Albert and David Maysles

Albert and David Maysles (respectively, born November 26, 1926, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.—died March 5, 2015, New York, New York; born January 10, 1932, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.—died January 3, 1987, New York, New York) were American documentary filmmakers who worked in a cinema verité style that was sensitive and compassionate as well as revelatory.

The Maysles brothers grew up in Dorchester and later in Brookline, Massachusetts. Albert studied psychology at Syracuse University, graduating in 1949. He later received a master’s degree from Boston University, where he taught psychology for the next three years. He then spent a year traveling in Europe. David earned a degree in business administration from Boston University in 1953. He worked briefly in Hollywood before turning to documentary films.

Albert’s first documentary, Psychiatry in Russia (1955), was a 14-minute silent film that he shot during a visit to the Soviet Union. In 1962 the brothers established the production company Maysles Films, Inc., and began to collaborate on documentaries in the cinema verité style, which they called “direct cinema.” They gained fame for the films Salesman (1969), about four door-to-door Bible salesmen, and Gimme Shelter (1970), which covered the 1969 Rolling Stones U.S. tour and focused especially on the disastrous Altamont concert near Livermore, California, at which a spectator was killed by a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang who had been hired to provide security. Both films were made with Charlotte Zwerin. Perhaps Albert and David’s best-known documentary was Grey Gardens (1975), an examination of the eccentric socialites Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, “Little Edie.” The film inspired a highly acclaimed Broadway musical (2006–07) and a television movie (2009). The brothers earned an Academy Award nomination for Christo’s Valley Curtain (1972), the first of several films about the artwork of installation artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Other notable documentaries included What’s Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A. (1964) and Vladimir Horowitz: The Last Romantic (1985), for which the Maysles brothers earned an Emmy Award.

After David’s death in 1987, Albert continued to direct documentaries and work as a cinematographer. His later films included LaLee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton (2001), for which he won the documentary cinematography award at the Sundance Film Festival, and Iris (2014), about style icon Iris Apfel. Salesman and Grey Gardens were placed (1992 and 2010, respectively) in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, and Albert was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2014.