Marty Stouffer

Martin Luther Stouffer Jr. (born September 5, 1948), is the narrator and producer of the wildlife and nature documentary television program Wild America that originally aired on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the 1980s. Stouffer was born and raised in Fort Smith, Arkansas. His name has been legally changed to Marty Stouffer. Along with his brother, Mark, he also produced the TV series of John Denver specials for ABC in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Another half-dozen one-hour Specials for the National Geographic Society were also produced during that same time period. Stouffer's special "The Predators" was narrated by Robert Redford and his special "The Man Who Loved Bears" was narrated by Will Geer and Henry Fonda. Early influences At age 19 Stouffer traveled to Alaska on his own with a Super 8 mm movie camera. He returned home to a warm reception by an audience of 1,800 local Arkansas residents in the Fort Smith Municipal Auditorium who turned out to view what was basically a home movie. To that audience he first aired an unsophisticated movie of his adventure in the North, paid for his summer vacation many times over, and easily made an early decision to spend his life creating many more such productions. Soon after that success and his decision to pursue a career in wildlife documentary-making, he graduated from college and began his career in earnest. In 1970, Stouffer graduated from the University of Arkansas with a degree in English. From there he traveled to Botswana to spend most of a year filming a feature-length documentary entitled Botswana, Where a River Dies. While in Africa, he was confronted with the often cruel and wasteful killing of animals, political unrest, and human tragedies. As a result, he returned to America with the intention of producing films promoting nature conservation. One of these efforts was The American Wildlife Project.