Claudia Lorraine Pryor Malis, a Peabody Award winning television producer and independent filmmaker who worked with Peter Jennings at ABC News and Maria Shriver at NBC News, died Wednesday in Stamford, Connecticut. She was 58, and died from complications suffered during the course of treatment for cancer.

Ms Pryor Malis began her career as a news writer at KGO Television in San Francisco, after earning a B.A. from Harvard University. As an African American female producer in TV newsrooms in the mid 1970s, she was a pioneer in an industry that struggled to incorporate diverse voices behind the camera. Her work for ABC News, NBC News and PBS during a 30-year career was recognized with the George Foster Peabody Award, the Alfred I. DuPont Gold Baton and 11 Emmy nominations. In mid-career, Ms. Pryor Malis also returned to academia to study history, earning an M.A. from New York University.

When television journalism turned its lens to celebrity news and so-called “infotainment,” Ms. Pryor chose to walk away from a high-powered network career to follow her passion for reporting stories about people of color for her own company, Diversity Films. She was particularly known within the industry for her ability to identify and portray the lives of Americans often overlooked or ignored by commercial television.

Her last film, Why Us? Left Behind and Dying, was a research project funded with a grant from the National Institutes of Health. The research and film focused on a group of African American high school students in Pittsburgh who served as investigators seeking the sources of HIV/AIDS in their urban neighborhood. That research project is now being screened by high school students across the country and serves as the basis for an HIV / AIDS education curriculum benefitting thousands of young Americans at risk.

Claudia is survived by her husband , partner and soul-mate, Howard Malis, a film and videotape editor who worked with her for 25 years; her mother Dorothy Jordan Pryor; a brother Al and many friends and relatives who continue to draw tremendous strength and wisdom from her spirit.

The family will receive condolences at The Nicholas F. Cognetta Funeral Home & Crematory, Stamford, CT between the hours of 4pm and 8pm on Monday, January 9th. For directions and other details go to http://www.cognetta.com. A celebration of Claudia’s life will take place in March.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the United Negro College Fund in honor of Claudia’s extraordinary life.

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