David Grubin is a producer, director, writer and cinematographer who has won every major award in his field, including three George Foster Peabody awards, two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards and nine Emmy Awards.
As a writer, he has won an Emmy Award and received four awards from the Writers Guild. As a director, he has received three Emmy Award nominations. As a cinematographer, he has received one Emmy Award and five Emmy Award nominations.
As the president of David Grubin Productions, Inc., Mr. Grubin has produced more than 100 films on subjects ranging from history to art and poetry to science.
Mr. Grubin’s biographies of American presidents for “American Experience” on PBS have been widely acclaimed:
• “FDR,” his four-and-a-half-hour biography of Franklin Roosevelt, has won many prizes, including awards from the International Documentary Association, the American Historical Association and the National Education Association.
• “LBJ,” his four-hour biography of Lyndon Johnson, won the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award among many other prizes and was chosen as one of the best documentaries of 1992 by The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Newsday and People magazine.
• “TR: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt,” his four-hour biography of Theodore Roosevelt, won a host of awards including two Emmy Awards and a Christopher Award.
• “Truman,” his four-and-a-half-hour biography of the 33rd president, received a Primetime Emmy Award and the Writers Guild Award for best documentary script.
• “Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided,” his six-hour biography of the Lincolns, has won many prizes and wide acclaim from critics across the country.
Some of Mr. Grubin’s recent films for television include:
• “Destination America” (four hours)
• “RFK” (two hours)
• “The Secret Life of the Brain” (five hours)
• “Napoleon” (four hours)
• “Marie Antoinette” (two hours)
Mr. Grubin’s five-part series for PBS, “Healing and the Mind with Bill Moyers,” has won many awards, and the companion book, for which he was executive editor, rose to number one on The New York Times Best Sellers list, remaining on the list for 32 weeks.
His four-hour series for PBS, “Destination America,” was named the best nonfiction program of 2005 by John Leonard of New York Magazine. His biography of Marie Antoinette, for which he won his fourth Writer’s Guild Award, premiered at Versailles in October 2005 and aired on PBS in September 2006. Currently Mr. Grubin is producing a six-hour series for PBS, “The Jewish Americans,” and, also for PBS, a three-hour series titled “The Mysterious Human Heart.”
A member of the executive committee of the Society of American Historians, Mr. Grubin has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, has been a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College, and is the recipient of an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, Hamilton College. He is a member of the Directors Guild and the Writers Guild and serves on the board of directors of the Film Forum.
He is married to the artist Joan Grubin and lives in New York City.