User:Bonechips/Alfred R Kelman

Alfred R. Kelman (born May 17. 1936) is an American documentary film producer and director, motion picture producer of films for television and a mass communications scholar. Kelman has received the Directors Guild of America award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement three times and the Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement seven times. During the 70’s 80’s and 90’s his productions that appeared on all three American Television Networks (CBS, NBC, ABC) included two of George C. Scott classic performances as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol and General George Patton in The Last Days of Patton.

His earliest success was in producing and directing The Face of Genius, the life of Nobel prize winning playwright Eugene O’Neill, nominated for an Academy Award in 1966. It marked the first time in Oscar history that a film originally produced for television was recognized by the Academy as a nominee for Best Documentary Feature.

He is currently at work on a screenplay trilogy based upon autobiographical experiences, Hayfever, At Water’s Edge, Swan’s Way

A first generation American born in the Bronx, New York and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. he is the son of Lawrence and Laura Kelman, Jewish immigrants from Poland. As a teenager in the late 1940’s Kelman was a child of the live television era. Hollywood, in the early 50’s. as a film making center found its audience for movies tilting drastically in the direction of live television drama. Influenced by the work and writings of Jackie Gleason, who described the excitement of live television (Look Magazine 1952) not only as entertainer but also the abilities of staff behind the camera to execute the skills and instinctive reactions akin to the performance of athletes, to put on a live show. Kelman, though he played high school and college baseball (Ref Alumni Boston U Baseball 1958) knowing he did not have the makings of a major leaguer, was drawn to a career in live television.

Attending Boston University (1954-1958) he served as Production Manager of the college radio station WBUR, a breeding ground for future broadcasters and a professional teaching staff in the tradition of famed radio documentary writer and dramatist Norman Corwin. Kelman graduating cum laude was awarded a fellowship to study Communications Research for an M.S. degree while plying his trade at all levels of production in the early days of live black and white television under the guidance of the professionals operating the pioneer educational station WGBH. Kelman’s master’s thesis, The Role Of Television in the 1958 Massachusetts Gubernatorial Campaign, was described by George D. Blackwood, PhD, (Boston University Professor of Political Science & Chairman, Citizenship Project), as an innovative contribution to the understanding of the power of this new media to influence public opinion. (Ref letter to Kelman from Blackwood, Sept 19, 1959). Kelman continued his study of popular culture and mass communications (1960 – 1962), holding appointments as a Senior Research Fellow at the MIT Center for International Studies leading to Assistant Professor, Oregon State University serving as Research Director under Title VII of the National Defense Education Act for The Study of New Media authenticating or repudiating the feasibility of state-wide televised instruction (ref: Televised Junior College Instruction State of Oregon, 1959-1962).

Returning to Boston (1962) Kelman was hired by WBZ-TV Boston (one of five flagship stations comprising the historic Westinghouse Broadcasting Company soon to be identified as Group W - KDKA Pittsburgh, KQED San Francisco, KYW, Philadelphia, WJZ Baltimore) as a live television producer-director working what was known at the time (pre video tape), a 8 x 6 live shift, i.e., 8 hour day, 6 days a week @ $95. Following the Selma to Montgomery Alabama riots (1965) Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr (a graduate of Boston University School of Theology) chose Boston for his next rallying cry for racial freedom. In a march stretching over 20 miles through the streets of Greater Boston, crowds estimated in the hundreds of thousand, blacks and whites hand in hand, in racial harmony. Kelman, assigned to produce documentary coverage of this seminal event was granted a private interview (Ref WBZ-TV archive tapes) with Dr King that formed the heart of the documentary Martin Luther King in Boston. Subsequently appointed Director of Public Affairs for Group W Boston, Kelman was selected from the five Directors of Public Affairs scattered across the country to represent Group W on an international exchange program between The Canadian Broadcasting Company, Channel 7 Australia and the BBC's commercial counterpart, Redifussion London, where he was assigned to it’s historic weekly documentary series This Week. While in London, Kelman received word that he had been nominated for the Academy Award for Outstanding Feature Documentary for his production at WBZ-TV Boston (1965), The Face of Genius, the life of Eugene O'Neill narrated by Jason Robards. Variety, 1966, dubbed it “…a masterful job of welding script, film, stills and music into a first-rate production.”

Upon his return to the United States, Kelman spearheaded Group W’s coverage of the 1966 national presidential and state elections. In association with Samuel Popkin, a PhD candidate at the MIT Center for International Studies and the U.S. computer company Control Data Corporation described in the 1960’s as building “…the fastest computers in the world by far.” WBZ-TV election coverage was recognized by the industry as a pioneer broadcaster in the earliest use of percentile returns to project winning candidates for public office.

Group W then assigned Kelman to work in association with The Brookings Institution, producing and directing the definitive series, 30 half hours, Congress, the Presidency and the Courts.

Leaving the broadcast arena for the burgeoning knowledge industry in 1968 Kelman was a principal in a publicly held corporation (Medcom, Inc.) specializing in medical education and allied health personnel training. Kelman’s motivational documentaries designed to close the knowledge gap between the practicing physician and the patient remain in circulation: The Hyperactive Child, The Case For Population Control, Ashes to Ashes, Drug of Choice, 3 Times A Day, Aldosterone: Story Of A Hormone, The Transplanters & Christian Barnard, Schizophrenia. Kelman remained a member of the corporate Board and a key management executive until the sale of Medcom in 1983 to a Fortune 500 company.

In 1976 Kelman partnered with Thomas W Moore, then President of Tomorrow Entertainment, and former President for 12 years during the golden age of ABC-TV, 1958-1970, along with his partner of many years at Medcom, Robert E. Fuisz, M.D., to form The Tomorrow Entertainment/Medcom Co. Thus was executed, with the blessing of Richard Salant, President of CBS News, the first prime time non-fiction dramatic information series under the aegis of CBS Entertainment The Body Human. Concurrently in 1979, out of experiences from shooting the non-fiction series The Body Human, grew the beginning of prime time realitytelevision for NBC, Lifeline, 13 hours of real life medical drama, honored that year by the Academy of Arts & Sciences for a Special Emmy. Spanning a period of 7 years, The Body Human was the winner in different production categories of 22 Emmy’s, including 7 Emmys to Kelman as its Producer, Director, Co Creator; and the award by the Directors Guild of America (DGA) for Outstanding Directorial Achievement, 3 times.

In 1982 Kelman partnered with Fuisz and former NBC Exec William F Storke formed Entertainment Partners and 7 years on in association with Bernard Sofronski former CBS Exec in charge of special drama, there followed a 20-year stretch of movies for television, including: To Catch A King. The Last Days of Patton, The Ted Kennedy Jr. Story, A Special Friendship, Napoleon & Josephine, The Plot to Kill Hitler, Labor of Love, A Christmas Carol.

Retrospectively, a career covering over 50 years, the gross budget for Kelman’s productions, i.e., money spent above and below the line put on the screen, is estimated in the high range of 8 figures.

In 1992/93 Kelman was a direct participant in an unprecedented media feeding frenzy over the shooting by teenager Amy Fisher of the wife of her adulterous lover. The judge dubbed her “Lethal Lolita” setting bail at $2,000,000. Unable to raise bail, a series of legal entanglements ensued over whether her defense attorney Eric Naiburg had the right to sell her story in exchange for bail. Advised by counsel that anyone held on bail had a constitutional right to bail if he or she could raise bail, Kelman and Producer Philip Levitan of Nashville, Tennessee, became personal guarantors resulting in the NBC movie of the week, Amy Fisher: My Story, the only time in the history of television that all 3 networks, ABC, CBS, NBC aired a motion picture docudrama on the same subject within weeks of one another. The full story of Amy Fisher is excellently depicted as a sociological work by Sheila Weller, author Amy Fisher: My Story, Simon Schuster (1993).

A few years later, as a resident of Sagaponack, N.Y., a horse of a different color, public service, consumed 5 years of Kelman’s professional life. Sagaponack, a 350 year old hamlet within the municipal jurisdiction of Southampton, N.Y. found itself under intense pressure from neighboring homeowners to split off a 3 mile stretch of ocean front to form a privately incorporated village. Kelman, a principal organizer of the opposition, was ultimately elected a Trustee under the laws of the State of New York (2005) and dubbed a founding father of the Incorporated Village of Sagaponack. Thus the territory of the 350-year-old hamlet never changed. (see Village of Sagaponack Proclamation)

Honored by Boston University with a Distinguished Alumni Award (1979) and by invitation; the University of Wyoming maintains a library collection of his papers for The Study of New Media. A Christmas Carol (1984) was honored with a Royal Charity Premiere at The Odeon Cinema, Leicester Square, London, in the gracious presence of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.

Kelman was married in 1970 to Janice Marguerite Legg of London, England. Their son Nic Kelman is a novelist and screenwriter.