Christopher Lukas is a writer, television producer and director who, for the past forty-five years, has worked primarily for public television. From 1963 to 1971 he produced for WNET

WNET

WNET, channel 13 is a non-commercial educational public television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey. With its signal covering the New York metropolitan area, WNET is a primary station of the Public Broadcasting Service and a primary provider of PBS programming...

 in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, making over 200 hours of programming for the educational station. In 1969 he was promoted to director of programming.

His birth, early years, and education

Christopher "Kit" Lukas was born to Elizabeth and Edwin Lukas in White Plains, New York. His mother was an actress, and his uncle Paul Lukas was an Academy Award–winning actor. After his mother's death by suicide and his father's illness after her death, he was at the age of six enrolled in the coeducational Putney School boarding school in Vermont. He was graduated with high honors from Swarthmore and married Susan Ries in 1962. His older brother was J. Anthony Lukas

J. Anthony Lukas

Jay Anthony Lukas, aka J. Anthony Lucas , was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and author, probably best known for his 1985 book Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families, a classic study of race relations and school busing in Boston, Massachusetts, as...

, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and writer.

Television

After his work with public television, Lukas moved into the freelance world in 1971, working for public TV stations in San Francisco and Chicago, among others. His works for PBS include: The Mystery of Love, The World of Abnormal Psychology, Music From Aspen, Whose Death is It, Anyway?, Moyers: Report from Philadelphia, The Do It Yourself Messiah, and The Talking Walls of Pompeii. His non-television works include videos for non-profit organizations.

Acting

While continuing to work in video and television, Lukas returned in 2002 to the field of acting. He has appeared off-Broadway

Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

 and in regional theaters, playing a wide variety of roles in plays by Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov

Anton Chekhov

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...

, and Stoppard.

Writing

As a writer of books, he has concentrated on end-of-life matters. These works include:

• Blue Genes: A Memoir of Loss & Survival (Doubleday) 2008 (ISBN 0385525206).
• Silent Grief: Living in the Wake of Suicide (Scribners, Bantam Books) 1987 (ISBN 184310847X). Also published in Brazil, Russia, and China.
• Staying in Charge: Practical Plans for the End of Your Life (John Wiley & Son) 2004 (ISBN 0471274240).
• The First Year: Prostate Cancer (Marlowe Books.) 2005 (ISBN 1569243522).