Alan Levin (February 28, 1926 – 13 February 2006) was an American filmmaker and

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

best known for making documentaries on the

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(PBS) and

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(HBO) networks. Three of his documentaries won

Emmy Awards The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

Early life and career

Levin was born Alan Levinstein in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. He served during World War II and graduated from

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Epis ...

in Connecticut in 1946. His career started as a journalist working for

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and the ''

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''. He worked for Senator Harrison Williams in 1963-64 before becoming a producer on

WABC-TV WABC-TV (channel 7) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios in the Lincoln Square neighbor ...

between 1965-67. His father, Herman, assisted Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan with his founding of the Jewish Reconstructionist movement in the 1930s. His grandfather, Isaac Levinstein, owned several movie theaters in New York in the early 1900s.

Documentary career

Levin's documentary career started with WNET, a

(PBS) primary member station. He first attracted attention with ''The New Immigrants'' in 1979 which explored the immigration of non-European migrants to the US and earned him his first Emmy. His 1982 film ''Portrait of an American Zealot'' was one of the first films of the growing popularity of the so-called religious right. That film marked the end of his employment for PBS although he would continue to make films for the network. In 1986, he made ''Inside the Jury Room'' featuring the first jury deliberation to be filmed which was shown on ''

PBS Frontline ''Frontline'' (stylized as FRONTLINE) is an investigative documentary program distributed by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. Episodes are produced at WGBH in Boston, Massachusetts. The series has covered a variety ...

'' He partnered with Bill Moyers to film a number of documentaries. ''The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis'' looked at the activities of the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

leading up to the Iran-Contra Affair. It earned Levin his second Emmy. Levin would later make documentaries for HBO. With his son,

Marc Levin Marc Levin is an American independent film producer and director. He is best known for his '' Brick City'' TV series, which won the 2010 Peabody award and was nominated for an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking and his dramat ...

and his production partner Daphne Pinkerson, he made ''Thug Life'' about the lives of four prisoners in Washington. It earned him his third Emmy in 1999. He died in

Maplewood, New Jersey Maplewood is a township in Essex County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The township is an inner-ring suburban bedroom community of New York City in the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's populatio ...

in February 2006.

References

''Newsday'' "Documentary filmmaker Alan Levin dies at 79" 17 February 2006, retrieved 18 February 2006
*Marquis Who's Who TM. ''Marquis Who's Who'', 2006. "Alan Levin" {{DEFAULTSORT:Levin, Alan 1926 births 2006 deaths Wesleyan University alumni American documentary filmmakers