‘Downton Abbey’s Julian Fellowes and NBC Team Up on ‘The Gilded Age’

Julian Fellowes and NBC Announce The Gilded Age
Julian Fellowes and Gareth Neame (Photo by Carnival Film and Television Limited)

Emmy Award-winning Downton Abbey writer and executive producer Julian Fellowes and NBC are teaming up on the new dramatic series, The Gilded Age, set in New York City in the 1880s. The network has given Fellowes’ The Gilded Age a 10 episode season one order and they’re targeting a 2019 premiere.

Julian Fellowes is writing and executive producing the new series along with writer and executive producer Gareth Neame.

Fellowes earned the Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 2002 for Gosford Park, and he’s won two Primetime Emmys for Downton Abbey in the Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie or Dramatic Special and the Outstanding Miniseries or Movie categories. His writing credits also include The Young Victoria, Vanity Fair, The Prince and the Pauper TV mini-series, and the Little Lord Fauntleroy mini-series.

“To write The Gilded Age is the fulfillment of a personal dream,” said Fellowes. “I have been fascinated by this period of American history for many years and now NBC has given me the chance to bring it to a modern audience. I could not be more excited and thrilled. The truth is, America is a wonderful country with a rich and varied history, and nothing could give me more pleasure than be the person to bring that compelling history to the screen.”


“Julian Fellowes has the peerless ability to create complex characters and relationships set against a fantastic backdrop,” stated Jennifer Salke, President, NBC Entertainment. “We’re thrilled that NBC and Universal Television will bring you his delicious new take on both the emerging rich and the working class who were intricately entwined in opulent New York in 1882. It’s an addictive new universe of fabulous people with the same signature style, wit and emotional resonance for which Julian is famous.”

The Plot: The Gilded Age in 1880s New York City was a period of immense social upheaval, of huge fortunes made and lost, and of palaces that spanned the length of Fifth Avenue. In the series, Marian Brook is the wide-eyed young scion of a conservative family who will embark on infiltrating the wealthy neighboring family dominated by ruthless railroad tycoon George Russell, his rakish and available son Larry, and his ambitious wife Bertha, whose “new money” is a barrier to acceptance by the Astor and Vanderbilt set. Marian is about to experience a whole new world springing up right outside her front door.