TV Talk: Roberto Clemente’s son says new doc celebrates family’s legacy

In addition to playing in multiple local theaters beginning Friday, at a screening followed by a filmmakers’ Q&A at the Byham Theater in Downtown Pittsburgh on Saturday and at a $15 per person ticketed showing at PNC Park Sunday, the new documentary “Clemente” will air on cable’s History Channel at 8 p.m. Sept. 23.

Born in Puerto Rico, Roberto Clemente played for the Pirates for 18 seasons, and while the film includes plenty of footage from those games, it was Clemente off the field that most intrigued director David Altrogge, an Indiana, Pa., native who now resides in Mt. Lebanon. That, along with Altrogge’s persistence, got the attention of Roberto Clemente Jr., the ballplayer’s son.

“David became a pest, to be honest,” Clemente Jr. said, laughing in a Zoom interview last month. “It seemed like [he called] every week for a year and a half or so.”

“You didn’t tell me, ‘No,’ ” Altrogge interjected.

“We were able to sit down and have a cup of coffee, and our conversation turned into something that I really understood where he was coming from,” Clemente Jr. said. “I understood that he was not a baseball guy; it was not gonna be a baseball project. This was gonna be about a human being that happened to play baseball and be able to showcase who he was.”

“Clemente,” which drew acclaim and won the Documentary Spotlight Audience Award at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival, highlights the baseball star’s connection to Pittsburgh fans and his humanitarian work, which claimed his life when a plane he was in ferrying relief supplies crashed in 1972.

Through his Pittsburgh-based Vinegar Hill production company, which makes documentaries and commercials, Altrogge started filming interviews for “Clemente” in 2019, about a year before Clemente Jr. and his brothers, Luis and Enrique, became involved in the film as interview subjects and executive producers.

“He was able to capture my mother’s last interview, her last visit to Pittsburgh,” Clemente Jr. said. “That was very special, and that really cemented my involvement and our involvement with my brothers.”

Vera Clemente, Roberto Clemente’s widow, died in November 2019.

“Clemente” explores the athlete’s frustration with being treated poorly by the media and overlooked in baseball MVP rankings due to prejudice. The film details his childhood, including the death of his sister, using gentle animation to fill in the visuals where no film footage exists.

“There’s almost no photos of him as a young man. I’ve seen two,” Altrogge said. “It was just not something that was a part of his family. They grew up in the [Great] Depression. They didn’t have access to cameras, so I knew we were gonna have to find some way to represent these moments and these other off-the-field, in-private moments, these fan stories.”

In addition to recollections from celebrity fans, including Rita Moreno, Bob Costas, film director Richard Linklater and Pittsburgh native actor Michael Keaton, “Clemente” offers testimony from Pittsburghers who had encounters with him when they were children. One man describes how Clemente played catch with him in his front yard. Donna Brezovic Bass tells a story of getting Clemente’s autograph and volunteering her father to drive Clemente to the airport, which led to a lifelong friendship between her family and the Clementes.

In addition to Vinegar Hill, LeBron James, Maverick Carter’s Fulwell Entertainment, Linklater, Vantage Pictures and Dick’s Sporting Good’s Cookie Jar & a Dream Studios are among the entities behind “Clemente.”

Clemente Jr., who’s been coming to Pittsburgh his whole life thanks to his father’s career here, moved to Pittsburgh eight years ago before the birth of his first child. In addition to the “Clemente” documentary, Clemente Jr. is involved in a theatrical biopic about his father that’s being produced by Thomas Tull’s Teton Ridge and has a director attached. Clemente said he anticipates “some pieces” of the film will be shot in Pittsburgh.

“The director is finishing a project in New York as we speak, and finishing up, hopefully, the [Clemente] script in the next couple of months,” Clemente Jr. said, declining to name the director. “We’re crossing our fingers, hopefully, that pre-production will start at the beginning of [2026] and start filming next year.”

In the documentary, Clemente Jr. says, “Baseball is secondary to what the name Clemente means.”

“We’re very fortunate that Dad left a great legacy, but we’re even better because we had Mom as our mother,” Clemente Jr. said last month. “Mom was a special being. She taught us, without words, how to be humble, how to interact with people, how to love people, how to help and be involved and really care. Being able to have mom’s lineage, as well as dad’s lineage, to really encompass who we are as a family. For us, this documentary is gonna show a lot about where we come from and why we are still talking about Dad 53 years after his death.”

HBO channels renamed

HBO changed the names of several cable channels (which are also in-app channels on HBO Max) to better reflect their content. HBO2 is now HBO Hits, HBO Signature got renamed HBO Drama, HBO Zone became HBO Movies, MoreMAX is now Cinemax Hits, ActionMAX became Cinemax Action and 5starMAX got renamed Cinemax Classics.

Kept/canceled

Netflix renewed sitcom “Leanne” for a second season.

Acorn TV renewed “Signora Volpe” for a third season and “Irish Blood” for a second season.

Netflix’s animated “Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft” will end with its second season, premiering Dec. 11, per Deadline.com. But Sophie Turner (“Game of Thrones”) will play Lara Croft in a new, live-action Amazon Prime Video series that begins filming in January.

Channel surfing

Not only did Pittsburgh-set ER drama “The Pitt” win a Humanitas Award this past weekend for drama teleplay, but Pittsburgh-set, prematurely canceled Amazon Prime Video series “The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh” won a Humanitas Award for comedy teleplay for its first episode written by former Pittsburgher Vijal Patel. … Taking a page from “Stanley Tucci’s Searching for Italy,” CNN will premiere “Tony Shalhoub Breaking Bread” (9 p.m. Oct. 5), featuring the “Monk” star on a global culinary adventure exploring bread in different cultures.