Filmmaker had to return Oscar

Over the years, she said, her husband would talk about winning the Oscar "because that was quite a feat, quite a feather in his cap, even though they took it away."

Grasshoff was no stranger to the Oscar ceremony.

"The Really Big Family," a 1966 documentary for David L. Wolper Productions that he directed and produced about a family with 18 children, received an Academy Award nomination for best feature documentary.

And "Journey to the Outer Limits," a 1973 documentary he directed for the National Geographic Society and Wolper Productions, was nominated for an Oscar in the same category. The film, chronicling the adventures of a group of teenagers as they attempt to scale a peak in the Peruvian Andes, aired on ABC-TV in 1974. As producer, Grasshoff took home an Emmy Award when it won for "documentary program achievement."

Grasshoff spent most of the 1960s making documentaries, including for the documentary TV series "Hollywood and the Stars" and "National Geographic Specials."

"He was very good," Wolper said, noting that Grasshoff was among a group of about 20 documentary filmmakers who worked for him at the time. "Everybody had their own style, and he had his own style; it was a little quirky and unusual, but it was always good."

Grasshoff directed a handful of feature films, including "The Jailbreakers," "The Last Dinosaur" and "Smokey and the Good Time Outlaws."

And for television in the 1970s and early '80s, he directed episodes of such series as "Toma," "The Rookies," "The Rockford Files," "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" and "CHiPs" and segments of the "ABC Afterschool Specials."

"The Wave," a one-hour 1981 drama for ABC that he directed about a high school teacher's experiment in discipline, won a Peabody Award and an Emmy for outstanding children's program.

Born in Boston on Dec. 10, 1928, Grasshoff attended what was then Tufts College and USC, where he obtained a bachelor's degree in cinema in 1953.

He launched his Hollywood career in the mail room at Paramount in 1951 and became an assistant editor and then an editor at the studio.

He met his wife of 38 years -- she is the longtime owner of Madilyn Clark Studios, a rehearsal facility in North Hollywood -- at "The Ed Sullivan Show," where she was a backup dancer and he was accompanying the Young Americans, who were performing.

In addition to his wife, Grasshoff is survived by two sisters, Yrsa Grasshoff and Edith Rand.

A memorial service for friends at the Grasshoff home is pending.

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dennis.mclellan@latimes.com