Stephen Talbot

Born in Hollywood in 1949, the son of actor Lyle Talbot, Stephen Talbot became a child actor, appearing as Beaver's friend, Gilbert, in more than 50 episodes of the iconic baby boomer series "Leave It To Beaver. " He also appeared in many TV shows of the late '50s and early '60s, including "Perry Mason," "Lassie," "The Twilight Zone," "Wanted: Dead of Alive" and "The Lucy Show. "As an adult, Talbot turned to reporting and documentary filmmaking. He began as a producer and on-air reporter for KQED, the public television station in San Francisco.

At the age of 9, after begging his reluctant parents to let him act, Steve made his professional debut in 1958, starring in "Admiral in an Outboard," an "industrial" film that was essentially an extended commercial for motorboats shot in Chicago and on Lake Oshkosh, Wisconsin. A young model, Pepe Wonso, played Steve's older sister. Changing her name to Pamela Tiffin, the beautiful young actress went on to become a leading Hollywood starlet in the '60s, co-starring with James Cagney in Billy Wilder's "One, Two, Three.".

Co-starred in playwright William Inge's "Dark at the Top of the Stairs" with Marjorie Lord and John Russell at the La Jolla Playhouse in 1960. Two years before Stephen made his first TV appearance in an episode of the Warner Bros. Western series, "Lawman," which starred Russell.

It was based on Talbot's earlier film, "1968. " Talbot has also written and co-produced several biographies of noted writers, including Ken Kesey, Carlos Fuentes, Beryl Markham, Maxine Hong Kingston and John Dos Passos (narrated by actor William Hurt).

Graduated from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where he made his first documentary, March on Washington (1970).

He had early success with two documentaries that set the tone for his career: "Broken Arrow" (1980) an investigation of nuclear weapons accidents, and "The Case of Dashiell Hammett" (1982), a biography of the mystery writer. Both films won George Foster Peabody Awards and established Talbot as someone who could do both investigative reporting and arts films.

Stephen Talbot's 1982 PBS biography of San Francisco mystery writer Dashiell Hammett won both a George Foster Peabody Award and a special "Edgar Allen Poe" Award from the Mystery Writers of America.

Talbot's 1986 documentary, "World Without Walls," about African aviator Beryl Markham, co-produced with Joan Saffa and Judy Flannery, catapulted Markham's once forgotten memoir, "West with the Night," onto national bestseller lists. Diane Baker's Artemis Productions in Los Angeles then hired Talbot to adapt Markham's book for the screen. The movie was never produced, but his commission allowed Talbot to pay the down payment on a house in San Francisco for his family. He quickly returned to the work he knew best: writing and producing public television documentaries.

Talbot began producing documentaries for the critically acclaimed PBS series, "Frontline," in 1992 with his film on the Bush-Clinton presidential race, "The Best Campaign Money Can Buy," which won a DuPont Award.

When "Frontline's" executive producer David Fanning launched an international news magazine series, "Frontline World," in 2002, he named Talbot as the Series Editor with a mandate to increase global reporting in the wake of 9/11 and to develop a new generation of younger reporters and producers.

From 2002-2008, Talbot was instrumental in recruiting new talent and in commissioning and supervising over 100 broadcast stories for 30 hour-long episodes of the Emmy award-winning series.

Stephen Talbot was one of four producers cited in winning the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Overseas Press Club of America for the 2004 season of the PBS series, Frontline World.

He also went to Lebanon and Syria to produce his own report about Lebanon's Cedar Revolution, "The Earthquake" (2005) with correspondent Kate Seelye. And he oversaw "Rough Cuts," a series of original videos for the "Frontline World" website. Throughout his career of nearly 35 years in public television, Talbot has continued to produce history and arts documentaries, alongside his broadcast journalism work.

With David Davis, Talbot wrote and directed "The Sixties: The Years That Shaped a Generation," a two-hour history special that aired nationally on PBS in 2005.

It was the start of a long association with "Frontline," where he produced and wrote ten documentaries for the series, including "News War: What's Happening to the News" (2007) with reporter Lowell Bergman, "Justice for Sale" (1999) with Bill Moyers, "Spying on Saddam" (1999), "The Long March of Newt Gingrich" (1996) and "Rush Limbaugh's America" (1995) with Peter Boyer, and "The Heartbeat of America" (1993) with Robert Krulwich about the travails of General Motors.

In 2008, he formed The Talbot Players, an independent media company in San Francisco, with his brother David and sister Margaret, and created a new music show for PBS, "Sound Tracks: Music Without Borders," executive producing specials in 2010 and 2012 with host Marco Werman and starting an online music series for PBS Digital, "Quick Hits.

"Talbot also continues to serve as executive producer for a number of independent documentaries, such as director Mimi Chakarova's expose of sex trafficking in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, "The Price of Sex" (2011). In recent years he has consulted and produced for public media organizations, including the Center for Investigative Reporting and the PBS series Independent Lens.

Steve's youngest sister, Margaret Talbot, a staff writer for The New Yorker, has written a family memoir and a biography of their father, actor Lyle Talbot, entitled, "The Entertainer: Movies, Magic and My Father's Twentieth Century" (2012).