George Abbott Clark

George has a unique background in film and anthropology. In New York City, he grew up in show business. His family were actors, agents, casting directors, writers, producers, and directors. George's first job was doing a commercial at age 4. In High School, before the legal age of employment, he worked in the mailroom at The Nederland theater office for legendary producer Elizabeth McCann. Then, he worked at WNEW-TV becoming executive producer of debates and commentaries, with eyes on becoming a documentary filmmaker. He went to HampshireCollege to major in film and TV but felt anthropology would be a more interesting major to become a filmmaker. His anthropology research career exploded, and George was offered an MA and Ph.D. from UMASS,Amherst. To help financially, George got scholarships, fellowship awards,and teaching positions. In graduate school, he taught cultural anthropology, archaeology, biological and evolutionary anthropology, medical anthropology, biostatistics, and writing. He also went to MIT, training in international nutrition.

Beginning his Ph.D. research, George made a "lucky" discovery linking poor early growth, adult aging and life span in the immune, neural and skeletal system. He was recruited with financial incentives to complete his 600-page dissertation at Yale Medical School, in New Haven CT. He then moved to Washington DC after receiving the Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Award to continue his research. George was subsequently recruited to be the lead anthropologist at one of the biggest aging studies in the world, begun by Harvard Medical School and the VA in Boston, MA. There, George continued his research and lectured extensively across the US and in foreign countries as well as publishing in leading science journals. He then won a Rockefeller Award for his research.

His work in the skeletal system led him to being recruited by NASA. They wanted him to be a mission specialist on the space shuttle to study bones loss in zero gravity, when the Challenger blew up. The tragedy derailed that research avenue. But George won The Young Investigator of the Year Award from the National Institute of Health and went to the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine to try and reverse immune aging using biochemistry - and began to write screenplays. George was then awarded The Outstanding Contemporary Classic Award for Ph.D. dissertations by the Museum of Natural History in New York City, 6 years after it was published. Feeling he had become an anthropologist and his research linking poor early growth and adult aging was completed, George started at the bottom again to become a filmmaker. He used his screenwriting to get an MFA from The AFI, in Los Angeles. Since then he's been using his anthropology and filmmaking skills. George has optioned and sold screenplays and treatments, as well as directed, edited, and been an award winning cinematographer and producer. He's worked forABC-TV, CBS-TV, NBC Universal Studios, Discovery Channel, HBO,commercials, independent films, and documentaries.

Along the way, George also canoed thousands of miles across the ArcticCircle, tributaries of the Amazon, lived with Guatemalan Indians, and filmed all over the world for a nature, adventure, and conservation documentary TV series.