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Shelter Island Reporter obituary: Andrea Blaugrund Nevins

By Reporter Staff

Andrea Blaugrund Nevins, 63, passed away from breast cancer surrounded by her family at her home in Los Angeles, Calif., on April 12, 2025.

The daughter of Drs. Stanley and Annette Blaugrund, Andrea  was born on March 15, 1962, in New York City.

The Blaugrunds owned a house at 15 Spring Garden Avenue from 1969 to 1998. Andrea grew up playing tennis on the Heights courts, taking sailing lessons at the Yacht Club, swimming lessons at the Beach Club and golf lessons at Gardiner’s Bay Country Club with Bob DeStefano. She was married at the Ram’s Head Inn and returned to the Island periodically as the family will this summer.

A tried and true New Yorker, Andrea grew up as a ballet dancer, swimmer, poet, and photographer. She was the president of her high school, The Chapin School, and graduated cum laude from Harvard University, majoring in Social Studies. Following graduation, she pursued her love of storytelling, searching for subjects that illuminate the better side of humanity through her work as a journalist in the rural South; a reporter at NPR radio in Washington, D.C.: and at ABC News in New York, where she earned an Emmy Award for her reporting.

Her first independent documentary, “Still Kicking,” received an Academy Award nomination. Her other films include: “The Other F Word;” “Happiness;” “Play It Forward;” “Tiny Shoulders: Rethinking Barbie;” “Hysterical;” and most recently, “The Cowboy and The Queen,” for which she received the Humanitas Award.

Andrea’s interest in underdogs and lives in transition led her to examine in her films punk rockers as they become fathers, female standup comedians, retiring NFL players, the cultural legacy of Barbie, and an unlikely relationship between a California cowboy and the queen of England.

In addition to her filmmaking, Andrea dedicated her life to creating and championing meaningful communities of all kinds. She was a beautiful writer, movie-lover, dog-lover, tastemaker, and a style maven.

Above all, she loved her family. She is survived by her husband, David, a producer and former Chairman and CEO of Showtime and Paramount Premium Group, her three children, Clara, 25, Charlie, 22, and Jesse, 19, her loyal dogs, her mother, and her brothers Jeb and Jonathan.