Adato, Perry Miller (1920-2018) | Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Name: Adato, Perry Miller (1920-2018)

Historical Note: Perry Miller Adato (1920-2018, b. Yonkers, New York) was a prolific documentarian, whose work as a film researcher, distributor, producer, and director spanned roughly seven decades, beginning in the 1940s through the 2010s. Best known for her WNET/Thirteen documentaries exploring the interior lives of influential artists, poets, and writers of the 20th century, Adato's accomplishments have earned her numerous accolades. Notable achievements include an Emmy award for her directorial debut, Dylan Thomas - The World I Breathe in 1968 and a Most Outstanding Achievement in Documentary award in 1978 from the Director's Guild of America for Georgia O'Keeffe (1977). Adato was also the first woman in the history of the Director's Guild to win this prestigious designation. She has also been cited as a major influence on the stylistic development of American documentary cinema. Her unique style choices to use narration and reenactment to propel the film narrative would go on to define contemporary documentary filmmaking practices that are canonized today by documentarians such as Kens Burns, who cites Adato as one of the major influences of his work. Adato's tireless career as a producer and director continued into her 90s, leaving behind dynamic artifacts that give us an intimate look at 20th-century legends such as Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Carl Sandburg, Georgia O'Keeffe, and the Eames among many others.

Records or Manuscript Collections Created by Adato, Perry Miller