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We are grateful to UCLA alumnus Irv Drasnin, a broadcast journalist and documentarian, and his wife Xiaoyan Zhao Drasnin, a communication researcher and writer for their gift establishing the UCLA Irv and Xiaoyan Zhao Drasnin Communication Archive.
Filmmaker Irv Drasnin interviews Sidney Rittenberg, an American citizen who became the only foreign member of China's Communist Party.
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- Sidney Rittenberg
- Don Sellers, Lucy Ostrander
- Stourwater Pictures
Thanks to a $2.3 million pledge by alumnus Irv Drasnin, a broadcast journalist and documentarian, and his wife Xiaoyan Zhao Drasnin, a communication researcher and writer, an incredible trove...
Aug 2, 2024 · That will soon change, thanks to a $2.3 million pledge by alumnus Irv Drasnin, a broadcast journalist and documentarian, and his wife, Xiaoyan Zhao Drasnin, a communication researcher and writer.
- Jonathan Riggs
- Early Life
- Education
- Career
- Personal Life
- External Links
Irv Drasnin was born in Charleston, West Virginia, on March 18, 1934, a son of immigrants: his father, Joseph, a U.S. Treasury Agent, was from Tsarist Russia, as was his mother, Clara Aaron. The family moved to Los Angeles when he was four years old. His oldest brother, Sid, was an architect, remembered (with Lloyd Wright) for the Wayfarer's Chapel...
Drasnin is a graduate of Carthay Center Elementary School, John Burroughs Junior High School and Los Angeles High School (1952). He has a BA in political science from UCLA, where he was student body president (1955–56); editor of The Daily Bruin (for which the paper was awarded an All-American rating as one of the top five college dailies in the co...
United Press International
He began his career as a reporter at United Press International, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the eastern division news headquarters (1959–60), where the stories he covered included the steelworkers strike of 1959, the visits of Soviet leaders Kozlov and Khrushchev, Wightman CupTennis. He wrote both for newspapers and radio.
CBS News Broadcasts
In 1961 he was hired by CBS News as a writer for daily news broadcasts, becoming a producer for Calendar, a public affairs program with Harry Reasoner; and the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. His assignments for the evening news covered major news events, including the civil rights movement. He was the producer of CBS News coverage in Selma, Alabama including "Bloody Sunday" (March 1965) and for the Senate passage of the Voting Rights Act that followed. Other assignments included the R...
Documentary film years at CBS News and PBS
CBS News, 1966–79. PBS, 1982–92, for Frontline, The American Experience and Nova. His thirty documentaries include a chronicle of modern China beginning with Misunderstanding China (CBS News), Shanghai (CBS News), Looking for Mao (PBS/Frontline), China After Tiananmen (PBS/Frontline) and The Revolutionary, an independent feature-length film. When US-China relations were restored in 1972 after a 20-year hiatus, each of the three U.S. television networks was allowed access to film a documentary...
He is married to Xiaoyan Zhao, former senior vice president and global polling director for New York-based GfK Roper Public Affairs. The couple has lived in New York City (1987–1996) and Hong Kong (1997–1998) where Xiaoyan was the founding managing director of Roper's Asia-Pacific Headquarters. They now reside in Los Altos, California.
Assignment China, Irv Drasnin on YouTubeCovering ChinaIrv Drasnin at IMDbJun 2, 1992 · Veteran China hand Irv Drasnin has once again taken his documentary film cameras into the labyrinth of China, and has not quite found his way out.
Jul 10, 2012 · I had no doubt that the filmmaking team at Stourwater Pictures responsible for the documentary (Irv Drasnin, Lucy Ostrander, and Don Sellers, a trio who share producing credits) had found a...
