Robert A. Sklar ’58

Bob died July 2, 2011, in Barcelona from a brain injury sustained in a bicycle accident.

He came to Princeton from Polytechnic High School in Long Beach, Calif. Bob was chairman of The Daily Princetonian his senior year. A member of Colonial Club, Bob wrote his thesis on the political career of Richard Nixon, graduated summa cum laude and roomed with Walter Mayo, Jonathan Bunge, and Bill Greider in his senior year.

After Princeton, he was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, spent a year at the University of Bonn on a Fulbright Scholarship, and received a doctorate in history from Harvard. For more than 30 years he was a professor of cinema studies at NYU. His book, Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies (1975), has become a standard work on the subject and has never been out of print. He served on the selection committee of the New York Film Festival and was a member of the National Film Preservation Board.

All who knew Bob well said he was a man of many accomplishments with a quiet, easygoing modesty. To Adrienne, his wife of 29 years; his children, Leonard Sklar and Susan Friedman, and their mother, Kathryn Kish Sklar; and his four dearly loved grandchildren, the class sends sincere condolences.