Julian Fellowes: 'The Gilded Age shows how America's elite made its own rules'

Conceived as a fictional spin-off from

which was to explore the origins of the wealth of the Countess of Grantham, a wealthy heiress of Cincinnati,

became an independent project over the course of Julian Fellowes' research.

First planned for English television, then the American generalist channel NBC, the series, after eight years of adventures, finally arrives on HBO (and at home on OCS).

Meeting by videoconference with the Oscar-winning screenwriter from

and undisputed specialist in high society and etiquette.

LE FIGARO.

- Why did you become passionate about this period?

Julian Fellowes.

-

It all started with a book about Alva Vanderbilt and her daughter Consuelo, Duchess of Marlborough, one of the most famous “dollar princesses” to bail out British nobility.

It introduced me to the other barons of industry and banking: the Goulds, the Morgans, the Carnegies.

I admire their reinvention.

They did not replicate the European success model…

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