Emmy Award-winning producer Lee Mendelson dies at the age of 86. He brought the holiday film, A Charlie Brown Christmas to television in 1965 and wrote the enduring lyrics to the song Christmas Time Is Here, died on Christmas morning at his home in Hillsborough, California, where his family had gathered for Christmas.
Mendelson succumbed to lung cancer and congestive heart failure. His son, Jason Mendelson, told the Los Angeles Times: “It is a terrible feeling … but as he would have put it, it was serendipitous to go on Christmas Day — a day when the song that he wrote was playing every 10 minutes on radio stations.”
He won 12 Emmy Awards in the course of his career, most recently for It’s Your 50th Birthday, Charlie Brown (2015), with over 30 additional nominations.
Mendelson is survived by his wife, Ploenta and her son, Ken; his four children, Glenn, Lynda, Jason and Sean; and eight grandchildren.