Gore Vidal’s best-selling 1984 historical novel Lincoln was transformed into this four-hour NBC special which aired over two nights on Sunday 27 March and Monday 28 March 1988.
Vidal often saw Lincoln as cunning whereas others saw him as kindhearted. He contended, for instance, that the Civil War raged on not because Lincoln cared so much about the abolition of slavery, as folklore holds, but because he wanted to preserve the Union.
The author also portrayed Lincoln as unashamedly ambitious. Even Lincoln’s law partner and biographer William Herndon (played in the series by Jeffrey DeMunn) wrote, “His ambition was a little engine that knew no rest.”
Sam Waterston – who bore an uncanny resemblance to the gangly 16th American President, filled Lincoln’s formidable shoes. (They were size 12B for the record). The 47-year-old actor pored over several tomes to research his role, and his reading led to a greater appreciation of Lincoln.
When Waterston – dressed as Lincoln – walked through the streets of Richmond, Virginia, (where the Washington scenes were filmed, in an ironic twist on history), he was surrounded by a crowd. But not all wanted autographs; some wanted to engage him in political discussion.
Mary Tyler Moore played his fragile, misunderstood wife, Mary Todd, in a shining performance.
Moore’s Mary Todd was mentally unbalanced one moment and tough as nails the next, living life to the fullest and then withdrawing completely from it.
There were tirades of anger and jealousy, spells of catatonic depression, a wonderful scene in which she had to be restrained from literally taking on the Confederate Army, and her joy at being surrounded by two lively, ill-behaved boys.
The huge supporting cast included Richard Mulligan as Secretary of State William Seward; Ruby Dee as Mrs Lincoln’s maid, her only friend and confidante; and James Gammon as General Grant, arguably the best among the supporting actors.
Scriptwriter Ernest Kinoy and director Lamont Johnson made the four hours too episodic to be totally satisfying, flitting incessantly between domestic life and affairs of state.
The show never settled at one place long enough for much rapport to develop, never failed to miss a chance to pontificate at all the right places (such as in the case of the famed Gettysburg Address) and never failed to deliver a line that linked past with present.
But there is no denying the mood that was captured in the process – the almost Macbethian chain of emotional and political events which, linked together, toppled both gods and mortals.
There were flashbacks of Lincoln being unrecognised as he arrived in Washington to assume the presidency, an assassination attempt on the dark road filled with soldiers, the burial of a son in a driving rain, the Lincolns coming under fire as they visited a battle line and Mrs Lincoln and Mrs Grant waging a war of words in a bumpy carriage ride.
There were muddy streets, poorly lit homes, whorehouses, injured soldiers and hints of belief in the supernatural.
Taken as a whole, the miniseries really offered nothing new about life and times surrounding the Civil War’s first family. Most of the tarnish had been hinted at in print throughout the years; all the miniseries did was give it a visual bent.
“He made an entirely new country in his own image,” Mrs Lincoln says at the end, recounting the horrendous loss of life and changes in society wrought by his decisions. “I think in some way he willed his own murder, as an atonement for what he had done.”
Abraham Lincoln
Sam Waterston Mary Todd Lincoln
Mary Tyler Moore William H. Seward
Richard Mulligan Kate Chase
Deborah Adair Senator Charles Sumner
Tom Brennan Robert Lincoln
Gregory Cooke Johnny Hay
Steven Culp Elizabeth Keckley
Ruby Dee Congressman Elihu Washburne
Jerome Dempsey William Herndon
Jeffrey DeMunn Secretary of War Edwin Stanton
Jon DeVries Edward McManus
George Ede Stephen Douglas
Robin Gammell General Ulysses S. Grant
James Gammon William Sprague
Thomas Gibson Colonel Elmer Ellsworth
Tim Guinee General George McClellan
David Leary Frederick Douglass
Cleavon Little Salmon P. Chase
John McMartin Ward Hill Lamon
Patrick Rowe General Winfield Scott
John Houseman Henry
Greg Baber Earle
Coby Batty Allan Pinkerton
Bill Chorney Captain Holmes
Ritchie Copenhaver Thompson
Del Driver John Wilkes Booth
Glenn Faigen Mrs Ord
Fay Greenbaum Stewart
Dick Harrington Speaker Hickman
Rick Hite Julia Grant
Karen Hutcheson Editor Forney
Edward James Hyland Mrs Laury
Helen Jervey Blair
Marion Johnson General Wood
Lee Lively Governor Curtin
John Mingus Willie Perham
Patrick Coe McCluskey Fred Grant
Adrian Rieder Sickles
Alan Sader Tad Lincoln
Troy Sweeney Nicolay
Richard Travis Willie Lincoln
Paul Welch
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When Waterston – dressed as Lincoln – walked through the streets of Richmond, Virginia, (where the Washington scenes were filmed, in an ironic twist on history), he was surrounded by a crowd. But not all wanted autographs; some wanted to engage him in political discussion.
