User:Spenmoll2/sandbox/Nancy Lewis

Nancy Lewis (Feb. 20, 1943-Dec. 20, 2019) >was an American promoter responsible for introducing the British comedy troupe Monty Python Flying Circus to American audiences. Born in Detroit, she attended Redford public high school and Michigan State University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in film and television production in 1964.

While in college she was a campus correspondent for Billboard, and after graduating she went to New York and then London, where the rock scene was exploding. She found work writing for a pop music magazine, Fabulous, and in early 1965 interviewed an emerging band called the Who and soon became the group’s publicist. She also helped promote Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, Traffic and other acts in the 1960s.

In 1971, she went to work for Buddah Records, where two Python albums — ‘Another Monty Python Record’ and ‘Monty Python’s Previous Record — caught her attention. Though popular in the United Kingdom, they were unheard of in the United States. She began taking the troupe’s records to FM radio stations, which she knew were willing to try new things and play longer cuts. The Pythons started developing American fans, but there was still a reluctance to import its TV series. Converting the episodes to the format used in the United States was expensive, and there was a fear that “Flying Circus” was too full of Britishisms to interest Americans, not to mention too saucy.

But Ms. Lewis kept at it, and by October 1974, the entire Python first TV series, which had been broadcast in the U.K., was being screened on American TV by PBS.

PBS affiliates began showing the series, and Ms. Lewis became the Pythons’ American manager.