albert zuro freedman

1922 - 2017
Albert Z. Freedman died on Tuesday 11 April in Marin County, California, where he had lived with his wife Nancy Freedman of nearly Thirty-five years. He was 95.

Albert was born on March 27, 1922 and lived in Taunton, Massachusetts until joining the Marines where he fought in the Pacific Campaign – an experience that influenced him hugely and cemented his pacifist beliefs.

After the war, he studied at Boston College, the University of Southern California and at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques, a world-leading film school in Paris. Touring Europe as an inquisitive and hopeful American, he met luminaries including Pablo Picasso and Colette Bronstein, the niece of the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky.

He moved to New York in the early 1950s where he sought work in the fledgling television industry, first working on the Groucho Marx Show and then producing The Quiz Show, 21, which erupted in controversy. Albert Freedman, however, always claimed that this episode was, more than anything else, a witch-hunt against TV entertainment let by aspirational politicians and a beleaguered newspaper industry.

On a much happier note, he married his first wife, Esther (Katz), in 1953 and went on to have four children, Mara (born 1956), Lisa (born 1958), Tani (born 1960) and Derek (born 1962). After a brief time in both Mexico City and Los Angeles, he moved the family to Europe, finally settling in London where he embarked on a new career in publishing. Albert successfully launched the magazine Forum, The International Journal of Human Relations in 1967 and working closely with Bob Guccione co-founding the publishing giant, General Media International, Inc., creating numerous publications with world-wide distribution.

He moved back to New York in 1975 where Esther was shortly to die of breast cancer, the first of several tragedies in his life as two of his daughters, Mara and Lisa, were both later to succumb to ovarian cancer. This saw a new and intense interest in public health, nutrition, and, in particular, a determination to seek new ways of treating and preventing cancer – a passion that never left him.

In 1981 he gained a PhD from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality and shortly met and married his second wife Nancy (Dworman) before moving to California where he continued to be a champion for personal and sexual freedom.

He is survived by his wife, Nancy, his two remaining children, Tani and Derek, and his three step-children, Lori, Todd and Garett Dworman, as well as ten grandchildren. Albert had friends across the world and inspired all those who came into contact with him with his passion and his humour. His generosity and warmth will never be forgotten by anyone lucky enough to have made his acquaintance and to have talked, argued and sung with him.