Craig Gilbert

Craig Gilbert was an American documentarian and producer.

As a producer at the New York public television station WNET, Gilbert pitched the idea of a cinema vérité-style documentary that would follow a family behind closed doors, documenting their interactions through an unscripted, non-intrusive approach.

In 1973, this idea would become a 12-episode PBS documentary television series called An American Family, a national phenomenon that was widely seen and harshly scrutinized by both press and public.

Pre-dating MTV’s The Real World by more than 20 years, An American Family is credited as a forerunner to today’s reality television.

Prior to An American Family, Gilbert produced documentaries on anthropologist Margaret Mead, and Christy Brown, who was the subject of the 1989 film My Left Foot.

Gilbert died April 10, 2020, in Manhattan, New York. He was 94.