TV Talk: Mahalia Jackson, Ernest Hemingway revisited in new programs

Two biographies of famous Americans – one a fictional movie, the other a documentary – highlight the next week of TV premieres.

‘Mahalia’

Gospel biopic “Robin Roberts Presents: Mahalia” (8 p.m. Saturday, Lifetime) stars Tony Award nominee Danielle Brooks (“Orange Is the New Black”) as gospel legend Mahalia Jackson, who sang at the 1963 civil rights March on Washington alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In a Zoom news conference as part of the Television Critics Association winter 2021 virtual press tour, Brooks said the notion of playing Jackson first came to her when she was on Broadway in “The Color Purple” and two of her co-stars, Jennifer Hudson and Jennifer Holliday, suggested she should play Jackson in a biopic.

Brooks said she started reading books about Jackson and shared the idea with her agent. Six years later, this Lifetime movie came along, and director Kenny Leon (“American Son”) suggested Brooks for the lead role.

Brooks said she connected with Jackson beyond their shared singing talent.

“I know for a fact that Mahalia stood firm on her faith with God, and I’ve also had to do the same thing through my journey,” Brooks said. “I think that’s why I was so connected to who she was, because I also grew up in the church, and I also had to lean on God when I felt like I couldn’t do things, and this was definitely one of those moments where I didn’t know how the story was going to get told, where the story was going to get told but I had to trust that what was told to me in my spirit, what was given to me, was that I was supposed to play Mahalia Jackson, and I had to trust that.”

“Mahalia” airs under the “Robin Roberts Presents” banner, an outlet for the “Good Morning America” anchor beyond the morning news broadcast.

“I love saying, ‘Good Morning America,’ ” Roberts said. “I love setting the tone for people in the morning and to be able to inform people, enlighten people, but I needed to stretch another creative muscle and that’s what I’m able to do under the ‘Robin Roberts Presents’ banner.”

‘Hemingway’

Actor Jeff Daniels (“The Newsroom”), currently in Pittsburgh filming Showtime’s “American Rust,” gives voice to the title character in PBS’s “Hemingway” (8-10 p.m. Monday-Wednesday, WQED-TV), a six-hour documentary film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick.

“There’s such a brevity and a simplicity (in his writing) that it just boils down to him telling you the truth. And there’s no adornment,” Daniels said of writer Ernest Hemingway during the PBS portion of the Television Critics Association virtual winter 2021 press tour. “Since doing the reading for Ken and Lynn, I have ceased using adjectives and adverbs because I felt so guilty. He inhabits the skin of his opposite, and that’s what actors do. That’s what great artists do. And nice to know that those of us who are acting and do that didn’t invent it. People like Hemingway did.”

Other actors voicing characters in the film include Meryl Streep, Keri Russell, Mary-Louise Parker and Patricia Clarkson as Hemingway’s four wives.

Burns said he and Novick were drawn to the idea of making a film about the real Hemingway, author of “The Old Man and the Sea,” “A Farewell to Arms” and “The Sun Also Rises,” not the persona of the wild, drunk big-game hunter.

“Almost immediately, we began to see how thin and frail that was,” Burns said. “For us, the great pleasure of diving in and, of course, the great gift of Jeff’s reading to us — not just passages from his novels and short stories, but from his letters — is how much (Hemingway) was struggling every day to maintain that discipline to touch those moments common to us all, that are universal, but also wrestling with a whole set of demons, a whole set of problems that begin to betray the mask of the he-man that he built for himself.”

Kept/canceled/spun off

PBS’s “Masterpiece” series “Miss Scarlet and The Duke” will return for a second season.

Apple TV+ renewed British comedy “Trying” for a third season ahead of its second-season premiere May 14.

CBS renewed “Young Sheldon” for three seasons through 2023-24.

Starz canceled “American Gods” after three seasons.

This summer The CW will air “Wellington Paranormal,” a spin-off of the 2014 film (not the FX series) “What We Do in the Shadows.” “Wellington” will stream the next day on HBO Max and The CW app.

CBS’s “FBI” and “FBI: Most Wanted” will be joined by “FBI: International,” a second spin-off from producer Dick Wolf that will premiere during the 2021-22 TV season.

HBO’s “Game of Thrones” will get a stage play prequel on Broadway.

Channel surfing

For April’s Autism Awareness Month, Fred Rogers’ Production’s “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” kicks off a week of new episodes introducing a character with autism Monday (9:30 a.m. weekdays, WQED-TV). … Apple TV+ movie “The Banker” won the 52nd NAACP Image Awards trophy for original independent motion picture Saturday. Pittsburgher Stan Younger is among the film’s credited writers. … Comcast Xfinity customers who also subscribe to Disney+ can now access the streamer via X1 and Flex devices (ESPN+ will also be added). … “Gangs of London,” which streamed on AMC+ last fall, comes to AMC’s linear cable channel at 10 p.m. Sunday . … Friday Disney+ adds a slew of little-seen “Star Wars” content including two late ’80s made-for-TV Ewok movies (“Caravan of Courage,” “Ewoks: The Battle for Endor”), two seasons of the animated Saturday morning “Ewoks” series, the animated Boba Fett introduction from the “Star Wars Holiday Special” (“The Story of the Faithful Wookiee”) and two volumes of Genndy Tartakovsky’s animated “Star Wars: Clone Wars.” … The Diocese of Greensburg’s Easter Mass will air at 10 a.m. Sunday on WPCW-TV. … CBS will revive the original “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” as “CSI: Vegas” for the 2021-22 TV season. The show will feature a mostly new cast but original series stars William Petersen and Jorja Fox will reprise their roles.