Bud Yorkin, the writer, director and overshadowed business partner of Norman Lear who executive produced such classic sitcoms as All in the Family and Sanford and Son, died Tuesday. He was 89.
A former stage manager who rose through the ranks to direct episodes of the Colgate Comedy Hour starring Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, Yorkin became a hot commodity in 1958 after he produced, directed and wrote An Evening With Fred Astaire, the first musical hour to be shot in color. He won two Emmys for his efforts.
He later directed such big-screen comedies as Come Blow Your Horn (1963), starring Frank Sinatra; Never Too Late (1965), with Maureen O’Sullivan; Divorce American Style (1967), starring Dick Van Dyke and Debbie Reynolds; Inspector Clouseau (1968), with Alan Arkin as the bumbling crime fighter; Start the Revolution Without Me (1970), starring Gene Wilder; and The Thief Who Came to Dinner (1973), with Ryan O’Neal and Jacqueline Bisset.
