Dalton Delan (born August 5, 1954) is an American writer, syndicated columnist, and television producer. He pens his syndicated column, the Unspin Room, for the Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper The Berkshire Eagle. His work with PBS and Sundance have won him numerous awards for documentaries and primetime shows. A number of his projects include working alongside notable figures like actor Robert Redford, Ken Burns and Henry Louis Gates Jr. Delan oversaw the production of sixteen In Performance at the White House programs in collaboration with the Obama administration, as well as several under the Bush and Clinton administrations years prior. As executive producer, Delan brought music giants like Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Burt Bacharach, and Carole King to the White House. The final program under the Obama administration, The Smithsonian Salutes Ray Charles, is documented on YouTube as "WETA at the White House", features singers like Demi Lovato, Usher, and Anthony Hamilton.
Delan was an executive producer of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, presented by the Kennedy Center to notable names in humor and comedy. Delan was also co-creator and was an executive producer of the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Music, whose first recipient, Paul Simon, was presented the award in a ceremony at the Warner Theater. Delan's most recent work has him as the managing director and chief content officer of One Mind All Media, the media division for the brain health non-profit One Mind.
Early life
Delan was born in Manhattan, New York, to attorney and stock broker Daniel Delan, and advertising executive and artist, Stephanie Lord Delan. He has one older brother, Douglas Scott Delan, who works in the educational field.
Delan attended Phillips Exeter Academy alongside subsequent music, film, and television veterans Bobby Shriver, Miles Chapin and Benmont Tench (former keyboard player for the late Tom Petty). Upon early graduation from Exeter, Delan attended Columbia University in New York, making the Dean's List both semesters. As a sophomore, Delan was recruited to Princeton University as part of an effort to strengthen the English Department's student body. During his academic career at Princeton University, Delan was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa society, and won the Junior English Prize, as well as the Senior Thesis Prize in English. He was an active journalist during this time, writing for the Henry David Thoreau Journal, as editor of The Nassau Lit, and as a writer and critic for The Daily Princetonian. Delan graduated from Princeton University summa cum laude in 1976. Following college, Delan began his career as a staff writer and editor for Time-Life Books, first in Manhattan and then in Washington D.C.
Career in television
Awards
ABC News
Delan got his start in television in 1979, working for ABC News in the ABC News Closeup documentary unit under Pamela Hill. There, he helped produce investigative reports with several big names in media, including a film featuring writer and historian William Manchester, and hosts Hugh Downs, Peter Jennings, and Barbara Walters. Titles that Delan worked on include "After the Sexual Revolution" and "Growing Old in America". "Rain of Terror", another of Delan's works, was deemed by a The Wall Street Journal editorial as "the single best piece of television journalism we've ever witnessed."
HBO and Lifetime Television
In 1986, Delan was hired at HBO to help build and serve as an executive producer of the America Undercover documentary series, as well as informational family programming specials. During his time working at HBO, Delan was known for recruiting filmmakers such as Alan and Susan Raymond, Jon Alpert and Albert Maysles, and working on programs featuring TV personalities like Walter Cronkite and Mary Tyler Moore. Delan was hired by Lifetime Television in 1990 to develop a variety of series and specials ranging from game shows and documentaries, to live events and their first primetime nonfiction series, "Confessions of Crime", as well as working with acclaimed actors and actresses, such as Glenn Close on the documentary "Broken Hearts, Broken Homes".
The Travel Channel
When Landmark Communications in Norfolk, Virginia, purchased The Travel Channel, Delan was hired in 1992 to help restart and grow the network, based in Atlanta. In addition to bringing in personalities such as Charles Kuralt, he also premiered the long-running series Globe Trekker (originally titled Lonely Planet).