Robert Butler

Robert Butler (born November 17, 1927) is an American-born director. He was a very influential and very in demand television director from the mid-1960s to the early part of the 1990s. He helped to launch the career of Kurt Russell through four Walt Disney movies (Including The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and The Barefoot Executive), but his major contributions were made on the small screen.

Butler began his career as a stage manager and an assistant, before he launched his directing career on such television shows as The Twilight Zone, The Untouchables, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Dr. Kildare and The Fugitive.

For the next three decades Butler would be hired to shoot the pilots of a number of now popular TV shows, thus helping to create their identity. These include the following shows: the original Star Trek where he directed the series original pilot episode "The Cage", the war parody sitcom Hogan's Heroes, the campy Batman, the violent The Blue Knight, the revoluntionary cop show Hill Street Blues, the mysterious and humorous detective Remington Steele (a show which he helped co-create), the delirious and romantic Moonlighting, the family drama Sisters and the highly popular character-driver Superman adaptation of the early 1990s, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

In addition to the aformentioned shows, he has also directed episodes of other television shows, including, I Spy, The Invaders, Gunsmoke, The Outcasts, Mission: Impossible, Kung Fu, Hawaii Five-0, Columbo, Midnight Caller, The Waltons and Ironside.

Butler has won two Emmy Awards for outstanding directing, the first in 1973 for The Blue Knight pilot episode and the second in 1981 for his Hill Street Blue premiere.

Filmography (Director)

 * Disneyland (1954) (TV)
 * Bonanza (1959) (TV)
 * The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959) (TV)
 * The Twilight Zone (1959) (TV)
 * The Untouchables (1959) (TV)
 * Insight (1960) (TV)
 * The Defenders (1961) (TV)
 * The Dick Powell Show (1961) (TV)
 * Dr. Kildare (1961) (TV)
 * Ben Casey (1961) (TV)
 * The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961) (TV)
 * Stoney Burke (1962) (TV)
 * The Lieutenant (1963) (TV)
 * The Fugitive (1963) (TV)
 * The Richard Boone Show (1963) (TV)
 * Espionage (1963) (TV)
 * Kilroy (1965) (TV)
 * I Spy (1965) (TV)
 * Hogan's Heroes (1965) (TV)
 * Blue Light (1966) (TV)
 * Batman (1966) (TV)
 * Star Trek (1966) (TV)
 * Felony Squad (1966) (TV)
 * Mission: Impossible (1966) (TV)
 * The Invaders (1967) (TV)
 * Cimarron Strip (1967) (TV)
 * Judd, for the Defense (1967) (TV)
 * Ironside (1967) (TV)
 * Gunsmoke (1955) (TV) (1967-1972)
 * Guns in the Heather (1968)
 * Lancer (1968) (TV)
 * Hawaii Five-O (1968) (TV)
 * Then Came Bronson (1969) (TV)
 * The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969)
 * The Barefoot Executive (1971)
 * Scandalous John (1971)
 * Death Takes a Holiday (1971) (TV)
 * Now You See Him, Now You Don't (1972)
 * The Waltons (1972) (TV)
 * Kung Fu (1972) (TV)
 * Columbo: Double Shock (1973) (TV)
 * The Blue Knight (1973) (TV)
 * Columbo: Publish or Perish (1974) (TV)
 * The Ultimate Thrill (1974)
 * Black Bart (1975) (TV)
 * Strange New World (1975) (TV)
 * The Blue Knight (1975) (TV)
 * Dark Victory (1976) (TV)
 * James Dean (1976) (TV)
 * Mayday at 40,000 Feet! (1976) (TV)
 * In the Glitter Palace (1977) (TV)
 * Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978)
 * A Question of Guilt (1978) (TV)
 * Lacy and the Mississippi Queen (1978) (TV)
 * Night of the Juggler (1980)
 * Underground Aces (1981)
 * Hill Street Blues (1981) (TV)
 * Remington Steele (1982) (TV)
 * Up the Creek (1984)
 * Concrete Beat (1984) (TV)
 * Moonlighting (1985) (TV)
 * Our Family Honor (1985) (TV)
 * Long Time Gone (1986) (TV)
 * Out on a Limb (1987) (TV)
 * Out of Time (1988) (TV)
 * Midnight Caller (1988) (TV)
 * The Brotherhood (1991) (TV)
 * Sisters (1991) (TV)
 * Sirens (1993) (TV)
 * Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993) (TV)
 * White Mile (1994) (TV)
 * Turbulence (1997)
 * Glory, Glory (1998) (TV)
 * St. Michael's Crossing (1999) (TV)
 * The Division (2001) (TV)

Filmography (Producer)

 * Black Bart (1975) (TV)
 * Remington Steele (1982) (TV)
 * Out of Time (1988) (TV)
 * Midnight Caller (1988) (TV)
 * Sisters (1991) (TV)
 * Glory, Glory (1998) (TV)
 * St. Michael's Crossing (1999) (TV)

Miscellaneous

 * Midnight Caller (1988) (TV) (executive consultant)