Susan Lacy on Billy Joel, Spielberg and American Masters

How did a young woman who had never produced a film build PBS American Masters, and then get Billy Joel to tell the truth on camera?

Susan Lacy created American Masters, the PBS biography series, in 1986, and ran it for nearly 30 years. Then she started over. She founded Pentimento Productions and began directing for HBO: Spielberg, Jane Fonda in Five Acts, Very Ralph and, with her co-director Jessica Levin, the two-part documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes, which opened the 2025 Tribeca Festival.

In Episode 266, Christian sits down with Susan, who tells it from the start: a college junior reporting on the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, where she was hit over the head and nearly thrown into a paddy wagon. A scholar who wrote an article about television and the arts and got a call from Channel 13 asking her to "put your money where your mouth is." A series nobody at PBS thought would work. "I basically willed this series into being," she says. She raised the money herself every year and launched it in the summer, when everyone else was in reruns.

Then the films. Susan did 40 hours of interviews with Steven Spielberg, and his own children told her they'd never heard the stories. With Billy Joel, she started with what they shared: both fathers came to America from Nazi Germany, and her mother was a concert pianist. When she asked him about sensitivities, Billy told her, "Tell the truth." She talks about building the film from his unpublished memoir, cutting three parts to two, and the lunches, dinners and phone calls it took to bring his first wife, Elizabeth Weber, into the film after 40 years of silence.

WATCH THE FILM: Billy Joel: And So It Goes streams on HBO Max.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• What reporting on Chicago in 1968 taught Susan about telling stories under pressure
• How an article about television led to a job at Channel 13
• Why nobody thought American Masters would work, and how she got it on the air
• Why she says passion is "the single most important ingredient"
• How the end of the DVD market changed documentary funding
• Why many American Masters films can no longer be seen
• How a lunch with the head of HBO led to Pentimento Productions
• Why Spielberg asked for his interviews to go in order
• Why she didn't interview Billy Joel chronologically
• How she prepares so she can put her notes away

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How did Susan Lacy start American Masters?

Susan Lacy says she came up with the idea around 1983, while working at Channel 13 in New York, and nobody at PBS thought it was a good idea. She got a first development grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, kept developing the series while running the Sundance Institute's East Coast office for Robert Redford, and went to markets and festivals in Europe to find partners. American Masters launched in the summer of 1986, when the other networks were in reruns.

How did Susan Lacy get Billy Joel to open up?

She didn't interview him in order. Susan started with what they had in common: both of their fathers came to America from Nazi Germany and went back as American soldiers, and her mother was a concert pianist, so she could talk classical music with him. After those first interviews, she says, he trusted her. She saved the hardest subjects for the end. When she asked about sensitivities, he told her, "Susan, tell the truth."

Why is Billy Joel: And So It Goes two parts instead of three?

Susan Lacy says it was first cut in three parts. Because HBO would air it a week apart, and the opening shot was designed to match the final shot, she worried viewers would forget the opening by the third week. She also believes HBO wanted two parts. They took quite a bit out, with one rule: if it wasn't directly related to the music, it didn't go in.

How many interviews did Susan Lacy do with Steven Spielberg?

About 12 or 13, each over two hours, for 40 hours in all. Spielberg asked that the interviews go chronologically so he could prepare for each one, and after every session he said it was fun and asked why they were doing it again. Susan says that at the premiere dinner, every one of his children told her they had never known any of these stories.

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ABOUT THE GUEST

Susan Lacy created American Masters for PBS in 1986 and was its executive producer for nearly 30 years, responsible for more than 215 films. The series earned 71 Emmy nominations and 28 wins, including 10 for Outstanding Non-Fiction Series, and 12 Peabody Awards. She directed Rod Serling: Submitted for Your Approval, Leonard Bernstein: Reaching for the Note, Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind, Judy Garland: By Myself and Inventing David Geffen for the series. In 2013 she founded Pentimento Productions, where she has directed Spielberg (2017), Jane Fonda in Five Acts (2018) and Very Ralph (2019) for HBO, executive produced The Janes, and co-directed Billy Joel: And So It Goes (2025) with Jessica Levin. Pentimento Productions | Instagram | IMDb

ABOUT DOCUMENTARY FIRST

Documentary First is a weekly podcast about the people behind documentaries and how the work changed them. Host Christian Taylor, director of the award-winning The Girl Who Wore Freedom, talks with filmmakers, distributors, entertainment lawyers, actors and more, from Ken Burns and PBS American Masters creator Susan Lacy to first-timers, across nearly 300 conversations. Each week brings one of two formats: a long-form conversation with the people behind films for HBO, Netflix, PBS and independent film, or The Deep Dive, where Christian takes one insight from a recent conversation and follows it wherever it leads. Listen Notes ranks the show in the top 5% of all podcasts worldwide. New episodes every week.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Billy Joel: And So It Goes at the Tribeca Festival
• American Masters: PBS
• Co-director Jessica Levin on Documentary First: Episode 264