Trailblazing Director-Producer Greg Garrison Passes at 81

By Juliana J. Bolden

Emmy-nominated television director-producer Greg Garrison, who helped bring such great moments to television as The Dean Martin Show and the Kennedy/Nixon debate, passed away on March 25 of pneumonia in suburban Los Angeles at 81.

Dean Martin, Greg Garrison

One of television’s true trailblazers, Garrison worked along side Dean Martin for more than 16 years, producing and directing The Dean Martin Show.

He began his career in 1946 as a ‘gofer’ at WFIL in Philadelphia. Moving up to camera operator then director at WFIL, he soon moved on to WENR in Chicago, where he directed several shows featuring a young Mike Wallace. In 1950, renowned producer Max Liebman and NBC executive Sylvester Weaver brought Garrison to New York to direct Your Show of Shows with Sid Cesaer.

A huge break, the move to New York brought Garrison opportunities to direct The Kate Smith Evening Hour and The Milton Berle Show. He directed specials for many early television stars such as Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Donald O‘Connor, Jack Benny, George Burns, Lucille Ball and Bob Newhart—directed the 1968 Emmy Awards Show.

In addition to The Dean Martin Show and countless, unforgettable Celebrity Roasts, Garrison helped to usher in the modern age of televised politics with his work on the 1960 John F. Kennedy-Richard Nixon presidential debate.

The Brooklyn, New York, native and World War II veteran is survived by wife Judy and a sister.

In Greg Garrison’s Own Words: Special From the ATAS Archive of American Television

On October 12, 1998, Garrison was interviewed by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ Archive of American Television. Below are some excerpts from his four hour interview. The entire interview may be screened at the archive offices at the Television Academy in North Hollywood. For more information, call (818) 509-2260.

On joining The Milton Berle Show:

I guess Berle got tired of writing, directing, producing and staging everything himself. I think he probably reached a point where he said “maybe I need a little help,” and saw this fresh kid that told him “this is the way we ’re gonna do it.” He looked at me and said, “maybe, just maybe, I might get along with this kid.”—and it worked.

On working with performers:

I had a Colgate Comedy Hour sketch with Burt Lahr. Here’s this guy who’s a major, major star on Broadway, a major movie star as the Lion (in The Wizard of Oz) and everything. He calls up the night before we’re to put the show on the air live and in color—first time NBC had put on a major show in color—and he calls me up and says: “Listen, I’ve decided that I don’t feel comfortable, and I don’t wanna do the show. And you’ll just have to get somebody else to do this.” He was a little drunk. and I’m listening to him on this phone. I spent 35 minutes as his priest, rabbi, psychiatrist, best friend, son, father and everything that I ever learned to con him, and talk him into showing up the next day—and he did. He didn’t remember anything from the night before. I never, ever, took another call from an actor again the night before his show. Never. That’s it.

On his approach to directing actors and performers:

I make a suggestions, but I never realized this for many years, that I used to actually physically move actors. I’d put my arm behind them, and I’d grab them by the shoulder, and just sort of moved them. I used to do the same thing with ladies, gently, but I’d move them and say “well, we can do this and we can do that.” I don’t like being handled, but I was doing this to actors. One day, I’m working with Gene Kelly on something and I said, “all right, Gene, maybe we can move you over here.” He said “gee what’s up? I hurt my shoulder. You’re squeezing me a little too hard. How long have you been moving people around?” I went, “I don’t move people around. I just suggest. He said, “what are you talking about? You grabbed me and you moved me.” And we laughed about it.

His workload during The Dean Martin Show years:

At one point, we were doing 39 hour shows a year. We owned the time period. We had 13 summer shows to do, so I was doing the summer shows, too. The first one was with Rowan and Martin. We had two or three Golddigger shows on the air. We had the Marty Feldman series on the air, but it was fun. At one point, during a two-year period, I directed 39 Dean Martin shows, 13 summer shows, 26 Golddigger shows, 26 Jonathan Winter shows and 26 Marty Feldman shows—all during the same year. We did it for two years in a row. We ground them out.

On Dean Martin:

When I got lucky with Dean, I ended up with 16 years with one of the truly great performers of all time. He was the greatest performer I’d ever been around, bar none.

On how he would like to be remembered:

I did honest television. Real, live, honest television. That’s what I did best.