George Cooper Stevens Jr. (born April 3, 1932) is an American writer, playwright, director, and producer. He is the founder of the American Film Institute, creator of the AFI Life Achievement Award, and co-creator of the Kennedy Center Honors. He has also served as Co-Chairman of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. Personal life Stevens was born and grew up in Los Angeles, California. His father was the film director George Stevens and his mother Yvonne Howell was an actress. Stevens' grandparents were also in the entertainment industry. His maternal grandmother Alice Howell was a silent comedy film actress, and his paternal grandparents Landers Stevens and Georgia Cooper Stevens were film actors. In 1965, he married Elizabeth Guest, the daughter of Lily Polk Guest. With his wife, Stevens has two sons, David Stevens, film producer Michael Stevens and a stepdaughter, documentary producer Caroline Stevens. Career Early career After graduating from Occidental College in 1953, Stevens enlisted in the United States Air Force, where he directed training films. He began his career in Hollywood as a production assistant on several of his father's movies, including A Place in the Sun, Shane, and Giant. He was also an associate producer and director of location scenes on his father's drama The Diary of Anne Frank. In 1957, Stevens directed a pilot for Dragnet creator Jack Webb called People. NBC turned the pilot down, but ABC aired it as a special in December of 1957. Stevens then went on to direct episodes of another Webb-created series, The D.A.'s Man, in 1959. He did additional TV directing work on shows such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Peter Gunn. United States Information Agency In 1962, while he was doing pre-production work on The Greatest Story Ever Told, Stevens was recruited by Edward R. Murrow to serve as director of the Motion Picture and Television Service, a division of the United States Information Agency. At age 31, Stevens moved from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., where as director of the service, he produced roughly 300 short documentary films per year. One of the films Stevens commissioned was Nine from Little Rock, which followed the experiences of nine African-American students attending a previously all-white high school in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. That film won an Academy Award for documentary short in 1965. Stevens also produced the agency's first full-length film, a 90-minute documentary about John