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William Asher

William Asher

Directing

Biography

William Milton Asher (August 8, 1921 – July 16, 2012) was an American television and film producer, film director, and screenwriter. He was one of the most prolific early television directors, producing or directing over two dozen series. With television in its infancy, he introduced the sitcom Our Miss Brooks, which was adapted from a radio show. He began directing I Love Lucy by 1952. As a result of his early success, Asher was considered an "early wunderkind of TV-land," and was hyperbolically credited in one magazine article with "inventing" the sitcom. In 1964, he began to direct episodes of Bewitched, which starred his wife Elizabeth Montgomery. He produced the series from the fourth season. He was nominated for an Emmy Award four times, winning once for directing Bewitched in 1966. He was also nominated for the DGA Award in 1951 for I Love Lucy. In 1951, he married actress Danny Sue Nolan, with whom he had two children; the couple divorced in 1961. He then married actress Elizabeth Montgomery in 1963, just before Bewitched began its run. They had three children and divorced in 1973. His third marriage was to actress Joyce Bulifant and it lasted from 1976 to 1993. He adopted her son, actor and director John Mallory Asher. This marriage also ended in divorce. In 1998, he married Meredith Coffin Asher, his fourth and final wife. Description above from the Wikipedia article  William Asher, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known For

Four Star Playhouse
6.8

Four Star Playhouse is an American television anthology series that ran from 1952 to 1956, sponsored in its first bi-weekly season by The Singer Company; Bristol-Myers became an alternate sponsor when it became a weekly series in the fall of 1953. The original premise was that Charles Boyer, Ida Lupino, David Niven, and Dick Powell would take turns starring in episodes. However, several other performers took the lead from time to time, including Ronald Colman and Joan Fontaine. Blake Edwards was among the writers and directors who contributed to the series. Edwards created the recurring character of illegal gambling house operator Willie Dante for Dick Powell to play on this series. The character was later revamped and spun off in his own series starring Howard Duff, then-husband of Lupino. The pilot for Meet McGraw, starring Frank Lovejoy, aired here, as did another episode in which Lovejoy recreated his role of Chicago newspaper reporter Randy Stone, from the radio drama Nightbeat.

Four Star Playhouse

1952Series