The Thorn Birds (miniseries)

The Thorn Birds
DVD cover
Genre	Drama Romance
Based on	The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
Written by	Carmen Culver Lee Stanley
Directed by	Daryl Duke
Starring	Richard Chamberlain Rachel Ward Barbara Stanwyck Christopher Plummer Jean Simmons Bryan Brown Philip Anglim Richard Kiley Piper Laurie
Theme music composer	Henry Mancini
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of episodes	4
Production
Executive producers	Edward Lewis David L. Wolper
Producer	Stan Margulies
Production locations	William Andrews Clark Memorial Library Big Sky Ranch Kaua'i Los Angeles City Hall Warner Brothers Burbank Studios
Cinematography	Bill Butler
Editors	Robert F. Shugrue David Saxon Carroll Timothy O'Meara
Running time	467 minutes
Production companies	David Wolper–Stan Margulies Productions Edward Lewis Productions Warner Bros. Television
Original release
Network	ABC
Release	March 27 (1983-03-27) – March 30, 1983 (1983-03-30)
Related
The Thorn Birds: The Missing Years (1996)
Infobox instructions (only shown in preview)

The Thorn Birds is an American 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.^[1] 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.