Allie Light
Allie Light was an American film producer, director and editor. She notably won accolades by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Career
Light was the winner of the 1991 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for In the Shadow of the Stars and the 1995 News and Documentary Emmy for outstanding interview program for Dialogues with Madwomen. She wrote, directed and produced documentary films with her late partner, Irving Saraf.She served on the Media Advisory Panel for the National Endowment for the Arts and was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Personal life
Light was born in Dove Creek, Colorado, on May 2, 1935. In 1953, she graduated from Balboa High School and married Charles Hilder before attending San Francisco State University. Having three children by the age 25 consequently contributed to a nervous breakdown, and she spent time in the Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital at the University of California, San Francisco. In 1966, her husband, Hilder, died of lymphoma at the age of 32.Light married film producer Irving Saraf, becoming his second wife. The couple formed a professional producing partnership beginning in 1971. Saraf died from Lou Gehrig's disease at their home in San Francisco, California, on December 26, 2012, at the age of 80.
Light died from heart failure on September 17, 2025 in Austin, Texas, at the age of 90.