Biography

David Haspel Shepard (October 22, 1940 – January 31, 2017) was a film preservationist whose company, Film Preservation Associates, is responsible for many high-quality video versions of silent films. Some come from the Blackhawk Films library (owned by Shepard) and others from materials owned by private collectors and film archives around the world. Shepard was born in Manhattan, New York City, the son of Marjorie (née Haspel) and Bertram Shepard. His father was an executive with the Grand Union grocery-store chain, and his mother a homemaker.

When he was 11 years old his family moved to Tenafly, New Jersey.As a teenager he filmed school football games for the coaches to study, and in the off-season began to make his own films with student actors. He graduated from Hamilton College, in Clinton, New York, in 1962, with a BA in philosophy, and completed a master's degree from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania in 1963.Shepard began restoring films when he joined the American Film Institute in 1968 as one of their first staff members. In 1987, he bought the Blackhawk Films library.

In December 2016, he suffered pneumonia and kidney disease and was hospitalized. Doctors discovered cancer in his chest and he died on January 31, 2017, in Medford, Oregon.

Most of the collections of David Shepard and Film Preservation Associates are held at the Academy Film Archive as part of the Lobster Film/Film Preservation Associates Collection.