping equipment. The production company
provided water, hay, feed and straw for horses, reimbursement for powder (which Herbeck's careful planning had
even calculated down to cost per gunshot), and made donations to each of the participating units.
Based on Herbeck's research, production designer Arch Bacon had recreated Churubusco down to its stone
bridge, fortified redoubt and Mexican village. Herbeck and the commanders of the various units, depicting the
American 5th and 8th Infantry, dragoons, riflemen, Texas Rangers and volunteers on one side, and Mexican infantry
and artillery on the other, restaged the battle as it was fought. They even included American mobile field artillery - a
significant military development of the Mexican War.
Admist the boom of gunfire and the swirling dust, director Richard Heffron recorded the action on four different
cameras - the first time that an authentically restaged Mexican War engagement had been committed to film!
Herbeck's own unit portrayed Hayes Rangers - and Ray was in the thick of the action. Dressed in a bright blue
battle shirt, dirt-laden military trousers, frontier boots, a Colt 44 in his belt and a Texas star on his blue forage cap
and frontier boots, with his long hair, bushy salt-and-pepper beard and small spectacles, he looked perfect for the
part. As the Mexicans closed upon the Americans, Ray, carrying the Texas flag, staggered up to Officer George
Hazard. The news he delivered – “We're in retreat!”- was ominous. But it was Ray's moment of glory, a well-deserved
cameo for one of the unsung heroes of "North and South."
pioneered the television docudrama genre with "They've Killed President Lincoln and his "Appointment with Destiny"
specials. He celebrated the American Bicentennial with "The American Heritage Specials," and profiled 65 2fth-
Century leaders in the Peabody Award-winning "Biography" series. William L. Shirer's "The Rise and fall of the Third
Reich," "Carl Sandburg's Lincoln," Theodore H. White's "The Making of the President (1960 and 1964)," Alex Haley's
"Roots" - all Wolper projects. All presenting history from one author's singular point of view. Wolper's latest
undertaking follows in that tradition - two 12-hour "ABC Novels for Television" based on John Jakes' best-sellers
"North and South" and "Love and War," produced by David L. Wolper Productions and Warner Brothers Television.
John Jakes' forte is historical fiction. Three of his best-selling novels of the American Revolution, "The Kent Family
Chronicles," have already been dramatized on television. The period portrayed in "North and South" - the twenty
turbulent years prior to the Civil War - was new to him. For television, it's new to everybody.
"The American Civil War has a fascination which is worldwide, that other periods in history don't have," he says. "l
think it also has a deep significance in this country. lt is a strong and dramatic canvas because the whole sweep of
the antebellum period leading up to the war was a tearing apart of the nation.
"lt's a virgin area for drama," says Wolper, who also found in "North and South" all the elements of a good yarn -
vividly drawn characters from large, powerful families in an era treasuring grace, beauty and opulence; love,
unrequited and passionately consummated; moral issues not easily decided; evil hidden behind a charming veneer;
combat waged on bloody battlefields and with scorching words.
With sales of "North and South" currently at 2,800,000 copies, it appears the public agrees.
Jakes places his characters against the backdrop of history, and his exhaustively researched novel was the first
source to which Wolper, executive producer Chuck McLain and producer Paul Freeman turned for descriptions of the
events, attitudes, places and people that they would dramatize. But adaptation for the screen creates a whole new
set of problems that the novel, or the novelist, cannot always answer. How do you insure that all the visual elements -
locations, sets, costumes, props – will be historically correct to the smallest detail? Can the actions called for by the
script be logistically and economically feasible to produce?
Chuck McLain began tackling these problems two years before the start of principal photography, while he was still
Warner Brothers' Vice-president for Television Movies and Miniseries. The delicate balance between historical
accuracy and effective drama has commanded his daily attention from the earliest stages of script development,
through five months of shooting, to post-production.
Fortunately, he has had a remarkable collaborator - Ray Herbeck, Jr., whose knowledge of the Civil War period,
coupled with a thorough understanding of film production, made him the perfect individual to serve as technical
advisor on "North and South."
Herbeck's been a Civil War buff since age ten, when he visited the battlefield at pea Ridge with his grandfather, an
Arkansas country doctor. After high school Ray camped at very major Civil War battlefield, lapping up more
knowledge from the hospitable park rangers. He graduated from Utah State in journalism and history, became an
editor at "Billboard" magazine, and then served for three years as the editor of "On Location." Meanwhile, he was
amassing a library of more than 300 books on the Civil War, spending weekends reenacting the Mexican and Civil
Wars with the California-based living history group, "Terry's Texas Rangers," and producing recordings of civil war
period music.
Producer Paul Freeman met Ray when "On Location" covered "The Chisholm’s,” and
remembered his passion for the Civil War when seeking an advisor for "North and South.,, Joining the production
more than a year before the cameras rolled, Herbeck began an outpouring of notes, historical documentation,
corrections and production suggestions that now cram a binder several inches thick.
Distilling the essence of reality into the screenplay was the first concern. For example, Herbeck provided McLain
with a year-by-year breakdown of conversational topics between 1842 and 1861. lt then became up to the writers to
keep these facts accessible to the audience.
"Even if the subject is historically correct," McLain warns, "you have to write the way people talk and make it
dramatic. lt's not enough to learn about the Fugitive Slave Law. You have to write about it in a way that will be
interesting and understandable…
Care was taken to shed light on the causes of the war within the dramatic structure. For example, the escalating
tension between the industrialized north and an agrarian south which considered slavery an economic necessity,
threads through the miniseries. "North and South's" protagonists, Southerner Orry Main (Patrick Swayze) and
Northerner George Hazard (James Read), meet as cadets at West Point, fight together in the Mexican War, and then
go into business together as owners of one of the first southern cotton mills. Most southern factories of the period
utilized slave labor. But, as Ray Herbeck points out, "How could we justify a Northerner who is anti-slavery being
partners with his best friend in a slave-operated mill?' Hence a scene was written in which George insists upon free-
labor as a condition of the partnership.
Research on mid-19th Century etiquette was especially useful in shaping the several celebrations that cement the
friendship between the Hazards and the Mains. "l learned two very important things,” Chuck McLain recalls.
"Gentlemen never quarreled in the ballroom and you never asked ladies a question - for you assumed they would
not have an opinion." (The 2Oth-century actresses playing those ladies, however, were quick to ask questions about
19th-Century values. Cast members Lesley-Anne Down, who play Orry's beloved Madeline Fabray, and Genie
Francis and Terri Garber, who play Orry’s sisters Brett and Ashton, immersed themselves in such source books as
"Mary Chestnut’s Civil War,,, "Voices from Slavery" and "The Confederate Ordeal.”)
In the quest for accuracy, nothing was overlooked. Detailed descriptions of mid-19th Century West Point life were
provided, covering every area from field drills to hazing to blackboard drawings for tactics classes. (Since West Point
today bears little physical resemblance to the Academy of 1842, the West Point scenes were filmed at Historic
Jefferson College outside Natchez. Local military school cadets and ROTC students served as their 19th Century
counter parts and were even granted permission to grow their hair for six months to insure the proper period look.)
Photos and drawings were located of the historic figures who would interact with the fictional characters - including
Abraham Lincoln (Hal Holbrook), Frederick Douglass (Robert Guillaume) and John Brown (Johnny Cash). Pages and
pages of military uniforms became a source for both costume and prop makers.
Herbeck discovered that pro-secessionist South Carolinians wore little pins bearing the state's Palmetto insignia -
called "secession cockades" - and when he couldn't find a model, asked that the producers have them designed
after a photograph. (Spotted on the cast by National Park Service historian David Ruth, the cockades will now be
displayed at the Fort Sumter museum, crediting, “North and South" for their re-creation.
For director Richard Heffron he researched period children's games for background action. At Heffron's
suggestion, Chuck McLain also incorporated a child's word game into the script to reveal the opposing personalities
of Orry Min's younger sisters.
Herbeck insisted upon a shutterless camera in scenes involving 19th photographer, Matthew Brady - and McLain
cast ABC unit still photographer Dean Williams to play the role.
Period music was found to illustrate political attitudes: "Yankee Doodle" for election rallies in the North and the new
anthem "Dixie's Land" for rallies in the South; "Clear the Track," and, ”John Brown's Body" for the abolitionists, and
"Steal Away to Jesus" -- with its hidden message of freedom - for the plantation slaves.
The 4th Georgia Regimental Band, an ensemble of period brass musicians, was recruited to play for several
scenes, and American social dance historian Desmond F. Strobel instructed both principals and extras in dances
including the "Sicilian Circle" and the "Lancers Quadrille." (The grand ball in honor of the two families -' for which
Strobel had go dancers dancing - was held in Natchez, Mississippi’s historic Stanton Hall . . . in the same elegant
room in which Strobel's grandmother was married).
Dialect expert Robert Easton insured the authenticity of the players' speech. He gave Wendy Kilbourne a proper
brogue for Constance Flynn and coached the members of the Main family, from British-born Jean Simmons
(matriarch Clarissa) to Tennessean Lewis Smith (cousin Charles), on the peculiarities of the 19th-century coastal
South Carolinian accent.
One of Herbeck's most exciting contributions was his recruitment of "re-enactors,'- amateur groups who recreate
specific segments of American history for their own enjoyment and education – to bring their living immersion in
authenticity to "North and South.”
In South Carolina, re-enactor units - including descendants of Confederate soldiers who had actually fired upon
Fort Sumter 124years earlier - recreated the shot which began the Civil War. Others portrayed Charlestonians
celebrating Secession Night (December 20, 1860), in scenes filmed on that city's historic church street. Some played
Union soldiers and abolitionists.
Herbeck even found living history groups with the special expertise to recreate the
Mexican-American War battle of Churubusco, (1847) in a field near Natchez, Mississippi. In mid-May, fourteen re-
enactor units from a dozen states took a week's vacation from their regular jobs to stage what was to be the largest
authentic encampment of Mexican War re-enactors ever held. More than 140 strong, they arrived at their own
expense, bringing their own (and for the most part hand-made) period-correct uniforms, hand weapons and artillery,
caissons, limbers, battery wagons, field ambulances, tenting and camping equipment. The production company
provided water, hay, feed and straw for horses, reimbursement for powder (which Herbeck's careful planning had
even calculated down to cost per gunshot), and made donations to each of the participating units.
Based on Herbeck's research, production designer Arch Bacon had recreated Churubusco down to its stone
bridge, fortified redoubt and Mexican village. Herbeck and the commanders of the various units, depicting the
American 5th and 8th Infantry, dragoons, riflemen, Texas Rangers and volunteers on one side, and Mexican infantry
and artillery on the other, restaged the battle as it was fought. They even included American mobile field artillery - a
significant military development of the Mexican War.
Admist the boom of gunfire and the swirling dust, director Richard Heffron recorded the action on four different
cameras - the first time that an authentically restaged Mexican War engagement had been committed to film!
Herbeck's own unit portrayed Hayes Rangers - and Ray was in the thick of the action. Dressed in a bright blue
battle shirt, dirt-laden military trousers, frontier boots, a Colt 44 in his belt and a Texas star on his blue forage cap
and frontier boots, with his long hair, bushy salt-and-pepper beard and small spectacles, he looked perfect for the
part. As the Mexicans closed upon the Americans, Ray, carrying the Texas flag, staggered up to Officer George
Hazard. The news he delivered – “We're in retreat!”- was ominous. But it was Ray's moment of glory, a well-deserved
cameo for one of the unsung heroes of "North and South."
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