New York: The Fifties and early Sixties

This was my family and their life in Manhattan in the 1950s and early sixties. From these impressions I began to develop a documentary about the era. This interest of mine in the time period became the Atkinson-Hammond film PLUCK, a New York centric documentary I wrote, co-directed and co-produced.

I was born and reared in Manhattan with a Ford model mother and an Advertising Executive father. Growing up in the 1950s and early sixties I was enthralled listening to my parents stories about dancing at black tie parties to The Count Basie Band who was playing on fashion photographer's studio rooftops or Ella Fitzgerald stopping by after a performance. I had always wanted to create a work that payed homage to the creative forces and glamour of the 1950s. I feel I have done so in PLUCK with first hand accounts of the time by people who lived it at center stage. Luckily I was able to interview people who were working in New York in the 1950s-1960s such as Betty Comden, Dick Hyman, Eileen Ford, Magnum photographer Burt Glinn, William F. Buckley and others. My quest to preserve their memories for posterity became the documentary film PLUCK. These New Yorkers and many others have made illustrious contributions to the culture and the arts that are often not known to a younger generation. I felt that their unique contributions should be archived first hand. Although I personally interviewed all the people in the film I believe that a documentary should focus on the subject matter not the interviewer and with that in mind you will not hear my questions. I wanted to bring the documentary viewer into the room without my presence, so I edited out my questions and left only the replies. By editing the film in this manner I hoped it would create a casual style and the illusion you are not watching a film as much as visiting with a friend who is talking about a time in his/her life. I was delighted to develop a rapport with each person interviewed which I believe comes across by their relaxed and conversational manner. Through these relationships with my subjects and their generosity I was personally granted use of all William F. Buckley's FIRING LINE TV show footage, many of Burt Glinn's Magnum photographs and Dick Hyman's piano performance of DANNY BOY all kindly given gratis. I am honored that this film is now in the permanent collection at The Hoover Institute Archives at Stanford University.

Currently I am working on producing a documentary on the painter FRANCIS BACON.