Posted on 08/19/2015 10:06:58 AM PDT by Borges
Bud Yorkin, director of influential 1970s TV shows including “All In The Family,” “Maude,” “The Jeffersons,” “Sanford and Sons” and “Diff’rent Strokes,” died Aug. 18 of natural causes at his home in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was 89.
Yorkin played a pivotal role in developing some of the most popular series of the 1970s in partnership with Norman Lear at Tandem Productions. He was nominated for three Emmys and worked on TV series that won 25 Emmys and 10 Golden Globes. His feature film directing credits included “Love Hurts,” “Twice In A Lifetime,” “Arthur 2: On The Rocks,” “The Thief Who Came To Dinner” and “Inspector Clouseau.”
After working in the 1950s on numerous award-winning variety shows, he teamed with writer Lear in 1959 to form Tandem Productions, and made his film directing debut with “Come Blow Your Horn” starring Frank Sinatra. Yorkin had previously worked with Lear on such 1950s variety series as “The Colgate Comedy Hour” and “The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show.”
Lear noted that his former partner garnered early acclaim as a writer-director, including two Emmy Awards for writing and directing the 1959 special “An Evening with Fred Astaire.” That prestige gave the pair an advantage when they launched their own shingle the same year.
“His was the horse we rode in on and I couldn’t love or appreciate him more,” Lear said in a statement.
Yorkin’s other films as director included 1967 satire “Divorce American Style” with Dick Van Dyke and Debbie Reynolds and 1970 historical spoof ” Start the Revolution Without Me,” starring Gene Wilder, Donald Sutherland and Orson Welles. Yorkin was also executive producer of Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner,” and was involved in sequel which is in the works for 2016.
It was Yorkin who first discovered the British comedy series “Till Death Do Us Part,” bringing it to the U.S. with Lear to create “All in the Family” for ABC, which passed on the initial pilot. After it was recast with Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers, Yorkin directed the pilot and sold it to CBS. The sitcom became one of the most influential TV series of all time, and one of the first to feature characters from diverse backgrounds and controversial political, sexual and cultural topics.
After ending his partnership with Lear, Yorkin teamed with Saul Turteltaub and Bernie Orenstein to create Toy Productions, which produced “What’s Happening,” a teen comedy set in Watts; and “Carter Country,” a fish-out-of-water comedy starring Victor French and Kene Holliday as small-town cops. In 1979, Toy Productions was acquired by Columbia Pictures, the same studio that would acquire Lear’s Embassy Communications in 1985.
In 1973, Yorkin was named “Man of the Year” by the Television Academy and in 2002, he was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. In 2003, he received the David Susskind Lifetime Achievement Award in Television from the Producer’s Guild of America. He served as a trustee at Carnegie-Mellon University and endowed the Bud Yorkin Awards for directing and playwriting students, as well as serviing as a trustee of the American Film Institute from 1981-2009. Yorkin also founded the AFI Celebrity Golf Tournament at the Riviera Country Club that raised more than $4 million in support of AFI programs and The Y Classic, which ran for 12 years in support of the Wood River Community YMCA in Sun Valley, Idaho.
Born Alan Yorkin in Washington, Penn., he served in the army during WWII and graduated Carnegie Mellon on a football scholarship. He got his start in television as a camera engineer at NBC, but discovering an affinity for comedy, he switched to working as a stage manager and writer for NBC’s “Colgate Comedy Hour.”
After working as a director on the Martin & Lewis show, Yorkin went on to direct numerous variety shows for Dinah Shore, Tennessee Ernie Ford and Fred Astaire. He moved into directing and producing specials featuring top stars including Danny Kaye, Jack Benny, Dick Cavett, Bobby Darin, Don Rickles, Carol Channing, Andy Williams, Robert Young and Duke Ellington.
He is survived by his wife Cynthia Sikes Yorkin, sons David and Michael, daughters Nicole and Jessica, and four grandchildren. Nicole Yorkin is a prominent writer-producer and showrunner.
Rest in peace, but his influence eventually made an unwatchable cesspool of TV comedy.
As I look back, George Jefferson was actually a lot funnier than Archie Bunker. All in the Family was overrated.
Movin on up?
Watching most of the stuff that Bud Yorkin did has the opposite effect. Whites are always portrayed as stupid, villainous, con man types. Whites were always the antithesis of goodness in these sitcoms. I scratch my head in wonder as to why these were treated without much regard by whites. Why was this stuff, so very insulting and offensive in intent, ever allowed? Whites had little to say then but what about NOW? This nonsense that passed for entertainment needs to be addressed. Point in case: Has anyone seen an Amos and Andy rerun lately? Now that was a funny show!
Now I know why Norman Lear sucked in the 80s and beyond; the Great Atheist was only a figure head for someone else.
UPDATE: I double-checked about Norman Lear’s role. Apparently, he became far more ideologically strident following work he did in 1979 on a project on televangelism.
And the character of Geo Jefferson was a pretentious pimp. I can't stand either of the shows.
Well The Jeffersons was an attempt to show a black bigot. A black Archie as it were.
And he also was a Republican.
Agreed, but his neighbors were portrayed as “village idiots.”
Idiotic neighbors are part of the sitcom vernacular and have been since the 50s.
I bet you that Trump knew him. Trump knows everyone...
I remember her from some TV shows and movies - Bud was a lucky man.
Carnegie-Mellon didn’t exist until 1967. Did he graduate from Carnegie Institute of Technology?
Obviously. I don’t think they were playing football when they first became Carnegie-Mellon either. Like the Univ. of Chicago they had dropped football and then came back later as a D-III school.
Yorkin working with Norman Lear - All in the Family and The Jeffersons.
Yorkin working without Norman Lear - What’s Happening and Carter Country.
Just sayin’.
RIP.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.