Jay Sandrich

Who is Jay Sandrich?

Jay Sandrich is an American television director; he is son of film director Mark Sandrich.

Sandrich began his television work in the mid-1950s as a second assistant director with Desilu Productions, and began his career as an Assistant Director on I Love Lucy. Sandrich has directed and/or produced episodes of The Bill Dana Show, Get Smart, The Odd Couple, Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers, Soap, two-thirds of the episodes of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, and the first three seasons of The Cosby Show. He was responsible for the series pilots of The Bob Newhart Show, WKRP in Cincinnati, Empty Nest, and The Golden Girls. Sandrich also directed for Theatre Aspen, in Aspen, Colorado, Rounding Third, Chapter Two, and Same Time, Next Year. The only theatrical movie he made was the 1980 film Seems Like Old Times, originally written by Neil Simon.

In 1965, Sandrich put in his only stint as a producer, serving as associate producer for the first season of the CBS-TV comedy Get Smart, which co-starred Don Adams and Barbara Feldon. He enjoyed the experience but vowed to stick to directing in future. He told Andy Meisler of Channels magazine, "I really didn't like producing. I liked being on the stage. I found that, as a producer, I'd stay up until four in the morning worrying about everything. As a director, I slept at night."