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Bruce Bilson, the Emmy-winning director behind classic TV hits like “Get Smart,” “Hogan’s Heroes” and many more, has died. He was 97.
The late director’s daughter, producer Julie Bilson Ahlberg, confirmed that her father died peacefully at his home in Los Angeles on Friday, Jan. 16, per The Hollywood Reporter.
Bilson, who was also the grandfather of “The O.C.” star Rachel Bilson, led an impressive and prolific career that spanned five decades and included more than 400 projects.
Born in Brooklyn on May 19, 1928, Bilson’s family moved to LA in 1932 so that his father, George, could run the trailers department at Warner Bros.
The future director’s mother, Hattie, went on to write short films at RKO when her husband moved to the studio to produce those shorts.
Bilson, meanwhile, began working as an extra at the age of 14 and later appeared in the 1944 film “Henry Aldrich, Boy Scout.”
It wasn’t until 1952, and after a two-year stint in the US Air Force, that he worked for two seasons as an editor on NBC’s Groucho Marx-hosted game show “You Bet Your Life.”
But Bilson’s big break came a few years later when he joined Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s Desilu production company after linking up with physical production head Argyle Nelson.
He worked on the popular sitcoms “My Favorite Husband,” “Our Miss Brooks,” “The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp” and, perhaps most popular of all, “I Love Lucy” and “The Andy Griffith Show.”
Bilson served as assistant director on 58 installments of “The Andy Griffith Show” from its premiere in 1960 until his departure after Season 2 in 1962.
“All that life in Mayberry was my gang,” he said in 2008 regarding the show’s fictional North Carolina town. “There were a bunch of old extras that nobody used, like little old ladies. They were my stock company.”
“They would do anything for me, mow a lawn way in the back or carry shoes to the shoemaker,” Bilson added. “That was my contribution.”
Bilson’s directorial debut came in 1964 when he helmed one episode of the CBS comedy “The Baileys of Balboa” before joining “Get Smart,” which starred Don Adams and Barbara Feldon.
He handled 22 episodes of the NBC hit during its first four seasons from 1965 through 1968, and won his only Emmy Award in 1968 for directing the episode “Maxwell Smart, Private Eye.”
After directing episodes of other classic TV shows like “Bewitched,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Bonanza,” “Green Acres,” “M*A*S*H,” “The Brady Bunch” and “The Odd Couple,” Bilson went on to work on the last four seasons of “Hogan’s Heroes” from 1967 to 1971.
Years later, in Nov. 1986, Bilson had the honor of directing the final episode of Lucille Ball’s last-ever sitcom: ABC’s “Life with Lucy.”
Besides his daughter, Julie, and granddaughter, Rachel, Bilson is survived by his son, screenwriter Danny Bilson, and his second wife of more than 40 years, “Nancy” star Renne Jarrett, whom he married in 1984.
“When I was starting out, I thought my camera work was awful, and I tried to make it more interesting,” Bilson said in an interview 18 years before his death.
“As I got older and more experienced, I learned to tell the story with the actors first, cameras second,” he added.