Charles Guggenheim

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Charles Guggenheim (born March 31, 1924 in Cincinnati , Ohio , † October 9, 2002 in Washington, DC ) was an American film director , film producer and screenwriter of documentaries and Oscar winner .

Life

Early life

Charles Guggenheim grew up in a wealthy Jewish family; his father earned his living as a furniture dealer.

Guggenheim junior initially wanted to work in agriculture and then attended the University of Colorado . In 1943 he, like other young men, was called up as a soldier in World War II and served as a member of the 106th Division in the US Army . After retiring from the service at the end of the war, he completed his training at the University of Iowa and then moved to New York City .

Career

It was probably his experiences in the war, but also his ambitions to tell stories that prompted Guggenheim to join CBS and learn all about the medium of film as an intern from Lew Cohen. In the late 1940s it moved Guggenheim of St. Louis ( Missouri ), where he served as Director of KETC, one of the first television stations of the state, worked.

Guggenheim founded his production company Charles Guggenheim and Associates in New York , whose headquarters he co-founded in Washington DC. Guggenheim joined the Democrats and began working as a media advisor to some of their most famous politicians, including John F. and Robert F. Kennedy . He was also an advisor during four presidential campaigns, advising hundreds of gubernatorial candidates and as many Senate candidates for the Democrats.

After the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, Guggenheim directed Robert Kennedy Remembered that same year, and a year later, in 1969, he won his first Oscar in the Best Short Film category.

Although Guggenheim also produced feature films, including The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery with Steve McQueen in the lead role in 1959 , he remained true to the genre of documentary film. In the early 1960s, Charles Guggenheim and Associates merged with Shelby Storck, with whom Guggenheim made three documentaries and whose cooperation earned him an Oscar in 1964 in the category "Best Documentary Short" .

Over the years, Guggenheim has been nominated nine times for Oscars in the two documentary categories, which makes him the filmmaker who has won the most nominations. He was most recently honored with three Oscars - in addition to the two gold statues already mentioned, he was honored in 1995 for his short film A Time for Justice .

His last film, which can arguably be regarded as Guggenheim's most personal work, was completed just a few weeks before his death. Berga: Soldiers of Another War from 2003 tells the true story of 350 US soldiers who were interned by the Nazis in a concentration camp rather than a POW camp during World War II because they were Jews or simply looked Jewish .

Charles Guggenheim died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 78 .

family

In 1957, Guggenheim married the stage actress Marion Street, with whom he had three children: the filmmaker Davis Guggenheim , the producer Grace Guggenheim and the film editor Jonathan Guggenheim.

Davis Guggenheim - 2007 Oscar winner for An Inconvenient Truth - is the husband of actress Elisabeth Shue .

Filmography

Director

producer

author

  • 1964: Children Without
  • 1982: The Klan: A Legacy of Hate in America
  • 1989: The Johnstown Flood
  • 1991: Johnstown Flood
  • 1994: D-Day Remembered
  • 1995: The Shadow of Hate
  • 1999: The Art of Norton Simon
  • 2003: Berga: Soldiers of Another War

Awards

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Guggenheim, Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film director, producer and screenwriter of documentaries
DATE OF BIRTH March 31, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Cincinnati , Ohio
DATE OF DEATH October 9, 2002
Place of death Washington, DC