The Thorn Birds (miniseries)

The Thorn Birds is an American romantic drama television miniseries, broadcast on ABC from March 27 to 30, 1983. It starred Richard Chamberlain, Rachel Ward, Barbara Stanwyck, Christopher Plummer, Piper Laurie, Jean Simmons, Richard Kiley, Bryan Brown, Mare Winningham and Philip Anglim. It was directed by Daryl Duke and based on the best-selling 1977 novel of the same name by Colleen McCullough. The series was enormously successful, being the second most widely watched television miniseries in history at the time, behind Roots. The Thorn Birds scored a staggering 41.9 rating and 59 percent of the audience, and was nominated for sixteen Emmys, winning six. It was followed by a sequel miniseries in 1996, The Thorn Birds: The Missing Years, showing some of what the characters experienced during the nineteen-year time gap in the original.