Leo Hurwitz

Leo Hurwitz (June 23, 1909 – January 18, 1991) was an American documentary filmmaker. Among the films he directed were Native Land and Verdict for Tomorrow (1961), the Peabody Award-winning and Emmy Award-nominated film of the Eichmann trial. He was blacklisted during the McCarthy period for his strong left-wing political beliefs.

Background Hurwitz was born on June 23, 1909, in Brooklyn, New York City, to Jewish Lithuanian immigrants. He grew up in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. He had four sisters, including dancer Sophia Delza and psychoanalyst Marie Briehl.

In the mid-1960s, he and six other directors brought a lawsuit against the Directors Guild of America that resulted in a United States Supreme Court decision forcing the guild to remove a loyalty oath from its membership application.

Eichmann trial and 1960s work

In 1961, Hurwitz directed the television coverage of the Adolf Eichmann trial in Jerusalem for producer Milton Fruchtman and Capital Cities Broadcasting Corporation, including the summary documentary Verdict for Tomorrow. Fruchtman and Capital Cities won a Peabody Award for the Eichmann trial in 1961, while Capital Cities was nominated for an Emmy Award for the trial in 1962. In the 2015 BBC television film The Eichmann Show, a dramatization of the trial and making of Verdict for Tomorrow, Hurwitz was played by Anthony LaPaglia.

From 1964 to 1966 he made a group of films for National Educational Television, including Essay on Death, dealing with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, The Sun and Richard Lippold and In Search of Hart Crane.

NYU

From 1969 to 1974, Hurwitz was professor of film and chairman of the Graduate Institute of Film and Television at New York University. His work has been the subject of several retrospectives showings, including ones at the Museum of Modern Art, the Public Theater and the Cinemathique Francaise in Paris. At his death he was working on a script for a film on the abolitionist John Brown.

Personal life and death

Hurwitz married then later divorced choreographer Jane Dudley; their son, Tom Hurwitz, is a documentary cinematographer. His second marriage was to Peggy Lawson who died in 1971. His third wife, Nelly Burlingham, died in 2019.

Leo Hurwitz died age 81 on January 18, 1991, of colon cancer at his home in New York City.

Filmography

As Director: Dialogue with a Woman Departed (1980) Verdict for Tomorrow (1961) The Museum and the Fury (1956) U.S.A. (1955), a travelogue that presents a tour of the United States for USIA Strange Victory (1948) Native Land (1942)

As (Co-)Producer: Dialogue with a Woman Departed (1980) Discovery in a Landscape (1970) Light and the City (1970) The Museum and the Fury (1956) Strange Victory (1948) Native Land (1942) Heart of Spain (1936)

As Cinematographer: The Specialist (1999) Dialogue with a Woman Departed (1980) The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936)

In the 2015 British drama film The Eichmann Show, Anthony LaPaglia portrayed Leo Hurwitz.