American TV producer/director Bob Banner has died after losing his battle with Parkinson's disease. He was 89.
The Emmy Award-winning star passed away on Wednesday at the Motion Picture and Television Fund home in Woodland Hills, California, where he lived.
Banner began his career in children's TV before taking directorial duties on pioneering talk show Garroway at Large, which ran from 1949 to 1951.
The star won an Emmy Award in 1958 as director of The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, and went on to oversee The Garry Moore Show, before working on The Carol Burnett Show in the 1970s.
Banner also used his talent to work on several charity shows, including 1964's Freedom Spectacular, featuring Bill Cosby and Sammy Davis Jr. and a 1988 AIDS benefit concert hosted by Dionne Warwick. He worked on 1980s talent show Star Search and his last project was the 1990s series Real Kids, Real Adventures.
John Shaffner, chairman of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, has paid tribute to Banner in a statement: "Bob was a true television legend. Over a long and elegant career he produced much memorable programming. He mentored so many of us, educating and encouraging young people to enter the television profession, including myself so many years ago. The television community has lost one its founders, and it is a deep personal loss for many of us. We will remember him with fondness and gratitude."
Banner is survived by his wife, Alice, three sons and two grandchildren.
The Emmy Award-winning star passed away on Wednesday at the Motion Picture and Television Fund home in Woodland Hills, California, where he lived.
Banner began his career in children's TV before taking directorial duties on pioneering talk show Garroway at Large, which ran from 1949 to 1951.
The star won an Emmy Award in 1958 as director of The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, and went on to oversee The Garry Moore Show, before working on The Carol Burnett Show in the 1970s.
Banner also used his talent to work on several charity shows, including 1964's Freedom Spectacular, featuring Bill Cosby and Sammy Davis Jr. and a 1988 AIDS benefit concert hosted by Dionne Warwick. He worked on 1980s talent show Star Search and his last project was the 1990s series Real Kids, Real Adventures.
John Shaffner, chairman of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, has paid tribute to Banner in a statement: "Bob was a true television legend. Over a long and elegant career he produced much memorable programming. He mentored so many of us, educating and encouraging young people to enter the television profession, including myself so many years ago. The television community has lost one its founders, and it is a deep personal loss for many of us. We will remember him with fondness and gratitude."
Banner is survived by his wife, Alice, three sons and two grandchildren.
- 6/16/2011
- WENN
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