Film directors who started in television

richard donner

Mel Brooks started out on the writing staff of Sid Cesar's Your Show Of Shows.

Johnson was sort of the TV Martin Ritt. Actors in his films were invariably understated, yet still effective. 

Ironically, Johnson himself was an overactor, as his guest shot as a drunken ex-trail guide on The Big Valley will attest.

I find this topic interesting too, spiderwort. In addition to the many Americans who worked in television in the 1950s and 1960s, you can add Canadians like Norman Jewison and Arthur Hiller. With the recent passing of both Hiller and Robert Ellis Miller, it's great to see guys like Jewison (now 90), Richard Donner (86) and William Friedkin (81) still standing from the Golden Age, so many are gone.

Sorry for bumping an old thread, but Henri Safran was originally a director of live TV plays for Australian public television in the early 1960s, and mainly stayed as a TV director, but also directed some feature films, the best of which is probably Storm Boy (1976), a classic children's film.

Carl Schultz was originally a TV director, later became a director of several well-received films.

Peter Maxwell was mainly a TV director, doing episodes of various popular series like "The Adventures of Robin Hood", "Danger Man", "A Country Practice" and many others.

But he also did some films, including one of my favourite British "second features", a 1962 film called Dilemma, a refreshingly simple yet compelling crime drama. 

With respect, spiderwort, this is a bit like your "American directors not born in the USA" thread. As the majority of directors started in TV for obvious reasons (less financial risk if they cannot cut the mustard), a more interesting topic would be which directors came from other professions or pursuits (and I do not mean film school, screenwriting, acting, cameraman or other pursuits which are already integral to film-making).

One noted director was an established stills photographer but I have forgotten who. Can anyone jog my memory?

For example, Tom Ford, was a fashion designer (not primarily, or not at all, working for the film industry). But still the visual arts, I suppose. Can anyone think of someone who used to do an honest day's work (plumber, school bus driver, agricultural laborer, etc) before directing a movie?