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NOT USED, BUT KEEP FOR REFERENCE: CT Tourism Council Announces A Grant For

Mark Twain Documentary

HARTFORD (December 1998) -- First Lady Patricia Rowland, honorary chairman of

the Connecticut Tourism Council, has announced that the council has pledged

$530,000 to support a documentary on the life of Mark Twain. The documentary

will be filmed largely in Connecticut and broadcast nationally on PBS in 2001.

The two-episode, four-hour documentary will be produced by the filmmaker Ken

Burns, his long-time collaborator Dayton Duncan, and Florentine Films, the

company founded by Mr Burns in 1975. Public television station WETA, which

serves the Washington, D.C. area, is the co-producer and sponsoring station.

"Twain was the quintessential traveler," Mrs Rowland said. "He roamed the

United States as a lecturer. He toured Europe, the Holy Land, Asia, the

Hawaiian Islands and other parts of the globe, writing constantly -- and often

hilariously -- of everything he experienced.

The pledge of $530,000 over a three-year period was voted unanimously by the

council, which is composed of representatives from various sectors within

Connecticut's travel industry, Mrs Rowland said. In approving the grant, she

added, council members cited measurable increases in tourism following Mr

Burns' documentaries filmed in Virginia and Montana.

James F. Abromaitis, commissioner of the State Department of Economic and

Community Development, cited The Commonwealth of Virginia as an example of the

expected economic impact in Connecticut. Virginia agreed to underwrite Mr

Burns' Thomas Jefferson documentary after receiving 30,000 British and 40,000

domestic inquiries in a three-month period following airing of "The Civil

War."

Following the Jefferson airing, Mr Abromaitis added, Monticello -- the primary

focus of the filming -- experienced a 40 percent increase in visitations.

Other sites reported similar increases.

Edward Dombroskas, executive director of the Connecticut Office of Tourism,

also spoke of the long-range impact of the investment.

"This documentary, together with the publicity and marketing efforts that

accompany it, will enable us to position Connecticut in a way not previously

possible," said Mr Dombroskas. "It's an opportunity to reveal to the rest of

the country and the world what we've always known about Connecticut and its

cultural heritage."

The Mark Twain House, where Twain did his writing, and other Connecticut sites

where he received inspiration, will be the focus of much of the filming. The

documentary will bring to life the writer who "had something to say on

virtually every salient issue facing our country today, from the intractable

problem of racism to the role of fast-changing technology, from the challenge

of preserving individual identity in an increasingly mass culture to the

United States' proper place in the world," Ken Burns said.

Filming for the documentary, expected to cost $1.7 million, will begin in the

winter of 1999.