Celebrity Biographies
D.A. Pennebaker
Together with Martin Scorsese and others, he defined the keys to the rock star documentary. DA Pennebaker, one of the founders of Cinéma Vérité, passed away on August 1, 2019, at the age of 94, at his residence on Long Island, New York. The news has been released by his son.
Born in Evanston, Illinois, on July 15, 1925, Don Alan Pennebaker (his full name) was the son of John Pennebaker, a publicity photographer, and Lucille Levick. He studied Electronic Engineering at Yale University, and later spent a few years serving in the Navy.
He debuted as a filmmaker in 1953, with the avant-garde short Daybreak Express , which shows images of the New York subway, with music by Duke Ellington. With the British filmmaker Richard Leacock and Robert Drew, editor and correspondent for Life magazine, he founded Drew Assocaites in 1959, a production company that produces various documentaries. He became interested in the world of music when in 1965 Bob Dylan ‘s representative recruited him to film his tour of Great Britain. Thus he signs Don’t Look Back , considered one of the great musical feature films of all time, and one of the works that introduced cinéma vérité in the United States. It broke box office records. In Monterey Pop, collects performances by The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, and The Who during the 1967 Monterey International Pop Music Festival.
In 1982, DA Pennebaker married Chris Hegedus , also a documentary filmmaker. Together they sign The War Room , about Bill Clinton’s election campaign, which wins an Oscar nomination for best documentary. In 2012 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded her the honorary award for her entire professional career.