Leo T. Hurwitz

About

Birth Place

Brooklyn, New York, USA

Born

June 23, 1909

Died

January 18, 1991

Cause of Death

Colon Cancer

Biography

Independent documentary pioneer who began as a newsreel producer chronicling the hunger marches of the Depression and served as a cameraman and co-writer on the landmark Dust Bowl documentary, "The Plow That Broke the Plains" (1936). In 1936 he co-founded Pioneer Films, the first US nonprofit, independent, documentary production company, for which he made "Heart of Spain" on the Spanish ...

Filmography

The Specialist (1999)

Original Cinematography

Photos & Videos

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Plow That Broke The Plains, The (1936) -- (Movie Clip) The Sun Baked The Earth

Plow That Broke The Plains, The (1936) -- (Movie Clip) Open, Continent Of Grass

Family & Companions

Jane Dudley

Wife

Modern dancer, choreographer. Married 1935, divorced 1962.

Peggy Lawson

Wife

Collaborator on Hurwitz's films. Married 1964, died 1971; subject of Hurwitz's documentary tribute "Dialogue With a Woman Departed" (1980).

Nelly Burlingham

Wife

Third wife.

Biography

Independent documentary pioneer who began as a newsreel producer chronicling the hunger marches of the Depression and served as a cameraman and co-writer on the landmark Dust Bowl documentary, "The Plow That Broke the Plains" (1936). In 1936 he co-founded Pioneer Films, the first US nonprofit, independent, documentary production company, for which he made "Heart of Spain" on the Spanish Civil War and "Native Land" (1942) about American labor struggles of the 1930s. Hurwitz collaborated with Willard Van Dyke, Pare Lorenz, Paul Strand and Ralph Steiner. In the 1950s he was blacklisted, but continued to work uncredited as a director, co-producer and editor on segments of the TV show "Omnibus."

Filmography

Cinematography (Feature Film)

The Specialist (1999)

Original Cinematography

Life Events

1932

Directed first feature documentary, "Hunger"

1933

Edited "New Theatre Magazine", NY

1937

Co-founded Pioneer Films

1979

Was subject of German TV documentary

Videos

Plow That Broke The Plains, The (1936) -- (Movie Clip) The Sun Baked The Earth Coming out of writer-director Pare Lorentz’s affecting if imprecise montage of the grain-boom following the First World War, a dramatic turn, with Thomas Hardie Chalmers narration, of the catastrophic onset of the Dust Bowl, in the influential federally-financed New Deal documentary, The Plow That Broke The Plains, 1936.

Plow That Broke The Plains, The (1936) -- (Movie Clip) Open, Continent Of Grass Made for the New Deal federal Resettlement Administration by the progressive former critic Pare Lorentz, who had zero film-making experience at the time, and narrated by the former opera star Thomas Hardie Chalmers, the opening of the sensational documentary The Plow That Broke The Plains, 1936.

Family

Solomon Hurwitz

Father

Eva Hurwitz

Mother

Thomas Dudley Hurwitz

Son

Mother Jane Dudley.

Companions

Jane Dudley

Wife

Modern dancer, choreographer. Married 1935, divorced 1962.

Peggy Lawson

Wife

Collaborator on Hurwitz's films. Married 1964, died 1971; subject of Hurwitz's documentary tribute "Dialogue With a Woman Departed" (1980).

Nelly Burlingham

Wife

Third wife.

About

Biography

Filmography

Photos & Videos

Family & Companions

Biography

Filmography

Cinematography (Feature Film)

Life Events

1932

1933

1937

1979

Videos

Movie Clip

Family

Companions

Bibliography

TCM Emails