James Sheldon, Pioneering and Prolific TV Director, Dies at 95

He began his career as an NBC page in the radio age and directed episodes of “The Twilight Zone,” “The Fugitive,” “M*A*S*H” and more

james Sheldon
Courtesy of Directors Guild

Prolific director James Sheldon, who worked onย “The Twilight Zone,” “The Fugitive” and “Perry Mason” among scores of other classic TV shows, is dead. He was 95.

He died in Manhattan of complications from cancer, his son Tony told The New York Times.

His first show business job was as a page at NBC in the early 1940s, when the network specialized in radio, but TV was Sheldon’s oeuvre. He didn’t work on a single feature film but estimated that he had directed about 1,200 hours of TV during his career. He got started early and directed episodes of “The Bing Crosby Show,” “Death Valley Days” and “We, The People,” one of the first radio and television simulcasts, in June 1948 for CBS.

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