George Schaefer Biography

George Schaefer

In the early 1950s and 1960s, Schaefer directed the first TV versions of several Shakespearean plays and won an award from the Directors Guild of America for Macbeth (1961). On Broadway he coproduced The Teahouse of the August Moon, which won The New York Drama Critics Circle Award, a Pulitzer Prize, and a Tony (1954). He also directed and produced many TV movies. Schaefer was chairman and later associate dean of UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television (1985–91) and the president of the Directors Guild of America (1979–81).