Mel Ferber on AllMovie

A longtime television director associated with some of the most popular series in small-screen history, Mel Ferber took the helm of such classics as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Happy Days, and Quincy. A New York native and graduate of City College, Ferber would later become a war hero when he and four other members of his unit captured over 400 German soldiers at Utah Beach and used their weapons to re-arm a French battalion. Returning home to launch a career in television, the fledgling director would make history upon directing CBS' Wonderful Town, the first live two-hour broadcast television program. Emmy nominations as the creator and executive producer of Good Morning America were soon to follow, and Ferber would subsequently garner Emmy nods as the producer of the pilot for 60 Minutes and the director of the Happy Days pilot. One of Ferber's proudest moments would come when the director was hired to executive produce the radio and television broadcast of the 1972 Democratic Convention. Ferber was also a longtime member of the Director's Guild of America. In July of 2003, Mel Ferber died of heart disease in Los Angeles. He was 80.