Award-winning film producer Aloyce Beth Deare dies in tragic house fire

Aloyce Beth Deare, the former producer of WGBH’s “Say Brother,” died in a four-alarm blaze that destroyed her Newton Corner home early Monday morning. Stricken with cancer, the Emmy award-winning Deare, 63, recently had taken time off as an English professor at Bunker Hill Community College.

She received an Emmy “Blues Be Gone,” a collaboration with the choreographer Billy Wilson honoring the poetry of Langston Hughes. She earned another Emmy for “The Levi Hart Story,” a documentary she created for “Say Brother” about a black teen shot by Boston police.

According to published accounts, Deare said her favorite award-winner was “Midnight ramble,” a documentary on segregated movie theaters.  

Later in life, Deare said that teaching became her passion. “I love teaching these students,” she said. “They are often the first in their family to go to college, and many lack confidence in themselves and their learning ability.”

But Deare said she saw past those insecurities. “There is real magic in empowering these students helping them discover their intellectual capacity, and seeing them recognize their real options,” she said. “It’s like turning a light on, and it makes me so proud. I go to graduation every year, and I have to bring a big package of Kleenex because I cry so much when I see them set out into the world.”