‘Shaking It Up: The Life and Times of Liz Carpenter’ Premiering on PBS
Documentary fans, check your local PBS listings this upcoming March for Shaking It Up: The Life and Times of Liz Carpenter which premieres Monday, March 3.
Directed by Peabody Award winner Abby Ginzberg and Liz Carpenter’s daughter, Christy, this fascinating film goes behind the scenes to tell the story of the trailblazing political journalist and feminist leader Liz Carpenter, who was the executive assistant to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson — she even wrote the famous words he read after the assassination of John F. Kennedy — and then later the press secretary for Lady Bird Johnson from 1963 to 1969, at a time when women were hardly allowed into the White House.
Collection of Christy Carpenter
“She was a colorful character,” Christy Carpenter, who coproduced the film, says of why she was inspired to bring her mother’s story to the screen. “She had a larger-than-life, Texas-size personality, extremely funny and bold. She was always working, always on the move. My brother and I called her the white tornado.”
“She’s inspirational in terms of both creative planning and having a long view, laying the groundwork so that the next generation can pick up the sword and keep fighting,” adds Ginzberg. “She was an organizer, she was a strategist, and she thought outside the box.”
One example of this was Liz Carpenter’s push to integrate women into the National Press Club; at the time she began her career as a journalist, they were only allowed to sit upstairs and watch. “She started figuring out who she could get to not give a speech at the National Press Club, and it turned out to be Nikita Khrushchev, in order to bring the point home that if they don’t figure out how to make it work with us, we’re going to give you a lot of trouble,” Ginzberg shares.
Collection of Christy Carpenter
“There was a Cold War on, and there was no way that the National Press Club was going to give up on having Khrushchev speak to its members,” Christy adds. “Even if it meant the horror of having women sit on the floor and be able to ask questions along with the men.”
1965
February 2025
Flashback to 1965 and celebrate the very best of TV, Movies, Music, Fashion & more!
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