Alan Root, celebrated and scar-ridden wildlife filmmaker, dies at 80

Alan Root, a wildlife filmmaker who splashed through crocodile-infested rivers, piloted hot-air balloons over stampeding wildebeests and lost a “Coke bottle”-size chunk of his calf to an angry hippopotamus, all while producing nearly two dozen acclaimed nature documentaries, has died. He was 80.

Root had just returned from a safari in Alaska when he was hospitalized near his home in central Kenya, just outside the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, said Delta Willis, a friend and U.S. publicist for several of Root’s television specials. He had been diagnosed with the brain cancer glioblastoma in April, she said.

Root, an Englishman, spent nearly all his life in Kenya, where he and his first wife, Joan, acquired a reputation as two of Africa’s finest — and most scar-ridden — documentarians.

Root was considered one of the first filmmakers to capture animals in their natural habitat without human interference, and was credited with paving the way for migration movies such as “March of the Penguins.” He received two Emmy Awards and was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2008.

Alan Root was born in London on May 12, 1937. He married Joan Thorpe, the daughter of a safari guide, in 1961. They embarked on a series of journeys across Africa and the rest of the world, visiting the Galápagos Islands for “Voyage to the Enchanted Isles” (1967).

Root and his wife’s relationship fractured in the years after the movie, and they divorced in 1990. She was fatally shot at her home in Kenya in 2006 by intruders. The case is unsolved but has been linked to her conservation efforts.

Root married Jennie Hammond in 1991; she died in 2000. Survivors include his wife, Fran Michelmore, and their two sons, Myles and Rory.