By Nicole Hamilton
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Internationally acclaimed documentary filmmaker Charles Eli Guggenheim died Wednesday at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., after a seven-month battle with pancreatic cancer.

The Walnut Hills High School graduate and four-time Academy Award winner was 78.

Once described by Saturday Review's film critic Hollis Albert as "probably the most accomplished maker of documentary films in the country," Mr. Guggenheim's career spanned more than half a century.

He made more than 100 documentaries - mostly social, political or historical in subject - and was nominated for 12 Academy Awards. He was also one of the first filmmakers to bring political campaigns to American television.

"Despite all of his acclaim, he continued to pursue his work with a quiet, intense, almost private single-mindedness. He developed an unadorned style in his films that seemed to be a reflection of his own personality," said his daughter, Grace Stix Guggenheim, of Washington, D.C.

Mr. Guggenheim was raised in North Avondale and graduated from Walnut Hills in 1942. He served in the U.S. Army from 1943-1946, and then studied at the University of Iowa, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1948.

His film career began at CBS in New York City in the early 1950s, where he worked as a producer on a children's television show. He later moved to St. Louis, where he was acting director for KETC Educational TV Communication.

In 1954, he established his own company, Guggenheim Productions.

By 1959, the company had produced two independent film productions, including The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery, starring Steve McQueen. It was at this time that he won his first Academy Award for his film Nine from Little Rock, about the Arkansas school integration crisis.

Mr. Guggenheim went to work for the U.S. Information Agency in Washington in 1965.

His next great honor came after creating a film based on the life and career of Robert Kennedy, RFK Remembered. It was made in six weeks following the senator's assassination and earned Mr. Guggenheim a second Academy Award.

Shown at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, "the floor of the convention hall was brought to standstill for more than an hour," his daughter said.

Mr. Guggenheim also won Oscars for The Johnstown Flood and A Time for Justice.

From 1955-1985, he served as media director for 75 U.S. senate, gubernatorial and presidential campaigns, including those of Edward Kennedy, Adlai Stevenson, Howard Metzenbaum and Walter Mondale.

At the time of his death, Mr. Guggenheim was working on a documentary titled Berga: Soldiers of Another War, about American GIs captured during the Battle of the Bulge who were placed in labor camps during World War II.

He was also serving as president of the Foundation for the National Archives.

Besides his daughter, Grace, other survivors include his wife, Marion Davis Streett; two sons, Jonathan and Philip; and four grandchildren.

Services will be held next weekend at Hebrew National Congregation in Washington, D.C. Burial will be on Martha's Vineyard.

Memorials: Donald Danforth Plant Sciences Center, 975 N. Warson Road, St. Louis, MO, 63132, or Foundation for the National Archives, Charles Guggenheim Documentary Fund, 8601 Adelpha Road, College Park, MD, 20740-6001.

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