Los Angeles, February 14, 2012 – WHEN THEY WERE YOUNG is a 13 x 1 hour drama series, created by John Goldsmith and Paul Barron, that tells the story of the young men and women whose later impact on the world has made their names globally recognizable.  There comes a moment in each of these young lives where you find a turning point, a critical moment after which you can say: “and the rest is history.”  The series will highlight individuals such as Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, Pope John Paul II, Mao Zedong, Eva Peron, and more.

We meet each individual when they are still fresh and vibrant.  We laugh and cry with them as they emerge into adulthood and find their way.  By the time they reach the dramatic climax, the turning-point, we understand who and what has created that moment, why they are what they have become and what they will be.

Everybody, whether famous, infamous or neither, is the product of parents, upbringing, environment, the struggle to find oneself. So much is obvious.

What is perhaps less obvious is that in the case of the world-shapers, the stories are invariably highly dramatic, the struggles fierce, the forces at work complex and fascinating.

Lawless Entertainment is currently seeking co-production partners on this project.

“Paul Barron and I are delighted to be working with Cathy Malatesta and the team at Lawless Entertainment to bring the formative years of the world’s movers and shakers to the small screen,” says John Goldsmith, co-creator of WHEN THEY WERE YOUNG. 

“I am honored to work with John on this amazing project,” says Cathy Malatesta, President of Lawless Entertainment.  “WHEN THEY WERE YOUNG is destined to be a success worldwide.”

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Notes to Editors:

About Lawless Entertainment

Lawless Entertainment, a Los Angeles-based company that creates, co-produces, distributes and markets both animated and live-action programming throughout the world for both film and television that is headed up by President Cathy Malatesta.  Lawless works with content providers and has relationships with top film, television, home video, online and mobile distribution entities throughout the world.

For more info contact Sondra Contino at (949) 419-6156 or visit www.lawlessent.com.

About John Goldsmith

John was educated at Winchester, where he won the Queen’s Gold Medal for English Verse, and the University of Aix-Marseille (Diplome de langue et lettres Francaises.). At the age of 22 he sold his first novel, Mrs. Mount, Ascendant, to Leonard Woolf at the Hogarth Press. He subsequently worked for Hogarth/Chatto & Windus as a part-time reader and editor while breaking into TV by contributing episodes to the action-adventure series The Protectors.

After a short stretch in business he returned to full-time writing with the publication of his second novel, The Icing of Balthazar, in 1977, and a script for the cult sci-fi series Space, 1999. He also took on freelance editing work, with Edna Healy’s Lady Unknown, Sir John Gielgud’s An Actor And His Time, and the art historian Roger Hinx’s acclaimed Gymnasium of the Mind. He gave up this sort of work in 1986 having reached the summit of Sir Stephen Spender’s Journals. During this period he also contributed scripts to vintage British TV series including The New Avengers, The Return of the Saint and The Professionals.

In film and television, since the late 1980’s he has concentrated on historical subjects (Catherine The Great; Kings In Grass Castles; Paradise Found; A Bear Named Winnie; La Belle Otero), classic adaptations (Great Expectations; The Old Curiosity Shop; David Copperfield; Kidnapped) and Biblical epics (In The Beginning; Mary Mother of Jesus; The Gospel of John). He started writing for the American market in 1987 with The Disney Channel’s thirteen-hour swashbuckler Return To Treasure Island.

He has published three other novels, including his child of shame, the airport bookstall blockbuster Bullion (1982).  He has also published numerous children’s books.

His TV documentary Mrs. Livingstone, I Presume won the Silver Award at the New York International Film and TV Festival. His feature adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Danny, Champion Of The World was nominated for an ACE in the writing category and won the award for Children’s Programming 9+, picking up five more awards in various festivals and countries. His Waltz Through The Hills picked up numerous awards, including the 1988 Australian Pater Award. As writer, he was nominated for an Emmy in 1998-99 for The Island On Bird Street and the movie itself won Best Picture in its category. His critically acclaimed mini series Victoria & Albert was nominated for Best Mini Series at Banff in 2002. His Gospel of John won the Templeton Foundation Epiphany Award in 2003. In 2005 he was nominated for a Gemini Award for A Bear Named Winnie.

In 1978 he published the best-selling Voyage In The Beagle, an account of the re-enactment of Darwin’s famous voyage in which he served as a crewmember of the replica ship that featured in the BBC series The Voyage of Charles Darwin. Darwin resurfaced in his 2008 movie Darwin’s Darkest Hour.

His current projects include a feature on Mao Zedong, China Skies, a stage musical based on David Copperfield, and a book about the Jeremy Thorpe/Norman Scott scandal, A Very English Affair.

He is married and lives in Hampstead. His only son was killed in a car crash in France in 2005.

For a full list of screen credits go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0326089/

About Paul Barron      

Paul Barron has enjoyed an extensive career as a writer, producer, executive producer, and creator of a variety of projects.  Paul began his film/TV career in 1983 when he produced the drama, Bush Christmas, which featured the screen debut of Nicole Kidman.

Paul continued producing both TV and features throughout the 1980s and 1990s including the Australian classic feature Shame and Father (starring Max von Sydow). His productions have won over 50 national and international awards for excellence.

Paul produced the multi-award winning, international co-production mini-series Kings in Grass Castles and Tracks of Glory, both based on true stories. Other productions include the popular TV series Ship to Shore, which ran for 78 episodes from 1993-1996 as well as the primetime drama Sweat which starred Heath Ledger in his first major screen role.

More recently Paul created and produced the TV series Parallax and Streetsmartz and is currently in production on a documentary series about “the extraordinary stories behind ordinary stuff” and is currently developing a new drama series set in the turbulent world of 1960’s Singapore.

Paul and John first collaborated on the family mini-series A Waltz Through the Hills which was a co-production involving the US, UK and Australia. Since then they have worked together on a number of projects including Kings in Grass Castles and most recently co-created the sci-fi drama series Stormworld which was produced as a co-production involving Australia, Canada and Singapore.

For a full list of screen credits go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0057704/