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Upon earning both a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of California-Los Angeles, director Noel Black made his mark on the film-festival scene with such award-winning short subjects as Skaterdater and The River Boy. Black spent some time in episodic television, then burst upon the theatrical-feature market with the critically acclaimed black comedy Pretty Poison (1968). Unfortunately, his next two directorial efforts, Cover Me Babe (1970) and Jennifer on My Mind (1971), were unsuccessful. He returned to television, helming the 1976 American Playhouse production I'm a Fool. Thereafter, with a few exceptions like A Man, a Woman and a Bank (1979) and Eyes of the Panther (1990), Black confined his directing to the TV-movie field, turning out such praiseworthy efforts as 1981's The Electric Grandmother, an engaging adaptation of Ray Bradbury's I Sing the Body Electric. In 1985, Noel Black produced and wrote the script for the big-screen endeavor Mischief (1985), handing over the directorial reins to Mel Damski. Black continued to direct in television before retiring in the early '90s. He died in 2014 at age 77.