Stan Taffel is an American stage

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 and television actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

, and host

Presenter

A presenter, or host , is a person or organization responsible for running an event. A museum or university, for example, may be the presenter or host of an exhibit. Likewise, a master of ceremonies is a person that hosts or presents a show...

.

Early career

Taffel appeared in a series of televised PBS specials, titled The News In Revue that premiered as an off-Broadway stage show in the theater district. Taffel co-directed the show with creator Nancy Holson. This first special was nominated for five Emmy Awards, of which it won three.

Taffel was a founding member of the comedy improvisation troupes, Noo Yawk Tawk, which debuted at the Village Gate in New York City and Speakeasy, at the West End Comedy Club. Others in the group included Miguel Sierra, Marc Kudisch, Debra Wilson

Debra Wilson

Debra Wilson Skelton , professionally known as Debra Wilson or Debra Wilzon, is an American comedienne and actress. Wilson is likely most famous for being the second longest-serving original cast member on the sketch comedy series MADtv, having appeared for the show's first eight seasons...

 and Richmond Shepard. He has toured doing stand up comedy from coast to coast, and provided several voices for the animated series, The Toysters.

Los Angeles

In Los Angeles, Taffel appeared on Make Me Laugh, performing stand up comedy and impersonations and was a cast member of New Jewish Cuisine, a comedic cooking show.

Taffel conducted archival interviews with Jane Russell

Jane Russell

Jane Russell was an American film actress and was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s....

, Angie Dickinson

Angie Dickinson

Angie Dickinson is an American actress. She has appeared in more than fifty films, including Rio Bravo, Ocean's Eleven, Dressed to Kill and Pay It Forward, and starred on television as Sergeant Suzanne "Pepper" Anderson on the 1970s crime series Police Woman.-Early life:Dickinson, the second of...

, George Hamilton

George Hamilton (actor)

George Stevens Hamilton is an American film and television actor.-Early life:Hamilton was the youngest son of bandleader George "Spike" Hamilton and his first wife, Ann Stevens . He was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and lived in Blytheville, Arkansas...

, Piper Laurie

Piper Laurie

Piper Laurie is an American actress of stage and screen known for her roles in the television series Twin Peaks and the films The Hustler, Carrie, and Children of a Lesser God, all of which brought her Academy Award nominations...

, Charles Lane

Charles Lane (actor)

Charles Gerstle Levison , better known as Charles Lane, was an American character actor seen in many movies and TV shows, and at the time of his death may have been the oldest living professional American actor. Lane appeared in many Frank Capra films, including You Can't Take It With You , Mr...

, Don Murray

Don Murray (actor)

Donald Patrick "Don" Murray is an American actor.-Early life and career:Murray was born in Hollywood, California on July 31, 1929, the only child of Dennis Aloisius, a Broadway dance director and stage manager and Ethel Murray, a former Ziegfeld performer...

,
Joan Van Ark

Joan Van Ark

Joan Van Ark is an American actress, most notable for her role as Valene Ewing, which she originated on the CBS series Dallas and continued for thirteen seasons on its spin-off, Knots Landing...

, Norman Lloyd

Norman Lloyd

Norman Lloyd is an American actor, producer, and director with a career in entertainment spanning more than seven decades. Lloyd, who currently resides in Los Angeles, has appeared in over sixty films and television shows....

, and Patricia Neal

Patricia Neal

Patricia Neal was an American actress of stage and screen. She was best known for her film roles as World War II widow Helen Benson in The Day the Earth Stood Still , wealthy matron Emily Eustace Failenson in Breakfast at Tiffany's , middle-aged housekeeper Alma Brown in Hud , for which she won...

 among others. Taffel also interviewed the surviving Munchkins from the MGM film, The Wizard Of Oz

The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)

The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...

, at Grauman's Chinese Theater to commemorate their star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame

Hollywood Walk of Fame

The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...

.

Taffel is the vice president of Cinecon, a motion picture festival held annually in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, and will be hosting the documentary, Gable: The Ties That Bind, for Tegan Summer Productions.

Emmy Awards

Taffel won three consecutive Emmy Awards in 1993, 1994 and 1995 for his performances in The News In Revue.

Archivist

In the profession of film archiving, Taffel's personal collection contains almost 1,500 prints of rare motion pictures and television shows, many of which are the only surviving copies. He has provided film clips and other information to documentaries including Buster Keaton: A Hard Act To Follow, The Tramp and The Dictator, Laurel & Hardy: Their Lives and Magic.