Marshall Flaum

Who was Marshall Flaum?

Marshall Allen Flaum was an American Emmy Award-winning documentary and television director, producer and screenwriter. In addition to his five Emmy Awards, Flaum earned two Academy Award nominations for his work on the documentary films The Yanks Are Coming in 1963 and Let My People Go: The Story of Israel in 1965.

Flaum was born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York, on September 13, 1925, and was raised in Union City, New Jersey. He enlisted in the United States Army during World War II. Flaum earned a bachelor's degree in acting from the University of Iowa in 1948.

He pursued a career as a stage actor following his graduation from Iowa. Flaum returned to New York City, where he studied with acting teacher Lee Strasberg while appearing on Broadway. His Broadway credits during the period he studied under Strasberg included the 1950 production of Romeo and Juliet, which starred Olivia de Havilland, and Julius Caesar in 1951, in which he appeared opposite Basil Rathbone.

In 1957, Flaum joined the staff of the CBS documentary television series, Twentieth Century, hosted by Walter Cronkite, as a story editor, producer and writer.