Kirk Browning The Whiz of Performing Arts Television

Kirk Browning's television career extended over nearly six decades and was still going strong when he died on February 10, 2008. Normally, he was on the course of preparing for a forthcoming program. In this case a March 20th telecast of "Madama Butterfly", which would have marked the 186th time he gently ruled the director's chair at Live from Lincoln Center.

It's likely to illustrate Kirk Browning's outstanding achievements simply in terms of numbers. The hundreds of live telecasts at NBC in the 1950s, the scores of innovative in studio opera staging for NBC Opera Theatre and NET Opera, the dozens of productions for Theater in America and American Playhouse, the first director of Live from the Met and Live from Lincoln Center, the series of historical Toscanini broadcasts from Carnegie Hall and Studio 8-H. But just recording his never-ending productivity and range doesn't really come to terms with either the man or his legacy. Because to my mind, there's no question that Kirk Browning was not only one of the founding fathers of American cultural television, but also a boundlessly passionate creative force whose work inspired generations of artists, directors, producers, studio technicians, and viewers.



Browning's widely varied and colorful pre-television career provided him with many of the essential skills that distinguished him as a director, an engaging curiosity and intelligence, a passionate love of the arts, and a happy willingness to experiment. In the years before starting out at NBC in 1948, he tried his hand in many fields: studying piano and composition at Juilliard, majoring in ornithology at Cornell, working as a reporter in Waco, Texas, crafting poetry and music while serving as an ambulance driver in England and France during World War II , writing advertising copy in post-war Manhattan, and finally running a chicken farm in southern Connecticut, where his friendship with neighbor Samuel Chotzinoff ultimately led him to a job at the network.

But just recording his never-ending productivity and range doesn't really come to terms with either the man or his legacy. Because to my mind, there's no question that Kirk Browning was not only one of the founding fathers of American cultural television, but also a boundlessly passionate creative force whose work inspired generations of artists, directors, producers, studio technicians, and viewers.

Even into his 80s, Browning never lost his joyful spirit and engaging passion for performing arts television, continuing to explore new types of projects for Live from Lincoln Center, including musicals, contemporary ballet, concerts of American standards, and intimate chamber-music recitals. Looking back on his career, it's hard not to be overwhelmed by its scope and its quality, let alone its remarkable longevity. Is there anyone else who started at the very beginnings of American network TV who continued to flourish for 60 years? While Kirk Browning won numerous awards and accolades, they can't really do more than suggest the full measure of his achievements. The hundreds of imaginative programs he directed, the techniques he pioneered, the artistic collaborations he found so fulfilling, the co-workers he inspired. His generous manner and ardent embrace of life, art and television will be sorely missed.


By: Bob Jackson