PBS’ ‘American Masters’ Gets the Line on Caricaturist Al Hirschfeld

In “The Line King,” Susan Dryfoos has given us an affectionate tribute to Al Hirschfeld, who like Thomas Nast and Norman Rockwell, created images Americans cherish of themselves. Featured tonight at 9 as part of the PBS series “American Masters” is a shortened version of Dryfoos’ original Oscar-nominated documentary, which played theatrically and on Cinemax. Though trimmed from 87 minutes to 58, happily, the editors made their cuts gently, and the film plays smoothly.

Hirschfeld emerges as a genial, unpretentious man, bemused by his own renown. He originally wanted to be a sculptor (“a sculpture is a drawing you fall over in the dark”); two early statues and examples of his lithographs and water colors indicate that his talent encompassed many media. But he found work as a caricaturist in the early ‘20s, doing posters and advertisements for silent films.

In 1926, his drawings began appearing in magazines and newspapers, and Hirschfeld found his niche. He spent the next seven decades doing his extraordinary caricatures. Robert Goulet, Katharine Hepburn, Colleen Dewhurst, Liza Minnelli and Lauren Bacall are among the celebrities paying tribute to their portraitist. Observing a drawing of herself, Carol Channing remarks, “I’d like to look like that.”

Not everyone has been pleased with Hirschfeld’s depictions. When “Candid Camera” creator Allan Funt complained that a drawing made him look like an ape, Hirschfeld replied, “That was God’s work--I had nothing to do with it.”

Dryfoos examines Hirschfeld’s theatrical drawings decade by decade, juxtaposing them with archival photographs and footage of the performers. These mini-montages are set to songs from appropriate Broadway shows, but the key element on the soundtrack is the faint scratch of a pen point on paper. Hirschfeld still draws with a fluid grace that an artist one-third his age might envy. The lines are as eloquent as ever, with no tremors or faltering to indicate the artist is approaching his 100th birthday.

Although Hirschfeld is usually associated with the theater, Dryfoos reminds the audience that he has also drawn movie stars, TV performers, classical musicians, conductors, composers, writers and pop singers. Near the end of the film, Disney animator Eric Goldberg, who looked to Hirschfeld for inspiration when he drew the shape-shifting Genie in “Aladdin,” notes, “Hirschfeld represents the history of entertainment in this country--really for the entire century.”

* “The Line King” airs today at 9 p.m. on KCET.