lit a candle 2 Sept 2026Never forgotten
Rest in peace, James. Thank you for every character you gave us.
Their story
James Edward Burrows, born on 30 December 1940 and died on 19 June 2026, was an American television director whose work shaped the way American comedy looked and sounded for half a century. The honours gathered steadily over the years: 11 Primetime Emmy Awards and five Directors Guild of America…
James Edward Burrows, born on 30 December 1940 and died on 19 June 2026, was an American television director whose work shaped the way American comedy looked and sounded for half a century. The honours gathered steadily over the years: 11 Primetime Emmy Awards and five Directors Guild of America Awards among them. In 2015 the Directors Guild of America gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award, and the following year NBC devoted an entire special to him, Must See TV: An All-Star Tribute to James Burrows.
His career began in 1974 with The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Over the decades that followed he directed more than 50 television pilots, and he was a co-creator of Cheers, which ran from 1982 to 1993. He also set up 3 Sisters Entertainment as a joint venture with NBC. Audiences knew his touch, even if they did not know his name, from many episodes of The Bob Newhart Show, Taxi, Frasier, Friends, Will & Grace and Mike & Molly.
Later in life he served as executive producer on the Emmy-winning ABC specials Live in Front of a Studio Audience, which revisited Norman Lear's "All in the Family" and "The Jeffersons" in 2019, "All in the Family" and "Good Times" in 2019, and "The Facts of Life" and "Diff'rent Strokes" in 2021. He returned to familiar ground too, directing episodes of the revived Will & Grace on NBC between 2017 and 2020 and of the revived Frasier on Paramount+ in 2023 and 2024.
Biography adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), retold in our own words. Wikipedia ↗
Photos
1Broadway director Abe Burrows (left) meeting his son James Burrows in New York, 1970
by People Forever
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