The Show Must Go On for ABC, But Without Mel

TV Guide got ABC’s Quinn Taylor to admit that the show should go on–without Mel Gibson. ABC execs want make the miniseries Flory: Survival in the Valley of Death, but sans the participation of Gibson’s production company. ABC had bought the memoir of Flory A. Van Beek, a Dutch Jew who was hidden from the Nazis by her gentile neighbors after an independent producer, Daniel Sladek, brought them the story. ABC then included Gibson’s production company in the deal, hoping Mel would drag in his Passion audience. Jaffe/Braunstein Films Ltd., the other production company that had been working with Icon Productions on the project, would remain involved.

ABC’s source says that Mel’s company is resisting the heave-ho, and that public reaction to Gibson make his involvement a deal-breaker.

TV Guide says:

If ABC let Mel Gibson do this miniseries, with his distorted views of Jewish history and Jewish people,
Rabbi Allen Freehling, chairman of the Los Angeles Human Relations Commission, tells TV Guide, it would clearly be a way of profaning the six million Jews who lost their lives in the Holocaust.

Earlier, Quinn Martin had a different take when he told the NY Times

Controversy’s publicity, and vice versa.

Ms. Van Beek said last December that she respects everybody’s beliefs. FBLA is glad someone in this mess has some dignity.