November 2007

THE FACTS VS. ‘FARNSWORTH’

Ent047a
With the play opening officially this coming Monday night, it’s gratifying to see "the rest of the story" — the REAL story that the play neglects, beginning to get some traction:

Link: THE FACTS VS. ‘FARNSWORTH’.

November 30, 2007 — CAN Aaron Sorkin handle the truth – or does he just not care? So wonder Philo T. Farnsworth fans who’ve seen Sorkin’s new Broadway play.

Opening Monday, "The Farnsworth Invention" describes Farnsworth’s struggle to build a TV system and protect his work against RCA and its leader, David Sarnoff. Audiences leave believing Farnsworth was a failed, drunken genius.

In truth, Farnsworth won his patent fight, showed off a working TV system in 1934 and was manufacturing TVs by 1939.

Farnsworth’s admirers, who’ve tried for decades to adjust the fuzzy historical picture, say Sorkin’s drama plays like a bad rerun.

"After 30 years of telling that story, we finally see it turned into popular entertainment, and it’s wrong!" says Paul Schatzkin, author of the Farnsworth biography "The Boy Who Invented Television."

Follow this link for a scene-by-scene analysis of the play -v- the true story

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Strike claims play about TV inventor Farnsworth

The AP’s television writer Frazier Moore has picked up the story of "Farnsworth’s" postponed Broadway debut, as reported in the inventor’s home town paper, the Fort Wayne (IN) Journal Gazette. Another lousy break for Philo Farnsworth. Farnsworth is the chap who invented television 80 years ago, then was cheated out of his due credit, fame

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