Charles Guggenheim – 2006
Charles Guggenheim was the first general manager of St. Louis public television station KETC in 1953. A television producer and director, Guggenheim got his training at CBS in New York. By 1954 he had founded his own small film production studio in St. Louis. The company’s first feature film, “The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery,” helped launch the career of actor Steve McQueen. In the early 1960s, Guggenheim went on to form a partnership with TV and documentary film producer Shelby Storck for several documentaries which were nominated for and/or won Academy Awards. Guggenheim received his first Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject for 1964’s “Nine from Little Rock.” He received 12 Oscar nominations in total, and also won subsequent Oscars for “Robert Kennedy Remembered” (1968), “The Johnstown Flood” (1989) and “A Time for Justice” (1995).