Awards & Winners

Joan Ganz Cooney

Date of Birth 30-November-1929
Place of Birth Phoenix
(Maricopa County, Arizona, United States of America)
Nationality United States of America
Also know as Joan Ganz, Cooney
Profession Television Producer, TV Program Creator
Joan Ganz Cooney is an American television producer. She is one of the founders of the Children's Television Network, the organization famous for the creation of the children's television show Sesame Street, which was also co-created by her. Cooney grew up in Phoenix, Arizona and earned a B.A. degree in education from the University of Arizona in 1951. After working for the State Department in Washington, D.C. and as a journalist in Phoenix, she worked as a publicist for television and production companies in New York City. In 1961, she became interested in working for educational television, and became a documentary producer for New York's first educational TV station WNET. Many of the programs she produced won local Emmys. In 1966, Cooney hosted what she called "a little dinner party" at her apartment near Gramercy Park. In attendance was her husband Tim Cooney, her boss Lewis Freedman, and Lloyd Morrisett, an executive at the Carnegie Corporation, in which the potential of television to teach young children was discussed. Cooney was chosen to oversee and direct the creation of what eventually became the children's television program Sesame Street, which premiered in 1969, and the CTW, the organization that oversaw its production. Cooney was named CTW's first executive director. As one of the first female executives in American television, her appointment was called "one of the most important television developments of the decade".

Awards by Joan Ganz Cooney

Check all the awards nominated and won by Joan Ganz Cooney.

1990


International Emmy Award for Founders
(Joan Ganz Cooney and the Children's Television Workshop)

1970


Grammy Award for Best Album for Children
Honored for : The Sesame Street Book & Record
(Producers)

Nominations 1970 »

Award Nominated Nominated Work
Grammy Award for Best Album for Children The Sesame Street Book & Record