Richard Donner dies: Before helming blockbuster movies, he directed famous TV shows from Gilligan's Island to The Twilight Zone

Slate

The 91-year-old Donner was best known for directing The Omen, The Goonies, the Lethal Weapon franchise and Superman. But before moving to the big screen, Donner got his start directing for network television. Donner's TV credits include The Twilight Zone, Kojak, Perry Mason, The Wild Wild West, The F.B.I., Gilligan's Island, The Rifleman, Route 66 and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. "Director Richard Donner died Monday at the age of 91," says Matthew Dessem. "His feature films include The Omen, Superman, The Goonies, and the Lethal Weapon franchise, which have several things in common, despite spanning multiple genres: They were all blockbusters, they were all hugely influential, and you’ve probably already seen them all many, many times. There’s one more thing, too: They’re a relatively small part of Donner’s filmography. Donner learned his trade in network television, and whether you count by runtime, number of episodes, or number of shows, he directed more TV in the first five years of his career than in 45 years of making feature films. The approach he learned there stuck with him long after he jumped to theatrical releases, too: As late as 2006, he described himself in an Archive of American Television interview as someone who was 'pretty good at meeting a schedule and a budget' like a TV director-for-hire, not an auteur. If you want to watch Donner’s early work and see him trying things out, though, it’s surprisingly difficult to do. With only a few exceptions—his episodes of enormously successful shows with long syndicated afterlives like The Twilight Zone or Perry Mason—virtually none of it is legally available to stream. That’s a shame, because even Donner’s earliest work has great performances and visually striking shots, like the shot of Harry Dean Stanton goofing around with a noose in his episode of Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theatre, which was only his second time directing TV." Dessem offers "a guide to the first five years of Donner’s TV career—which doubles as a guide to a decent slice of early 1960s TV, because he was so prolific—complete with information about how or where you can watch his work. As you’ll see, the networks are doing a pretty terrible job of keeping their own history available to the public, despite the fact that they now run streaming services." ALSO: William Shatner recalls Donner directing his classic “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” episode of The Twilight Zone.