Marshall Flaum, an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose movies over a 55-year career examined show business, nature and historical subjects, died on Oct. 1 in Los Angeles. He was 85. The cause was complications from hip surgery, his friend Mike Kaplan said. Two of Flaum's documentaries were nominated for Academy Awards. One of them, 'Let My People Go: The Story of Israel' (1965), told of the struggles of the Jews from 1917 until the formation of the state of Israel in 1948. He used emotionally riveting newsreel footage from the Holocaust, like that of a young mother in the Warsaw ghetto cradling a lifeless child in her arms. His other Oscar nomination was for 'The Yanks Are Coming' (1963), which delved into the United States' entry into World War I. It integrated popular music of the time with contemporaneous historical footage. Flaum won five Emmys. Two were for producing episodes of 'The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau,' one on sea otters and the other on dolphins, both in 1972. He won another Emmy for producing 'Jane Goodall and the World of Animal Behavior: The Wild Dogs of Africa' in 1973. He was nominated for other Emmys, and won awards at various film festivals. Flaum wrote and directed one of the first compilation films about the movie industry, 'Hollywood: The Great Stars,' produced by Jack Haley Jr. Other Hollywood documentaries of his focused on David O. Selznick, Humphrey Bogart and Bing Crosby. Marshall Allen Flaum was born in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y. on Sept. 13, 1925, and grew up in Union City, N.J. He served in the Army in World War II and studied acting at the University of Iowa, graduating in 1948. He appeared on Broadway in small parts in 'Julius Caesar' in 1950 and 'Romeo and Juliet' in 1951. In 1957 he went to work as a writer, story editor and associate producer on the CBS documentary series 'The Twentieth Century,' for which Walter Cronkite was host. He won two Emmys for episodes he wrote for that show. In 1962 he moved to Los Angeles to work with David L. Wolper, the movie and television producer, who died in August. Flaum is survived by his wife of 62 years, the former Gita Miller; his daughter, Erica, and his son, Seth, both film editors; his sister, June Flaum Singer; and two grandchildren. 