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David Manson (producer)

American film and television producer, screenwriter and director

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ5237106
Source-derived summary

David Manson (born 1952) is an American film and television producer, screenwriter and director.

He is perhaps best known for his work on a trio of acclaimed Netflix series: House of Cards, Bloodline, and Ozark, for which he has received multiple Emmy Award and Writers Guild Award nominations.

Early life

Manson was born in New York City to two musicians who had met as students at the Juilliard School. His father, Eddy Manson (né Eddy Lawrence Manson; 1919–1996), a harmonica virtuoso, moved the family to Los Angeles in 1965 to pursue his career as a film composer.

Manson attended the University of California, Santa Cruz on full scholarship before transferring to the University of California, Irvine, where he graduated magna cum laude.

Career

Manson began his career in the theater and worked in various capacities for such venues as the Mark Taper Forum, Playwrights Horizon and the Manhattan Theater Club.

He started in the film business at Dick Berg's Stonehenge Productions where he produced his first film, The Spell (1977), for NBC, at the age of twenty-four. As Senior Vice President of Stonehenge, he produced several movies and miniseries including the first major television miniseries about Vietnam, A Rumor of War (1980), which The New York Times called "unusually ambitious and admirable" and the Washington Post referred to "as true as a movie is going to get".

In 1980, Manson formed his own company, Sarabande Productions, aimed at creating a platform for prestigious writers. He has since worked with Pulitzer Prize winners including Michael Chabon, Donald Margulies and Jules Feiffer, and acclaimed screenwriters such as Joan Tewkesbury, Barbara Turner, John Sacret Young, and National Book Award recipient Denis Johnson.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “David Manson (producer)” as american film and television producer, screenwriter and director. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around David, Manson and producer.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1952, 1919, 1996, 1965—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1952-01-06. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with David, Manson and producer providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “David Manson (producer)”, the useful work is to connect “american film and television producer, screenwriter and director” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5237106. VIAF identifies the subject as 35629276. The Library of Congress control number is no99001186. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1952, 1919, 1996 and 1965.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “David Manson (producer)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow David Manson (producer) primary sources, David Manson (producer) archive and David research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “David Manson (producer)”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from David Manson (producer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.