Robert Flaherty

Director & actor · born 16 February 1884 · Iron Mountain, Michigan, USA

Robert Joseph Flaherty (February 16, 1884 – July 23, 1951) was an American filmmaker who made the first commercially successful feature-length documentary, Nanook of the North (1922), which solidified his reputation and was never able to be equaled in its success, although he continued development of this new genre of narrative documentary with Moana (1926), set in the South Seas, and Man of Aran (1934), filmed in Ireland's Aran Islands. Flaherty is considered the father of both the documentary and the ethnographic film. Flaherty was married to writer Frances Hubbard from 1914 until his death in 1951. Hubbard worked on several of her husband's films, and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Story for Louisiana Story (1948).

Where to start: Nanook of the North (1922).