Jacoba Atlas is an American executive producer in television, also publishing as a journalist, music critic, novelist, screenwriter and documentary filmmaker.
She attended the University of California, Berkeley, during the Free Speech Movement, then shifted to the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television for graduate studies.
She published frequently in Melody Maker in the UK – she was their West Coast correspondent[8] – including a piece based on a lengthy, relaxed interview with neighbor Joni Mitchell at her Laurel Canyon home in early 1970.
[10] Atlas previewed the upcoming Nilsson Sings Newman album in 1969 for Melody Maker, reviewed the Doors again in 1971 for New Musical Express, and she wrote about the increasing number of women in hard rock for Billboard, calling out Grace Slick, the Ace of Cups and Fanny, among others.
She reviewed concerts by Aretha Franklin, the Rolling Stones, the Band, Leon Russell, and wrote about a "disastrous appearance" by Joe Cocker.
[2] Other interviews she conducted were with Delaney & Bonnie, Smokey Robinson, Ry Cooder, producer Terry Melcher of the Byrds, Maria Muldaur, the American Breed, Robert Plant, Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge, jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd, singer Brenton Wood, composer Tim Hardin, protest singer Phil Ochs, English rocker Arthur Brown, Gram Parsons, Arlo Guthrie, Elton John, the Four Seasons, Rod McKuen, Johnny Mathis, Jethro Tull, Dennis Wilson, Leonard Cohen and the Jackson 5.
[13] She also wrote for the Los Angeles Free Press, starting with an interview with director Robert Altman discussing his 1970 film M*A*S*H.[14] Atlas wrote articles based on interviews with actors Mae West and George C. Scott, and an investigative piece about the backstory of the 1974 film Chinatown: the California water wars.
In 1994, she wrote A Century of Women, published through TBS Books as a companion to the Turner Broadcasting System television series of the same name.
[1] In 1991 for VU Productions, Atlas co-wrote with Mitchell the screenplay for Danger: Kids at Work, a TV movie starring Amy Irving.
[22] In 1996, TBS tapped Atlas to manage the production of Survivors of the Holocaust, with executive producer Steven Spielberg joining Mitchell.
[26] Atlas wrote and directed Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, based on the 2016 book of the same name written by Monique W. Morris.