Peter Emil Hansen

Peter Emil Hansen died peacefully in his Santa Barbara home on Garden Street, October 7th, 2024. He was 89.

Born in 1935 to Elwood Hansen and Josephine Gasser Hansen, young Peter spent his childhood years in Elkhart, Indiana, where for several generations the extended family had owned and operated a successful brass business. In 1947, the Elwood Hansens–including older sister Karen and younger brother, Jimmy–relocated to California. An always superior student, Peter attended Cate School, Phillips Exeter Academy, Harvard University, then Pomona College, where he concentrated in English and Philosophy. He also served in the National Guard at Camp Roberts near Paso Robles.

It was in Carpinteria in 1950 that he first met Whitney Brooks, daughter of Robert and Hope Brooks. He married her in 1959, and the couple first lived in Hollywood while Peter studied Film at USC. On receiving his master’s in 1961, he, Whitney and their one-year-old daughter, Hope, moved to New York City, where Peter had been offered a job at Leacock-Pennebaker, at this time a pioneering studio in the field of cinéma vérité. Between 1963 and 1970, Peter worked on the production and distribution of several groundbreaking films, such as Don’t Look Back, Monterey Pop, Sweet Toronto, and Company. It was also during this time that his second child, Brooks, was born.

In 1971, Hansen left Leacock-Pennebaker and embarked on a highly successful career as a television programmer, first with Time Life Films, then Arts & Entertainment. A third child, Sam, arrived in 1974, while Hansen was establishing himself as the preeminent broker between the British and American television industries. The list of programs Hansen helped develop and produce in this time includes Wild, Wild World of Animals, Alistair Cooke’s America, I Claudius, Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Biography.

Hansen’s tenure as head of programming at A&E was curtailed by a freak accident suffered in 1987; he was struck in the head by the shard of a glass tabletop that had blown off a 34th-floor balcony. Somewhat miraculously, he survived the injury and continued serving in an advisory capacity at A&E for five more years before finally retiring in 1993. Thereafter he lived in Sag Harbor, Long Island, and was a fixture of the local Historical Society, the library, Christ Episcopal Church, and various paths, ponds, beaches and bays.

In addition to being an avid walker, swimmer, and body surfer, Hansen was a happy traveler. He read voraciously, and his command of world history was comprehensive. He was a concise writer and a voluble conversationalist, stylish in dress, elegant in bearing, and he enjoyed laughing–often, hard, and gooselike–thanks to a ready sense of humor that was by turns sophisticated, keen, and juvenile. He was a surprisingly good dancer (and whistler), a thoughtful mentor, honest in his appraisals, and possessed an uncommon gift for befriending the stranger. He was also quite beloved by all his grandchildren.

For much of the last two decades, he and Whitney traded time between Sag Harbor and Santa Barbara before finally settling west, post-pandemic.

He is survived by his sister Karen, his wife Whitney, all three of his children, as well as six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.