How the producer behind Roseanne, The Cosby Show and That '70s Show ended up bringing Peaky Blinders to TV

The Atlantic

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Caryn Mandabach was the sitcom producer with the golden touch, producing Roseanne, The Cosby Show, Cybill, Grace Under Fire, 3rd Rock From the Sun and That ’70s Show. With American TV environment becoming more difficult for independent TV producers, Mandabach moved to Britain in 2005, making what she calls "a weird, giant leap." Mandabach boasts that she gave Succession creator Jeremy Armstrong his first TV job, a UK adaptation of That '70s Show. But it took eight years for her first hit series, Peaky Blinders. She recalls creator Steven Knight pitching the story to her in a cafe. “Like Steve Knight, I have a vague gangster background,” she says. “But only vague.”