Dave Bell

Dave Bell was a producer and social documentarian best known for his work on the Emmy-winning dramatic television movie Do You Remember Love starring Joanne Woodward and Richard Kiley. The telefilm also won the Emmys for best lead actress and outstanding writing in a limited series or special. The 1985 movie was also nominated for three more Emmys, two Golden Globes, and was the winner of the Peabody.

Additionally, Bell contributed to the series Missing: Reward; Family Secrets, hosted by Bob Eubanks; the documentary series America Undercover; and LAPD. In 1984, he executive produced Alive & Well, a two-hour daily magazine hosted by psychologist Dr. Laura Schlessinger and exercise guru Kathy Smith.

Additionally, he served as a producer on the telefilms Nadia, about gymnast Nadia Comaneci; Missing…Have You Seen This Person?, which was was also nominated for an Emmy Award in the category of outstanding informational special and starred David Birney and Meredith Baxter; and Once Upon Her Time, hosted by Lindsay Wagner.

He also worked on the feature films The Long Walk Home, starring Sissy Spacek and Whoopi Goldberg, and Just a Dream, directed by Danny Glover. Additionally, Bell executive-produced social-issue documentaries for HBO including Hooker, Skinheads and Asylum.  

The producer grew up in Andover, Ohio, and served in the Army before starting his career as a documentarian. In the mid-1960s he founded the company Dave Bell Associates. A series of documentaries he produced with his company became the basis for the long-running NBC series Unsolved Mysteries.

Bell was also a ham radio enthusiast and produced and/or directed several documentary films on the subject, including Amateur Radio Today, hosted by Walter Cronkite and Amateur Radio’s Newest Frontier, with King Hussein of Jordan speaking with astronaut Owen Garriott as the space shuttle Columbia passed over Jordan. Bell also wrote a 2014 book about his interest, titled World’s Best Hobby.

He died May 13, 2016 in Leucadia, California. He was 84.