Rebecca Eaton

Three-time Emmy Award winner Rebecca Eaton was born in Boston, but raised in Pasadena, California. With an actress as a mother and a literature professor as a father, it is little wonder Eaton found her calling producing literary adaptations. In 1969, she graduated from Vassar with a degree in English literature, and during her senior year studied abroad in London, where she worked at the BBC as a production assistant and secretary. In 1972, Eaton started a job at WGBH in Boston, where she began her producing career with local and national programming. In 1985, Eaton was hired to become executive producer of the acclaimed dramas "Masterpiece Theatre" and "Mystery!" With a new baby at home, Eaton and her husband decided she'd take on the daunting dual productions while he, sculptor Paul Robert Cooper, would stay home and raise their daughter. Eaton went on to produce more than 150 titles, many based on literary masterpieces like "Jane Eyre," "Bleak House," "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," "Sense & Sensibility," "Dracula," and "The Wind in the Willows." Eaton's extensive and distinguished works have earned 20 Primetime Emmy Awards, 11 Peabody Awards, one Golden Globe, and two Academy Award nominations for the "Masterpiece" co-production "Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown." In 2008, the "Masterpiece Theatre" was reborn as "Masterpiece." With new hosts and a fresh look, Eaton's series looks to draw generations of new fans to a wide range of old classics.