Biography
Norman Stephens Emmy and Peabody Award-winning Executive Producer
Norman Stephens began his producing career with Krost/Simon Productions overseeing television movies and miniseries, including six films for CBS starring Elizabeth Montgomery. In 1985 he was recruited by Warner Bros. Television as VP Movies and Miniseries. Under his watch the Studio was the most prolific supplier of long-form programming to the major networks. His highlights included PROMISE, the most awarded program in television history, the multiple Emmy Award-winning biography of the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, MY NAME IS BILL W., and the miniseries NORTH AND SOUTH. He was promoted to Senior Vice President, Creative Affairs in 1990 and supervised the development of over 100 pilot scripts and more than 25 pilot productions. Product under his supervision garnered dozens of Emmy Awards, including "bests" for picture, director, writer, actor and actress.
Following ten years at Warner Bros., Stephens joined Village Roadshow Pictures in 1995 as Executive Vice President, Film and Television where he supervised all creative matters for this multi-faceted international exhibitor, distribution, and production company.
In 1999 Stephens elected to form his own independent production company under which he produced the miniseries THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS based on the iconic Orson Welles' film. Directed by Alfonso Arau, the film for A&E Networks starred Madeleine Stowe, Bruce Greenwood, Jennifer Tilly, Gretchen Mol, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, and James Cromwell.
In 2001, Stephens produced BANG BANG YOU'RE DEAD for Showtime Network. The film won four Emmy Awards including Best Picture, Best Writer, Best Director, and Best Actor for its star, Ben Foster, and also received the George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in television programming. In 2002, he produced BENEDICT ARNOLD: A QUESTION OF HONOR for A&E Networks. The film starred Aidan Quinn and Kelsey Grammer and was directed by Mikael Salomon. It was the most-watched movie on A&E in the 2002 - 2003 television season.
Independently, Stephens completed the remake of the classic television movie, SYBIL. Directed by Joseph Sargent and starring Tammy Blanchard, Jessica Lange, and JoBeth Williams, and with a script by John Pielmeier, the film aired on CBS and Lifetime Networks in the 2007-2008 season. Also, for Lifetime in 2010, he produced MY NAME IS SARAH, starring Jennifer Beals about a woman who pretends to be a recovering alcoholic to pursue a romantic interest until the burden of her lie requires her confession in an AA meeting.
In June, 2009 Stephens completed a dramatic film, DARWIN'S DARKEST HOUR, based on the life of Charles Darwin and his wife Emma for National Geographic Television and Nova. The film stared Henry Ian Cusick (LOST) and Frances O'Connor (MANSFIELD PARK, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE). The film won the prestigious History Makers' Award for Best Historical Drama.
From 2009 through 2012, Stephens was affiliated with Evergreen Films based in Alaska and Los Angeles. His responsibilities included participating in the development of theatrical feature films that stretch the human imagination through the marriage of heroic story-telling and cutting-edge technology.
Two of Stephens' films premiered on the UP Channel in 2015: MY MOTHER'S FUTURE HUSBAND, starring Lea Thompson, and ANGELS IN THE SNOW starring Kristy Swanson. Both were written by Julie Brazier.
In 2016, Stephens launched the first of the "Mistletoe" Christmas movies for the Hallmark Channel based on the best-selling novels by Richard Paul Evans. THE MISTLETOE PROMISE starring Jamie King aired in November of 2016 and garnered the fifth highest rating that year for Hallmark. It was followed in 2017 by THE MISTLETOE INN starring Alicia Witt which aired Thanksgiving evening to the highest dramatic ratings of the holiday week. THE MISTLETOE SECRET starring Kellie Pickler will air on the Hallmark Channel for Christmas 2019.
Stephens is a graduate of Princeton University and attended Cornell Law School. He lives in northern Nevada where he, his wife, daughter and son are avid skiers in the Tahoe region of the Sierras.
July, 2019
