Life
At age 18, Marty traveled to Alaska on his own with an 8mm movie camera. He became trapped by snowfall in a remote valley, but survived by hunting and trapping local wildlife. He returned home and with the warm reception of his unsophisticated movie of his adventure in the north, decided to pursue a career in wildlife documentary making. In 1970, Marty graduated from the University of Arkansas with a degree in English. From there he traveled to Africa to film a new documentary. While in Africa, he was confronted with massive and wasteful killing of animals and returned to America with the intent to produce films that argued for nature conservation.
Marty's stories, incorporating these dramatic "facts of life," and told simply in his honest home-spun style, won the hearts of a loyal audience. It also helped that the programs were magnificently filmed in slow-motion, time-lapse, telephoto and closeup cinematography. The Series became an almost-instant hit. It was one of PBS's most highly-rated regular Series, never leaving the Top Ten, and it remains the most broadcast Series which has ever aired on Public Television.
In 1993, Stouffer was accused of cruelty to animals as part of the production of Wild America. Stouffer denied cruelty to animals, but admitted that he sometimes took tame animals into the wild, and filmed them. A PBS investigation found fault with 15 out of 110 shows.
Stouffer earned $135,000 per show from PBS. The broadcaster dropped the show in 1996.
Read more about this topic: Marty Stouffer
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“When you realize how hard it is to know the truth about yourself, you understand that even the most exhaustive and well-meaning autobiography, determined to tell the truth, represents, at best, a guess. There have been times in my life when I felt incredibly happy. Life was full. I seemed productive. Then I thought,”Am I really happy or am I merely masking a deep depression with frantic activity?” If I don’t know such basic things about myself, who does?”
—Phyllis Rose (b. 1942)
“Taking food alone tends to make one hard and coarse. Those accustomed to it must lead a Spartan life if they are not to go downhill. Hermits have observed, if for only this reason, a frugal diet. For it is only in company that eating is done justice; food must be divided and distributed if it is to be well received.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“There is a delicate balance of putting yourself last and not being a doormat and thinking of yourself first and not coming off as selfish, arrogant, or bossy. We spend the majority of our lives attempting to perfect this balance. When we are successful, we have many close, healthy relationships. When we are unsuccessful, we suffer the natural consequences of damaged and sometimes broken relationships. Children are just beginning their journey on this important life lesson.”
—Cindy L. Teachey. “Building Lifelong Relationships—School Age Programs at Work,” Child Care Exchange (January 1994)