Episode 44: Arthur Smith

07/04/23 • 84 min

1 Listener

As Told To

“The more you try, the luckier you get...”

Words to live by, from podcast guest Arthur Smith, the pioneering television producer behind some of the longest-running unscripted series in history, and author of the just-published motivational memoir Reach: Hard Lessons and Learned Truths from a Lifetime in Television. Arthur’s long-running hit “Hell’s Kitchen,” with Gordon Ramsey, helped to forge the modern food competition reality genre, while his Emmy-nominated “American Ninja Warrior” has spawned a cultural movement and inspired millions to push themselves to next-level successes in their own lives and careers.

As the founder and chairman of A. Smith & Co. Productions, Arthur has produced over 200 shows, for virtually every network and streaming platform, including “The Titan Games,” “Mental Samurai,” “Kitchen Nightmares,” “The Swan” and “Paradise Hotel.” Prior to launching his own production company, he served as the youngest Head of Sports in the history of the Canada’s CBC television network, and as Executive Vice President of Programming, Production and News for FOX Sports. He also served for four years as Senior Vice President of Dick Clark Productions, producing a wide variety of award shows, special events and non-fiction programming.

In Reach, written in collaboration with podcast host Daniel Paisner, Arthur reflects on his remarkable career and shares some of the lessons he’s learned while pushing himself beyond what he ever thought possible.

“In the nonfiction genre people get tired of the same thing,” he recently told a reporter from the Jewish Journal. “The biggest hits in reality/nonfiction television come from originality. So we have to keep reinventing. We have to keep freshening up ideas. We have to keep reaching.”

To learn more about Arthur Smith:

Please support the sponsors who support our show.

Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog
Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount
Libro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership
Film Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton
A Mighty Blaze podcast
The Writer's Bone Podcast Network

“The more you try, the luckier you get...”

To learn more about Arthur Smith:

Please support the sponsors who support our show.

Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog
Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount
Libro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership
Film Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton
A Mighty Blaze podcast
The Writer's Bone Podcast Network

Previous Episode

Episode 43: Peter Asher and David Jacks

First-time author David Jacks, a veteran video editor and music supervisor, ran into legendary music producer Peter Asher at a Santa Monica taco joint in 2003 and asked if he could interview him. Jacks, a long-time admirer of the man said to be the inspiration for Mike Myers’ “shagadelic” Austin Powers character, who first came to prominence as one-half of the hit-making British pop vocal duo Peter and Gordon and would go on to produce generation-defining albums for artists such as James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, Randy Newman, and Diana Ross, immediately asked Asher if he would sit for an interview.

The aspiring journalist thought he might use the interview as the basis for an article in a music magazine, but the two-time Grammy-winning Producer of the Year didn’t think anyone would want to read it. Nevertheless, that first interview led to another... and another... and on and on. Over the next two decades, the two continued to talk, while Jacks lined up interviews with hundreds of musicians and record industry professionals who had worked with Asher over the years, eventually leading to the publication of Peter Asher: A Life in Music, the first book-length account of the producer’s life and career.

Join us for a two-part conversation with author and subject, as Asher reflects on a book he never thought anyone would be interested in reading, and Jacks shares what it was like to tease out the story of a shape-shifting pioneer—“a fascinating music business anomaly,” according to The New York Times, who could never quite understand what all the fuss was about.

Learn more about our guests:

Read The New York Times profile of Peter Asher, timed to coincide with the publication of the David Jacks book.
Read Peter Asher: A Life in Music
Read Peter Asher’s The Beatles from A to Zed, based on the author’s popular Sirius XM radio show on The Beatles Channel.
Peter Asher on Instagram
David Jacks website

Please support the sponsors who support our show.

Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog
Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount
Libro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership
Film Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton
A Mighty Blaze podcast
The Writer's Bone Podcast Network

Next Episode

Episode 45: Debra Ollivier

“I love the process, and the craft of writing, and helping people who have a real deep yearning to put their own story on the page,” reflects best-selling author and collaborator Debra Ollivier, who has helped to develop, ghostwrite, and edit more than 20 titles, with a broad and eclectic mix of authors.

Debra, who lived and worked in Paris at the front end of her writing career, is the author of two enlightening and engaging guides on what it means to be a French woman and why it matters—What French Women Know and Entre Nous—as well as books on wellness, mindfulness, yoga, parenting, cooking and performance training. Her work is featured in the best-selling anthologies Mothers Who Think and Because I Said So. She has served as a contributing editor for Salon and a managing editor for The Huffington Post, and has also written for Harper’s, Playboy, The New York Times, Parents, Le Monde, and other publications.

“I think for me I kind of have to be all in,” she says about the factors she considers when taking on a new project. “I do like working with people who are very purpose driven... I find that I work better when I have an intrinsic level of enthusiasm, and when I feel like I’m not only helping this author-slash-client, but I’m also making a contribution to the world, as cliché as that might sound.”

Learn more about Debra Ollivier:

Please support the sponsors who support our show.