Albert Maysles
Date of Birth
Albert Maysles was a documentary filmmaker and cinematographer best known for his work on the film Grey Gardens, an inside look at the bizarre lives of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edie, the aunt and cousin to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Maysles had a long professional relationship and artistic collaboration with his brother David, who was a co-cinematographer on the 1968 documentary feature Salesman, as well as on two of Maysles's most notable works, Gimme Shelter and When We Were Kings. The former was a documentary about the Rolling Stones’ 1969 tour, the latter about the 1974 heavyweight championship fight between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali, which won the Academy Award for best documentary feature. The siblings received an Oscar nomination in 1974 for the documentary short subject Christo’s Valley Curtain, about the artist Christo's first large public work: a bright neon-orange valley curtain in the Colorado mountains.
The brothers also worked extensively in television documentaries — together, alone and with other collaborators. In 1987 they won an Emmy Award for directing Vladimir Horowitz: The Last Romantic, an intimate look into the concert pianist’s life. In 1991 Albert Maysles won an Emmy with three other directors for Soldiers of Music: Rostorpovitch Returns To Russia.
Albert Maysles was a documentary filmmaker and cinematographer best known for his work on the film Grey Gardens, an inside look at the bizarre lives of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edie, the aunt and cousin to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Maysles had a long professional relationship and artistic collaboration with his brother David, who was a co-cinematographer on the 1968 documentary feature Salesman, as well as on two of Maysles's most notable works, Gimme Shelter and When We Were Kings. The former was a documentary about the Rolling Stones’ 1969 tour, the latter about the 1974 heavyweight championship fight between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali, which won the Academy Award for best documentary feature. The siblings received an Oscar nomination in 1974 for the documentary short subject Christo’s Valley Curtain, about the artist Christo's first large public work: a bright neon-orange valley curtain in the Colorado mountains.
The brothers also worked extensively in television documentaries — together, alone and with other collaborators. In 1987 they won an Emmy Award for directing Vladimir Horowitz: The Last Romantic, an intimate look into the concert pianist’s life. In 1991 Albert Maysles won an Emmy with three other directors for Soldiers of Music: Rostorpovitch Returns To Russia.
Maysles won the career achievement award from the International Documentary Association in 1994, the president’s award from the American Society of Cinematographers in 1998 and the Camerimage Festival’s award for outstanding achievements in documentary filmmaking in 2011. He had 74 credits as a cinematographer and almost 50 as a director or co-director.
Maysles died March 5, 2015, in New York City. He was 88.
Awards & Nominations
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