Biography

Biography is a documentary television series. Originally produced by CBS in 1962 and hosted by Mike Wallace, the A&E Network later re-ran it and has produced new episodes since 1987. The series has featured biographies on such people as Elvis Presley, Plácido Domingo, Pope John Paul II, Enrico Caruso, Diego Rivera, Mick Foley, Mao Zedong, and Queen Elizabeth II, and fictional characters like The Phantom, Superman, and Santa Claus. The program ended up profiling enough figures, that in 1999 A&E spun the program off into an entire network, The Biography Channel.

Initially, most of the episodes featured the life stories of historical figures or present political or social leaders. After a few years, however, the show began producing episodes on figures from pop culture. This move away from purely intellectual subject matter has been criticized by some. However, the original Wallace series also featured pop culture figures; in fact, the very first episode discussed the life of baseball icon Babe Ruth. In addition, the series has recently covered figures in the business and technology world, such as Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, and Sergey Brin and Larry Page, founders of Google.

Biography has been hosted by Peter Graves, Jack Perkins, Karen Hughes, and Harry Smith. Since Smith's departure in 2003, the show has been done in voice-over by Neil Ross.

The Canadian television comedy series Liocracy was a parody of Biography. That program, in fact, was originally titled Liography until the producers of Biography threatened an intellectual property infringement lawsuit.