Peter Irwin A. Powell Jr. ’64

Peter died Aug. 1, 2015, after a nine-year battle with throat cancer.

He graduated from Canterbury School, where he was student body president. He spent freshman year with us, but was unable to finish his Princeton degree for financial reasons. He remained actively interested in the class, attending several Reunions.

Peter embarked on a multi-faceted career in media, initially with the new documentary-film unit of Time-Life. He then worked on “To Be Alive” for the World’s Fair in New York in 1964 and in Montreal in 1967 that won him an Academy Award for “Best Documentary Short.”

He ran his own media-production company for a few years before forming a new production company with David Garth, a political-strategy professional. Garth-Powell won more than 80 percent of its political campaigns, including those for Mario Cuomo, John Heinz, Ed Koch, and Rudy Giuliani. Peter’s next venture, with his partner, Rita Gam, was “World of Beauty” for PBS, a series of documentaries on various countries for which they received many awards. He continued to do independent documentary film work as long as he could.

To Rita, son Gus, and two granddaughters, the class extends its warmest sympathy.