Award-winning documentary filmmaker dies Award-winning documentary filmmaker dies (March 16, 2005)

Longtime Palo Altan Charlotte Beyers succumbs to lymphoma

Charlotte Kempner Beyers, 73, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and writer, died March 10 of complications from a long battle with lymphoma.

She lived in Palo Alto for almost 50 years after she completed her undergraduate study at Stanford in the early 1950s. She was married first to Gerald Davis, with whom she had four children, and then to Robert West Beyers for 35 years before his death in 2002.

A native New Yorker, she moved to San Francisco in 1942 when her father, S. Marshall Kempner, was posted to the Presidio to head the Victory Loan program for the Federal Reserve Bank. The family stayed on after the war. Her parents were prominent in the financial and international life of the city for many years, as well as giving their time generously to charitable and educational ventures.

She continued in this tradition of social activism and generous hospitality. She returned to Stanford to get a master's degree in journalism in the 1960s, spending much of the next decade writing for publications ranging from The Times of London, the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Journal of Higher Education, and the Saturday Review, as well as working as a staff writer for Nature.

She wrote regularly for California newspapers including the San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, and the Los Angeles Times. A science writer, she had a special interest in health care delivery, particularly in the Third World.

She and her husband Bob made numerous trips to Mexico to volunteer with a chain of clinics in the Sierra Madre mountains set up by MacArthur Grant-winning Palo Alto resident David Werner, and welcomed many from those villages into their home while they underwent treatment at Stanford or studied in the Bay Area.

After the 1985 death of her husband's brother from AIDS, she embarked upon a new career as a documentary film writer and producer. Her first film, "Aids In Your School," redressed the ignorance surrounding AIDS with the vivid clarity that characterized her best work. She made 15 films on teenage homelessness, drug abuse, arthritis, back pain, tuberculosis and disability employment issues. Her last film told the story of impoverished paraplegic youths in a rural Mexican clinic who made mobility aids for themselves and others.

Her films won many prizes including two "Cine Golden Eagles," three "Tellys," the 2000 Time Inc. award at the International Health and Medical Media Awards, plus citations at the American Film and Video Association, the New York Film Festival and more. The World Health Organization distributed her AIDS films to schools and youth groups throughout the English-speaking world.

She maintained close links with Stanford, both through her own writing and filmmaking, and through her late husband Bob, who as director of the Stanford News Service worked tirelessly for the University. She spoke five languages and traveled widely.

She is survived by her children, Pamela Davis Kivelson of Menlo Park, Nancy Stewart of Oxfordshire, England, Alan Davis of Berkeley, Cynthia Kanner of Los Angeles; and stepchildren, Bill Beyers of Los Angeles, Robbie Beyers of Menlo Park, and Amy Theorin of Greater Philadelphia; and her sister, Dr. Phyllis Kempner of San Francisco.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the HealthWrights Foundation/Projecto Projimo c/o David Werner, 964 Hamilton Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94301; or to Amnesty International.

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