Charlie & The Rocket Man

“One dreamed of getting us to Mars. The other proves it's never too late to dream.”

At 93, Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning producer Charlie Grinker is legally blind, living in assisted care, and still dreaming up his next project. The story he keeps coming back to is Robert Goddard’s: the rocket pioneer, one of the most important figures of the 20th century that most people have never heard of, and a man who ran out of time but never gave up. Filmed over eight years by his daughter, Lori Grinker, Charlie & the Rocket Man is a story within a story: Charlie telling Goddard’s, and Lori telling Charlie’s. Through Esther Goddard’s footage of her husband’s 1920s rocket launches, archival material and animation, the film takes us into the dreams of both men, with Charlie taking a trip into space of his own. Creativity has no time stamp. As Goddard said, “There is always the thrill of just beginning.”