HBO’s documentary chief, Sheila Nevins, leaving network

The woman who has run HBO’s documentary unit for 38 years and has been a key gatekeeper in the making of its nonfiction films says she will be stepping down early next year.

Sheila Nevins has worked on productions that have won 32 Emmy Awards, 42 Peabody Awards and 26 Academy Awards.

She told The New York Times that she’ll be leaving but will continue to work on some leftover projects for HBO.

A native New Yorker, Nevins was born in Manhattan to a Jewish family in 1939. 

Receiving her BA in English from Bernard College in 1960, Nevins went on to write for children’s television programming and eventually the news in the mid 1970s. 

Speaking her first experiences in television nearly 40 year ago, Nevins recently told the New York Times that ‘being touched by a man inappropriately was part of the rules of the game.’ 

 Sheila Nevins, left, Anderson Cooper, Gloria Vanderbilt and Liz Garbus attend the premiere of “Nothing Left Unsaid” at the Time Warner Center in New York (Pictured: April 2016)

‘I had no one to go to, and I didn’t suffer. I just allowed it. Now I feel a little bit guilty for allowing it, but I have to say, it’s like a wound that healed, or a wound that never was. I’m not sure that I knew there was any other way. I had to have a job. I didn’t have any money.’ 

She accepted a position as Director of Documentary Programming on a 13-week contract for HBO in 1979. She continued in that role until 1982 when she left the network to start her own production company called Spinning Reels.

In 1986, she returned to HBO as Vice President of Documentary Programming and would soon spearhead the award-winning ‘America Undercover’ documentary series, which dealt with more adult themed subject matter. 

Nevins was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame in 2002, and was promoted to HBO’s President of Documentary and Family Programming in 2004.

Nevins married investment banker Sidney Koch in 1972 and gave birth to their son, David, in 1980. 

The 78-year-old said she is also considering a radio show and a book.

)Michael Foley and Sheila Nevins attend the special screening of HBO’s “Jim: The James Foley Story” at the Time Warner Center in New York (Pictured: February 2016)