Charles W. Fries - Contributions

Contributions

Fries has been, and continues to be, integrally involved in the entertainment industry at large. For 23 years he served at the American Film Institute as Vice Chair and Chair of the Executive Committee, and on the Board of Trustees, the Executive Committee and Board of Directors. He established the Charles W. Fries Producer of the Year Award at the Institute to encourage quality television programming. Recipients of the award include Dan Curtis, Edgar J. Scherick, Roger Gimbel, Suzanne de Passe, David Gerber, Stan Margulies, Dorothea Petrie, and Dick Berg, among others. He also chaired the Industry Television Committee and the AFI Writers Workshop for fourteen years from which a number of participants have emerged as stellar writers. He also spearheaded with Jon Avnet, the K-12 education program. Additionally, The Ava and Charles Fries Foundation established the Charles W. Fries Telefeature Library at the Institute. He was also awarded an Honorary Degree in Communication Arts by the American Film Institute in 2006. In 2012, Charles Fries’ son, Mike Fries, President and Chief Executive Officer of Liberty Global, made a gift of $2 Million in support of the Wesleyan University Cinema Archives Endowment Fund. Name in honor of his father, the gift establishes the Charles W. Fries Curator of the Wesleyan Cinema Archives. The Wesleyan Cinema Archive collections include the work of Frank Capra, Ingrid Bergman and Elia Kazan among others.