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Ronald Colby was born, Ronald Blakeslee Colby (June 30, 1934) is an American Filmmaker, Screenwriter and Author

Early Life
Ronald Colby was born in Manhattan, New York to John Colby and Millicent Blakeslee. Both of Colby's parents were Vaudeville dancers. John also know as Jack Colby toured the country on the B.F. Keith Circuit, played the Palace in New York City and performed in W. C. Fields Ballyhoo on Broadway. Colby joined the United States Air Force after finishing High School.

Personal Life
Colby has two sons, Trevor and Dylan from his first marriage to Patricia Lee and is recently widowed from his second wife production designer, film producer Patrica Van Ryker.

Education
Ronald Colby earned a Bachelor’s degree in theater from Hofstra University and a Master’s Degree in theater from New York University. He wrote many plays that saw New York productions, and as a director and playwright. "The Village Voice" declared him an “influential originator” of the Off-Broadway movement.

Career
Early in his career, Francis Coppola recruited Colby into his fledgling company, and Colby moved quickly from casting to production executive and producer. The films included, You're a Big Boy Now, Finian's Rainbow, THX-1138, The Rain People, The Godfather Part II, Hammett, and The Outsiders.

He was Executive Producer on the John Hughes films, Some Kind Of Wonderful and She's Having A Baby. In addition he worked as a Production Executive on other films such as Lisa, The Exorcist, and One from the Heart. The documentary he produced on the making of Coppola, One from the Heart, has been released on the newly issued DVD.

Colby also worked on many television movies as producer including the highest-rated Hallmark Hall of Fame movie Harvest of Fire, and Showtime’s Lush Life. He has also been Second Unit Director on over a dozen films.

More recently, Colby was Supervising Producer on the Mobil Masterpiece theatre productions of Langston Hughes' Cora Unashamed, Eudora Welty's, The Ponder Heart, and James Agee's, A Death in the Family. He was the Producer of Esmeralda Santiago acclaimed memoir, Almost A Woman, also for Masterpiece Theatre which won Peabody and Imagen Awards for best feature.

Documentaries
Over the past decade Colby wrote and directed a series of documentaries including “Pirate for the Sea,” the film biography of Captain Paul Watson, the most controversial ocean environmental activist, ever. “Pirate for the Sea ” had its World Premiere to great acclaim at The Telluride Film Festival. Since then, it has won many “Best Documentary” awards, and been an official selection in numerous festivals including, Berlin, Dublin, Santa Barbara and Seattle. It was invited by the GoodPlanet Foundation to screen in Copenhagen as part of their environmental festival, which ran on currently with the United Nations Conference on Climate Change. It was subsequently optioned by Discovery and aired for two seasons on their channel,Planet Green. His third documentary the informative and whimsical, “Scotland’s Caddies,” is quickly becoming a favorite with both golfers and golf “watchers” alike. In 2018 Colby completed "ByUs" a powerful full length documentary (co-directed and produced with his late wife Patricia Van Ryker) which explores the importance of small businesses to the American economy. "ByUs" won best film for Economic Development Documentary at The Bohemian Festival CG.

Author
Colby completed his first novel "Night Driver" which was published by Rare Bird Literary in 2018.