Something The Lord Made is a 2004 Emmy Award and 2005 Peabody Award-winning HBO biopic about the legendary black cardiac pioneer Vivien Thomas and his complex and volatile partnership with white surgeon Alfred Blalock, the world famous "Blue Baby doctor" who pioneered modern heart surgery. Directed by Joseph Sargent, scripted by Peter Silverman and Robert Caswell, and produced by Robert Cort, David Madden and Eric Hetzel, Something the Lord Made stars Mos Def as Vivien Thomas, Alan Rickman as Alfred Blalock, and Mary Stuart Masterson as Helen Taussig.
Based in part on the magazine article "Like Something The Lord Made" by Katie McCabe. It was published in the Washingtonian and earned McCabe the 1990 National Magazine Feature Writing Award.
The Saxon baby's father says he is stationed aboard the Spencer at Norfolk, which means he is a Coast Guardsman. The USCGC Spencer was a 327-foot cutter engaged in cross-Atlantic escort duty during the war.
Dr. Irving Sorkin, a retired Washington, District of Columbia, USA dentist, was instrumental in getting the article by Katie McCabe made into a feature film. He died in Los Angeles, California, USA of lymphoma on 18 October 2007 at the age of 88.
