Marshall Flaum, Emmy-Winning Documentarian
Flaum's credits included nature classics with Jacques Cousteau and Jane Goodall.
Marshall Flaum, an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker whose movies over a 55-year career examined show business, nature and historical subjects, died October 1, 2010, in Los Angeles. He was 85.
According to news reports, the cause was complications from hip surgery.
Flaum won five Emmy awards. Two came in 1972, for producing episodes of The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, one on sea otters and the other on dolphins. He won another Emmy for producing Jane Goodall and the World of Animal Behavior: The Wild Dogs of Africa in 1973.
He also earned two Oscar nominations, one for the 1963 The Yanks Are Coming, an examination of the United States entry into World War I, and the other for the1965 film Let My People Go: The Story of Israel, a chronicle of the struggles of the Jewish people from 1917 until the formation of the state of Israel in 1948.
He was born Marshall Allen Flaum on September 13, 1925, in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, and grew up in Union City, New Jersey. He served in the Army in World War II after which he studied acting at the University of Iowa. He appeared in small parts on Broadway before turning to film and television production.
In 1957, he went to work as a writer, story editor and associate producer on the CBS documentary series The Twentieth Century, hosted by Walter Cronkite. Two of his Emmys were for episodes he wrote for the show. In 1962, he moved to Los Angeles to work with renowned film and television producer David L. Wolper.
Flaum later wrote and directed one of the first compilation films about the movie industry, Hollywood: The Great Stars, which was produced by Jack Haley Jr.
He is survived by his wife of 62 years, a daughter, a son, a sister and two grandchildren.