Masada (miniseries)

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Masada 1981 TV miniseries

Masada was the name of American television miniseries that aired on ABC in April 1981. Advertised by the network as an "ABC Novel for Television", it was a fictionalized account of the historical siege in 73 A.D. of the Masada citadel by the Roman Empire and the ensuing mass suicide by the Jewish defenders when defeat became imminent. It was one of several historical miniseries produced in the early 1980s to capitalize upon the success of NBC's Shogun in 1980.

The miniseries starred Peter O'Toole as Roman legion commander Lucius Flavius Silva, Peter Strauss as the Jewish commander Elazar ben Ya'ir, and Barbara Carrera. O'Toole was nominated for an Emmy Award for his performance.

Masada was filmed on location at the actual site of the ancient fortress, in the Judean Desert, Israel. Remains of a ramp, created during the filming to simulate the ramp built by the Romans to take the fortress, can still be seen at the site.

As was the case with Shogun, an extremely edited down, feature film-length version of the miniseries was released to the home video market. As was also the case with Shogun the complete Masada mini-series made it to the video market on 4 VHS tapes in 2001.