William Asher obit

R.I.P. William Asher

 

He was not on the list.

William Asher, the prolific writer-director of such groundbreaking TV sitcoms as I Love Lucy, Bewitched, Gidget and Our Miss Brooks, died today in Palm Springs, according to local reports. He was 90.

Asher’s first gig in the beginning days of TV was adapting his short stories for the anthology series Invitation Playhouse, which he also directed. In the early 1950s, CBS asked him to shoot a pilot starring movie actress Eve Arden that became Our Miss Brooks. (When the network came calling for the gig, according to Asher in a later interview, he asked, “What did a television director do”?) He soon was hired to try his hand on another sitcom that was struggling in its first season, I Love Lucy. He went on to direct more than 100 episodes of the series.

He eventually worked with pretty much every TV legend-to-be there was from Danny Thomas to Dinah Shore to Sally Field, on shows ranging from The Patty Duke Show, which he co-created with Sidney Sheldon, to The Thin Man, the Linda Lavin-starring Alice, Private Benjamin, and Harper Valley. He also wrote and directed several ’60s-era beach-blanket movies, including Beach Blanket Bingo starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. In 1963 he married his Bewitched star Elizabeth Montgomery, and they had three children together before splitting in 1973. He won the Best Director Emmy for the series in 1966. He retired in 1991.

Asher was born in New York City to stage actress Lillian Bonner and producer Ephraim M. Asher (1887–1937), whose movie credits were mostly as an associate producer. His sister, Betty Asher, was an MGM publicist for Judy Garland. His father was Jewish, his mother Catholic. Asher's family moved to Los Angeles when he was around 3, where he often accompanied his father to the movie studio.

Asher's parents divorced when he was 11, resulting in a return to New York with his mother. He later recalled that this period was filled with turmoil, as his mother was abusive and an alcoholic.[5] As a result of having to live in New York with his mother, he dropped out of school and, after working in the mailroom at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, joined the Army in 1941. He served in the Army Signal Corps for four years, stationed in Astoria, Queens New York City as a unit photographer.

Asher returned to California to direct Leather Gloves (1948), a low-budget film. He eventually gravitated to television (then a new medium), and gained a job writing short story "fillers" for various programs, which evolved into a series called Little Theatre. From this work, he gained a contract with Columbia Pictures to work on a film musical for Harry Cohn.

Asher received an offer from CBS Studios to direct Our Miss Brooks, starring Eve Arden, a television version of the radio show. In 1952, Desi Arnaz asked Asher to direct an episode of his series I Love Lucy; by that show's end in 1957, Asher had directed 110 of the series' 179 episodes, Asher later commented that even though the creators knew the show was good, they did not believe it would become an American icon. "When we did the show, we thought, 'That's it, we're done with it.' We never dreamed it would last this long. Lucille Ball, obviously, was one of TV's true pioneers.

Asher was first married in 1951 to Danny Sue Nolan, with whom he had two children; the couple divorced in 1961. Asher then married Elizabeth Montgomery in 1963, just before Bewitched began its run. They had three children and divorced in 1973. His third marriage was to Joyce Bulifant from 1976 to 1993. He adopted her son, actor John Mallory Asher. This marriage also ended in divorce. In his later years, Asher resided in Palm Desert, California, with Meredith Coffin Asher, his fourth and final wife.

 

Television filmography

Year series began             TV Series

As director

1950      The Colgate Comedy Hour

1951      Racket Squad

1951      I Love Lucy

1951      The Dinah Shore Show

1952      Our Miss Brooks

1952     Invitation Playhouse: Mind Over Murder

1953      Make Room for Daddy

1953      The Ray Bolger Show

1954      Willy

1954      The Lineup

1957      The Thin Man

1958      The Donna Reed Show

1959      Fibber McGee and Molly

1959      The Twilight Zone

1963      The Patty Duke Show

1964      Bewitched

1965      Gidget

1972      Temperatures Rising

1972      The Paul Lynde Show

1976      Alice

1977      Tabitha

1979      The Dukes of Hazzard

1979      Flatbush

1979      The Bad News Bears

1984      Crazy Like a Fox

1986      Kay O'Brien

1990     Return to Green Acres

As producer

1960      The Land of Oz

1963      The Patty Duke Show

1967      Bewitched

1972      Temperatures Rising

1972      The Paul Lynde Show

1980      Here's Boomer

1986      Kay O'Brien

As writer

1973      The Young and the Restless (1988)

 

Cinema filmography

Year       Title       Position

1948      Leather Gloves Director

1957      The Shadow on the Window        Director

1957      The 27th Day      Director

1963      Beach Party        Director and co-writer

1963      Johnny Cool        Producer and director

1964      Bikini Beach        Director and co-writer

1964      Muscle Beach Party         Director and co-writer

1965      Beach Blanket Bingo       Director and co-writer

1965      How to Stuff a Wild Bikini             Director and co-writer

1966      Fireball 500         Director and co-writer

1982      Night Warning   Director

1985      Movers & Shakers            Co-producer and director