In a show business career spanning three decades, Allen Sabinson has been President of Production at Miramax Film, and has held senior positions at A&E, TNT, ABC, ICM, NBC and Showtime.
During Sabinson's tenure as senior vice president of programming, A&E received more Emmy nominations than any basic cable network for two consecutive years, and won Emmy awards for the best mini-series for Horatio Hornblower and best non-fiction series for Biography.
Sabinson was responsible for all creative and business supervision of A&E's television productions. He commissioned such films as Dash and Lilly, a biography of Dashiell Hammett, directed by Oscar winner Kathy Bates and starring Sam Shepard and Judy Davis, that received eight Emmy nominations; and The Crossing, that won the Peabody Award. He also initiated the network's first drama series, Sidney Lumet's 100 Centre Street, and Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe.
While at A&E, Sabinson commissioned numerous documentary specials including Nickel and Dimed based on Barbara Ehrenreich's best seller, Michael Apted's Married in America and documentary adaptations of the Nazi Officer's Wife and Karen Armstrong's The History of God. Concert specials were done with Billy Joel, Sting, Willie Nelson, Neil Diamond and Elton John.
While at TNT, he was responsible for the production of Gettysburg, which was released theatrically and sold more than one million copies in VHS & DVD releases. He also commissioned the Emmy-award winning mini-series The Old Testament. At ABC, Sabinson brought The Hallmark Hall of Fame franchise to the network, with such films as My Name Is Bill W, and ABC's mini-series Separate but Equal won the Emmy for best mini-series. He also helped create the Stephen King franchise on ABC with the production of It and he commissioned the Peabody-award winning Small Sacrifices. As head of original programming at Showtime, Sabinson brought championship boxing to the pay cable network as well as It's Garry Shandling's Show.
During the course of working on thousands of hours of film and television, Sabinson has cast such stars as Tommy Lee Jones, Hugh Grant, Robert Duvall, Matt Damon, John Malkovich, Ed Harris, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jamie Lee Curtis, Diane Keaton, Catherine Zeta Jones, Sharon Stone and Mira Sorvino. He has worked with such creative luminaries as David Mamet, Stephen Sondheim, Wendy Wasserstein, Neil Simon, Ronald Harwood, John Frankenheimer, Sir Peter Hall, and Nic Roeg.