Marc Daniels

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Marc Daniels (January 27, 1912 – April 23, 1989), born Danny Marcus, was an American television director.

After serving in World War II, Daniels was hired by CBS to direct its first dramatic anthology program, Ford Theater. He mastered live television directing, and was hired to direct the first 38 episodes of I Love Lucy,^[1]. Daniels, along with cinematographer Karl Freund, has been credited with introducing the three-camera technique of filming as opposed to the conventional one-camera. In a 1977 interview, Daniels noted that he left I Love Lucy to take another job that paid more. "Maybe it was a stupid thing to do," he said. "But then we didn't know we were creating history. We were just doing a show".^[1].

In addition to I Love Lucy, Daniels also directed episodes of Gunsmoke, Fame, Alice, and Hogan's Heroes. To science fiction fans, Daniels is perhaps best known for directing over a dozen episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series (including the classic "Mirror, Mirror") and writing an episode of the animated series ("One of Our Planets is Missing"). During his career, Daniels was nominated for three Emmy awards and three Directors Guild of America awards.

Daniels' last television work was on Lucille Ball's last series, Life with Lucy. He died of congestive heart failure on April 23, 1989 in Santa Monica, California at the age of 77. His death came just three days before that of Lucille Ball who also died at age 77 from a heart-related illness. ^[1]