Robert Kotlowitz (November 21, 1924 - August 25, 2012) was a television producer, documentary filmmaker, and writer. His 1972 novel Somewhere Else won the National Jewish Book Award. While a producer at WNET/THIRTEEN, he helped created a number of influential shows such as The MacNeil/Lehrer Report (later renamed PBS NewsHour) and Live at the Met, with the shows called "a high-water mark in American television."[1]
Kotlowitz served in the Lorraine Campaign and was part of an ill-fated American assault against German troops in France in November 1944, which he described in a 1995 article in The New York Times Magazine and in Before Their Time: A Memoir, published in 1999. In the book he tells the story of the massacre of his platoon, where he was the only survivor.[3]
While at WNET/THIRTEEN, Kotlowitz helped created a number of influential shows such as The MacNeil/Lehrer Report (later renamed PBS NewsHour), Live at the Met, Dance in America and Brideshead Revisited.[1] The shows Kotlowitz helped create "deeply influenced PBS programming" and have been called by The New York Times a "high-water mark in American television."[1]
He was married to Billie Leibowitz Kotlowitz, who died in 1994. He had two sons, including author Alex Kotlowitz.
Kotlowitz died on August 25, 2012, in New York City.
Kotlowitz wrote five books, all of which have refer to his home city of Baltimore, Maryland. His novel Somewhere Else (1972) won the National Jewish Book Award in 1973.
