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At 10 a.m. sharp last Thursday morning, July 16, Thomas Maier was awaiting the list of Emmy nominees in a way that only a select group tends to do—as if he had a shot at a nod.
If he was anxious, it was nearly impossible to tell via telephone from his home in East Northport. All signs pointed to a humble confidence.
Last year, the Showtime period drama “Masters of Sex”—based on Mr. Maier’s biography of the same name, which tells the story of human sexuality researchers Dr. William Masters and Virginia Johnson—snagged three nominations and one win.
“I don’t know about this year, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed,” he said. “We’ll see.”
Despite its publication six years ago, “Masters of Sex,” the subject of Mr. Maier’s upcoming discussion at the Quogue Library, is still wildly relevant, and is the book for which Mr. Maier is most well known. Soon, that could change: With two television shows in contract with Sony, each based on other books by Mr. Maier, this is just the beginning.
“I’ve been fortunate that, I guess, once you have a hit show, people take a look at your work and say, ‘Are there other books that you have?’” he said. “When I do write a book, I think about the cinematic aspect of it, and I’ve always done that. You’re dealing with the theater of the mind.”
His writerly roots can be traced back to Long Island, where he was raised and still lives. Before transferring to Smithtown High School, where he was editor of the school newspaper, he attended St. Anthony’s High School in Huntington Station. There, he was “the last emperor of the Greene investigative team,” he said—referring to his longtime mentor, the late journalist Robert Greene—while he wasn’t busy on his Newsday route, which stayed in the family for a decade, starting in 1968. He describes it nearly as proudly as he does his now 31-year investigative career with Newsday, in both print and multimedia.
“I was at the Chicago Sun-Times before that. Rupert Murdoch bought it, and 80 of us fled the paper,” he said. “Three of us landed at Newsday, and I’m the only one left.”
On the day of Dr. William Masters’s retirement in 1994, Mr. Maier was extremely busy—knee-deep in investigative work, he said. Reluctantly, he agreed to write about the renowned researcher, and after a 45-minute interview, he was floored.
“Frankly, I didn’t want to do it,” he recalled. “But I got off the phone and I said, ‘A man and a woman studying love and sex who are not married, then became internationally famous, get married, after 20 years get divorced—and nobody knows why they broke up? There has to be a really intriguing narrative.’ And, so, that stuck with me for a number of years.”
Almost a decade later, he finally got to work. In 2003, he convinced Virginia Johnson to cooperate; by this point, Mr. Masters had died, but his unpublished memoir aided the writing process, Mr. Maier said, as did hours upon hours of interviews with Ms. Johnson and their peers.
In the end, the author had what he considered a piece of art, he said. He thought he had great literary ambitions with this book. So when it initially sold 4,000 copies—“which is basically a few libraries and my parents,” he said—he was flummoxed. He thought it was a failure, he said.
But over the course of one weekend in June 2009, “Masters of Sex” suddenly had two glowing reviews in The New York Times—and 10 different film and television offers by week’s end.
Though Mr. Maier envisioned the book as a feature film, Showtime ultimately convinced him that the story arc would be better captured in an episodic format, with actors Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan at the helm. It turned out to be the right move, he said, pointing out that although the show is three seasons deep, it has tackled only a third of the biography to date.
“We’re not only talking about the 1960s and ’70s sexual revolution, we’re talking about some of the eternal questions among the sexes,” he said. “What makes men and women tick? What is love about? That is quite simply what this show is really addressing.
“Yes, it has ‘sex’ in the title,” he continued, “but the show is fundamentally about human intimacy and what is this thing called love. And that’s really at the heart of that particular book and show.”
Though Bravo’s limited series “All that Glitters”—based on Mr. Maier’s “Newhouse: All The Glitter, Power and Glory of America’s Richest Media Empire and the Secretive Man Behind It”—is still in the development stages, the author is already imagining it as “female equality in the boardroom,” as “Masters of Sex” is to “female equality in the bedroom,” he said.
And as for “When Lions Roar: The Churchills and the Kennedys,” also under contract with Sony, Mr. Maier envisions it as “Game of Thrones” meets “Downton Abbey,” with more sex, adultery and rivalry than there was in “Masters of Sex,” ironically.
“I have gone from a guy who was fairly ignorant about the golden age of television to becoming ‘Mr. TV,’” he said. “But, seriously, I’m just a regular reporter at Newsday. I’m not a TV personality. It’s been a thrilling experience, but I intend on trying to be a writer trying to come up with as many terrific books and terrific TV shows as I can imagine. I don’t know if I’ll ever replicate the success of ‘Masters of Sex,’ but I’m certainly going to try.”
By the time 11:30 a.m. ticked around, “Masters of Sex” history had repeated itself—just in different categories. Allison Janney had snagged a nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series, Beau Bridges a nod for Outstanding Guest Actor, and an overall Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Period Program.
Perhaps, this year, they’ll walk away with all three.
Thomas Maier will discuss his book, “Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, The Couple Who Taught America How to Love,” on Saturday, July 25, at 2 p.m. at the Quogue Library. Books will be available for $16.95, plus tax. A signing will follow. For more information, call (631) 653-4224, or visit quoguelibrary.org.
on Jul 21, 2015