Masada (miniseries)

Masada
DVD cover
Genre	Historical drama
Written by	Ernest Gann (novel) Joel Oliansky
Directed by	Boris Sagal
Starring	Peter O'Toole Peter Strauss Barbara Carrera Anthony Quayle Paul L. Smith David Warner
Narrated by	Richard Basehart
Composer(s)	Jerry Goldsmith (episodes 1 and 2, 1981), Morton Stevens (episodes 3 and 4, 1981)
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of episodes	4
Production
Executive producer(s)	George Eckstein Jennings Lang
Producer(s)	Richard Irving
Location(s)	Masada, Israel
Cinematography	Paul Lohmann
Editor(s)	Edwin F. England Robert L. Kimble Peter Kirby
Running time	394 minutes
Production company(s)	Universal Television
Release
Original network	ABC
Picture format	Film
Audio format	Monaural
Original release	5 April – 8 April 1981

Masada is an American television miniseries that aired on ABC in April 1981. Advertised by the network as an "ABC Novel for Television," it was a fictionalized account of the historical siege of the Masada citadel in Israel by legions of the Roman Empire in AD 73. The TV series' script is based on the novel The Antagonists by Ernest Gann. The siege ended when the Roman armies were able to enter the fortress, only to discover the mass suicide by the Jewish defenders when defeat became imminent.

Masada was one of several historical miniseries produced in the early 1980s following the success of the miniseries Roots that aired on the ABC Network in 1977 and Shogun which aired on NBC in 1980.

The miniseries starred Peter O'Toole as Roman legion commander Lucius Flavius Silva, Peter Strauss as the Jewish commander Eleazar ben Ya'ir, and Barbara Carrera as Silva's Jewish mistress. David Warner, as Pomponius Falco, won an Emmy Award for his role. O'Toole was nominated for an Emmy for his performance. It was his first appearance in an American miniseries.

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