Mark Shivas
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Mark Shivas (born 1938) is a British television producer and executive. He began his career at BBC Television in the 1960s, and quickly became one of the department's noted producers. He achieved particular success with the costume drama The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970) and Dennis Potter's Casanova (1971), the former of which earned three Emmy Award nominations in 1972.
Other notable productions he oversaw included the anthology series Black and Blue (1973), which included the play Secrets by Michael Palin and Terry Jones. The play was wiped from the archives, as was common practice at the time, but a recording made by Shivas on an early domestic video format from the mastertape at the BBC and transferred onto VHS in the 1980s preserved a copy, later allowing it to be released as an extra feature on the Ripping Yarns DVD set. In 1981 Shivas produced The Borgias, an unfortunate blot on his curriculum vitae.
In 1987 Shivas became Head of Drama at the BBC, a position he occupied until 1993 when he moved across to head up the Corporation's fledgling film arm. In recent years, he has returned to producing as a freelancer. Some of his most noted productions since then have been the second series of Alan Bennett's Talking Heads monologues in 1998 and the 2003 espionage drama Cambridge Spies.
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| Preceded by Jonathan Powell |
BBC Television Head of Drama 1987-1993 |
Succeeded by Charles Denton |
