Margaret (Trudy) Carlile Travis (1921-2011) was an American director and scriptwriter of numerous short educational, documentary, and industrial and other sponsored films. She wrote the script for the film Leo Beuerman, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary short in 1970.
Travis was born in Collinsville, Oklahoma, and attended Coffeyville Junior College. [1] She had lived in Baltimore and in Waynesville, NC, and worked in defense plants during World War II. She married Kenneth A. Travis, of Coffeyville, in 1941.She and her husband moved to Lawrence, Kansas in 1946. She had three sons. She died in Lawrence in September 2011.
She was one of the first four employees of Centron Corporation [2] in Lawrence from 1947-1985, where she was a motion picture scriptwriter and director, working on a reported but still to be researched almost 100 short educational and commercial films, According to leading scholar of US industrial films Rick Prelinger, Travis was one of relatively few women who worked in the field during this time period. [3]
Many of her pictures for Young America Films pioneered the use of classroom educational films in the 1950s and 1960s. This period was the heyday for films designed to be shown to students on proper behavior. [4]
The film Leo Beuerman on which Travis served as scriptwriter was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary short in 1970. She retired as Centron’s vice president of creative services.
Margaret (Trudy) Carlile Travis (1921-2011) was an American director and scriptwriter of numerous short educational, documentary, and industrial and other sponsored films. She wrote the script for the film Leo Beuerman, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary short in 1970.
Travis was born in Collinsville, Oklahoma, and attended Coffeyville Junior College. [1] She had lived in Baltimore and in Waynesville, NC, and worked in defense plants during World War II. She married Kenneth A. Travis, of Coffeyville, in 1941.She and her husband moved to Lawrence, Kansas in 1946. She had three sons. She died in Lawrence in September 2011.
She was one of the first four employees of Centron Corporation [2] in Lawrence from 1947-1985, where she was a motion picture scriptwriter and director, working on a reported but still to be researched almost 100 short educational and commercial films, According to leading scholar of US industrial films Rick Prelinger, Travis was one of relatively few women who worked in the field during this time period. [3]
Many of her pictures for Young America Films pioneered the use of classroom educational films in the 1950s and 1960s. This period was the heyday for films designed to be shown to students on proper behavior. [4]
The film Leo Beuerman on which Travis served as scriptwriter was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary short in 1970. She retired as Centron’s vice president of creative services.