Andrew Solt | |
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Andrew Solt
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Born |
Andrew W. Solt 13 December 1947 London, England |
Occupation | President of sofa entertainment |
Known for | Television documentary production |
Andrew Solt (born 13 December 1947) is an American producer, director, and writer of documentary films. Solt has had a long career in television. A frequent focus of his documentaries is rock and roll music, its history and star performers.
Solt owns the rights to The Ed Sullivan Show library, and has produced more than 100 hours of new programming from the archive.
Solt was born in London and spent his early years in South Africa before moving to Los Angeles in 1958. Solt graduated from Hollywood High School before attending University of California, Los Angeles where he received a B.A. in Spanish. He also earned a master's degree in broadcast journalism from U.C.L.A. Solt is married to Claudia Falkenburg. She is the daughter of 1948 Wimbledon men's singles tennis champion Bob Falkenburg and the niece of 1950s actress-model-TV personality Jinx Falkenburg. He and his wife have two children, Joshua and Dakota. Solt is the nephew of Hungarian-born screenwriter Andrew P. Solt (The Al Jolson Story, Joan of Arc, In a Lonely Place).
In 1970, Solt began working at David Wolper's production company. He worked with the National Geographic Society on their various other network specials; while there, he began a longer-term collaboration with the award-winning producer. Wolper executive-produced two of Solt's documentaries, This is Elvis (1981) and Imagine: John Lennon (1988). Solt speaking at the memorial service for Wolper, who died 10 August 2010, described the many producers who cut their teeth there as having attended "Wolper U."
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Solt worked on television projects with Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the pioneer underwater explorer. He wrote and produced Oasis in Space (1976–77), a six-part half-hour series executive produced by Cousteau and his son Philippe. Solt received the first of nine Emmy nominations for the show's "Calypso's Search for Atlantis" episode. He also produced Cousteau Odyssey (1977–78), four one-hour specials about deep-sea explorations shot in the waters off Greece.; and The Mississippi—Reluctant Ally. (1984) The two-hour documentary about the nation's longest river won the 1985 Emmy for Outstanding Informational Special. The award was shared by Solt, Cousteau and his son, Jean-Michel Cousteau.