Robert Drew

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title: "Robert Drew" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1924-births", "2014-deaths", "american-cinema-pioneers", "american-documentary-filmmakers", "american-experience", "articles-containing-video-clips", "artists-from-toledo,-ohio", "film-directors-from-ohio", "military-personnel-from-ohio", "military-personnel-from-toledo,-ohio", "peabody-award-winners", "shot-down-aviators", "united-states-army-air-forces-officers", "united-states-army-air-forces-pilots-of-world-war-ii"] description: "American documentary filmmaker" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Drew" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American documentary filmmaker ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

Field	Value
birth_name	Robert Lincoln Drew
birth_date
birth_place	Toledo, Ohio, U.S.
death_date
death_place	Sharon, Connecticut, U.S.
occupation	Documentary filmmaker
years_active	1955–2014
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| image = | image_size = | caption = | birth_name = Robert Lincoln Drew | birth_date = | birth_place = Toledo, Ohio, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = Sharon, Connecticut, U.S. | other_names = | occupation = Documentary filmmaker | years_active = 1955–2014 | spouse = | website = Robert Lincoln Drew (February 15, 1924 – July 30, 2014) was an American documentary filmmaker known as one of the pioneers—and sometimes called father—of cinéma vérité, or direct cinema, in the United States. Two of his films, Primary and Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment, have been named to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. The moving image collection of Robert Drew is housed at the Academy Film Archive. The Academy Film Archive has preserved a number of his films, including Faces of November, Herself: Indira Gandhi, and Bravo!/Kathy's Dance. His many awards include an International Documentary Association Career Achievement Award.

Biography

Robert Drew was born in Toledo, Ohio. His father, Robert Woodsen Drew, was a film salesman and a pilot who ran a seaplane business. Drew grew up mostly in Fort Thomas, Kentucky. He left high school to join the U.S. Army Air Corps as a cadet in 1942 and qualified for officer's training. At the age of 19, he was a combat pilot in Italy flying the P-51 dive bomber, completing 30 successful combat missions. During that time, he met Ernie Pyle, an important experience for a pilot who would become a journalist. Drew was shot down behind the lines, where he survived for more than three months. Back in the U.S., he was a pilot in the 1st Fighter Group, the first to fly jet airplanes. He wrote an article for Life magazine about the experience flying a P-80 and was subsequently offered a job.

While working at Life as a writer and editor, Drew held a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. In 1955, he focused on two questions: Why are documentaries so dull? What would it take for them to become gripping and exciting?

He developed a unit within Time Inc. to realize his vision of developing documentary films that would use picture logic rather than word logic. Drew envisioned—as he explained in a 1962 interview—a form of documentary that would "drop word logic and find a dramatic logic in which things really happened". It would be "a theater without actors; it would be plays without playwrights; it would be reporting without summary and opinion; it would be the ability to look in on people’s lives at crucial times from which you could deduce certain things and see a kind of truth that can only be gotten from personal experience."

He formed Drew Associates around this time. Some of his early experiments premiered on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Jack Paar Show. Drew recruited like-minded filmmakers including Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker, Terence Macartney-Filgate, and Albert Maysles, who all have had internationally renowned careers. They experimented with technology, syncing camera and sound with the parts of a watch. For Primary, Drew had Mitch Bogdanovich make smaller 16mm cameras that allowed for handheld use

One of Drew Associates' best known films is Primary (1960), a documentary about the Wisconsin Primary election between Hubert Humphrey and John F. Kennedy. It is considered to be one of the first direct cinema documentaries. According to critic Matt Zoller Seitz, Primary "had as immense and measurable an impact on nonfiction filmmaking as Birth of a Nation had on fiction filmmaking."

After Kennedy responded positively to Primary, Drew "proposed to make a next film on him as a President having to deal with a crisis. 'Yes,' he said, 'What if I could look back and see what went on in the White House in the 24 hours before Roosevelt declared war on Japan?'" They finally got their chance when Governor George Wallace of Alabama pledged to personally stand in the doorway to block the enrollment of two African-American students in the University of Alabama to show his opposition to integration. Drew secured permission for Drew Associates filmmakers to shoot in the White House, particularly with Robert Kennedy, as well as in Alabama in the home of George Wallace, in the days leading up to June 11, 1963, when Wallace made his infamous stand. The resulting film, Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment, aired on TV in October 1963 and fueled discussions about the Civil Rights Movement as well as cinéma vérité, or direct cinema. It also triggered a storm of criticism over the admission of cameras into the White House. Afterward, politicians became more cautious about allowing access to documentary filmmakers, working closely with many of the original Drew Associates filmmakers who had and have continued to have documentary careers of their own.

Drew's films have been shown on ABC, PBS, the BBC, and film festivals all over the world. Film director Sir Ridley Scott credits his early experience working at Drew Associates as an assistant with turning his career from design to film.

Drew has made scores of documentaries and has won awards internationally. His subjects have included civil rights, other social issues, politics, music, dance and more. One of his most recent was From Two Men and a War, which recounts his experience as a World War II fighter pilot and his encounters with the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Ernie Pyle.

Anne Drew, his wife, was a documentary filmmaker at Drew Associates. His extended family member Sybil Drew is also a Journalist and Documentary Filmmaker.

Death

Drew died on July 30, 2014, at his home in Sharon, Connecticut.

Select filmography

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Who's_Out_There_(1973).ogv" caption="life on other planets"] ::

::data[format=table]

Year	Title	Notes
1954	Key Picture (Magazine X)
1957	American Football
1957	**
1958	Balloon Ascension
1958	Weightless
1959	Bullfight
1960	On the Pole
1960	Yanki No!
1960	Primary	Best Documentary, Flaherty Award
Blue Ribbon Award, American Film Festival
Outstanding Film, London Film Festival
National Film Registry, Library of Congress
1961	Adventures on the New Frontier	title=Film Library
1961	**
1961	Petey and Johnny	Outstanding Film, London Film Festival
1961	Mooney vs. Fowle	Outstanding Film, London Film Festival
1961	On the Pole: Eddie Sachs
1962	**	First Prize, Cannes Film Festival
1962	Blackie
1962	Nehru
1962	**
1962	Susan Starr
1962	Jane
1963	Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment	Cine]] Golden Eagle
First Prize, International Documentary Film Festival, Bilbao
1964	Faces of November	First prize, Venice Film Festival
1966	Storm Signal	First prize, Venice Film Festival
1968	Man Who Dances	title=Man Who Dances: Edward Villella
Cine Golden Eagle
Emmy Award, National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
1968	On the Road with Duke Ellington	Cine Golden Eagle
1968	The New Met	First Prize, International Cinema Exhibition, Bilbao
Cine Golden Eagle
1969	Jazz: The Intimate Art	Cine Golden Eagle
1969	**	Cine Golden Eagle
1969	Martian Investigations	Cine Golden Eagle
1969	**	Cine Golden Eagle
1973	Who's Out There?	Cine Golden Eagle
1976	Parade of the Tall Ships	Cine Golden Eagle
1977	Kathy's Dance	Cine Golden Eagle
Silver Hugo, Chicago Film Festival
Blue Ribbon Award, American Film Festival
1978	Talent for America
1979	Grasshopper Plague
1979	Maine Winter
1979	One Room Schoolhouse
1982	784 Days That Changed America: From Watergate to Resignation	Peabody Award
American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award
International Film and TV Festival of New York Gold Award
1982	Herself, Indira Gandhi	Cine Golden Eagle
1982	Fire Season
1984	Warning from Gangland
1984	Marshall High Fights Back	Cine Golden Eagle
Nomination, Emmy Award
First Prize, Education Writers Association
1985	Shootout on Imperial Highway
1986	For Auction: An American Hero	Best Documentary, Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award
Cine Golden Eagle
Nominee, Emmy Award
1988	River of Hawks
1988	Your Flight is Cancelled
1988	Messages from the Birds
1990	London to Peking: The Great Motoring Challenge
1991	Life and Death of a Dynasty	Cine Golden Eagle
1996	L.A. Champions
1996	On the Trail of the Vanishing Birds
2005	From Two Men and a War
2008	**
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References

References

1. (30 July 2014). "Robert Drew, Documentarian Who Fathered Cinema Verite, Dies at 90". Variety.
2. "National Film Registry Titles". Library of Congress.
3. "Robert Drew Collection".
4. "Preserved Projects".
5. "T:64094".
6. "From Two Men and a War".
7. (September 15, 2001). "A Nieman Year Spent Pondering Storytelling". [[Nieman Foundation for Journalism]] at Harvard University.
8. (8 June 2008). "Direct Cinema: Richard Leacock and Robert Drew discuss the original philosophy of 'Direct Cinema.'".
9. (15 January 2014). "Filmmaker Robert Drew discusses his ideas that created American cinema verite (1962)".
10. (2014-11-14). "'Jane,' 'The Chair' and More Drew Associates Documentaries to Stream on SundanceNow Doc Club".
11. (2004). "Encyclopedia of Television". Routledge.
12. Issa, 2016
13. "Filmmaker Robert Drew on light cameras and light rifles.".
14. "Ridley Scott's American Gangster". Coming Soon.
15. "From Two Men and a War".
16. (20 April 2012). "Anne Drew, Award-Winning Documentary Filmmaker with Drew Associates, Dies | International Documentary Association".
17. (12 September 2025). "Sybil Drew IMDB Page".
18. Pedersen, Erik. (1924-02-15). "Robert Drew Dead, Cinema Verite Pioneer". [[Deadline Hollywood]].
19. "Film Library".
20. "Man Who Dances: Edward Villella".
21. "Drew, Robert".
22. "Who's Out There?". Drew Associates.
23. "784 Days That Changed America: From Watergate to Resignation". Drew Associates.
24. "Warning from Gangland". Drew Associates.
25. "Marshall High Fights Back". Drew Associates.
26. "Shootout on Imperial Highway". Drew Associates.
27. "For Auction: An American Hero". Drew Associates.
28. "River of Hawks". Drew Associates.
29. "Your Flight is Cancelled". Drew Associates.
30. "Messages from the Birds". Drew Associates.
31. "London to Peking: The Great Motoring Challenge". Drew Associates.
32. "Life and Death of a Dynasty". Drew Associates.
33. "L.A. Champions". Drew Associates.
34. "On the Trail of the Vanishing Birds". Drew Associates.
35. "From Two Men and a War". Drew Associates.
36. "A President to Remember: In the Company of JFK". Drew Associates.
37. (September 2008). "JFK Redux: From Two Men and a War". International Documentary Association.

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