Don Roy King

Pittsburgh, PA native Don Roy King got the theater bug when he was in eighth grade and went to New York City with his class to see the stage production of "The Sound Of Music" and meet star Mary Martin. Although he didn't really perform through high school and his college years at Penn State University, his first job after graduation was with the Penn State PBS station. Two weeks after King arrived, the station's veteran director quit, and the young graduate stepped up despite having no experience. Soon after, he returned to Pittsburgh and station KDKA, where he produced Pittsburgh Pirates baseball broadcasts. In 1975 he took an opportunity and began work on his first nationally syndicated show, "The Mike Douglas Show" (Westinghouse Broadcasting, 1963-1981) which originated out of Cleveland and Philadelphia. After stints directing the short lived "America Alive" (NBC, 1979-1980) and the pilot for "Entertainment Tonight" (syndication, 1981-), King worked for six years at ABC directing "Kids Are People Too" (ABC, 1978-1982) and "Good Morning America" (ABC, 1975-). In 1988, he moved to CBS, where he directed a number of shows including "The Early Show" (CBS, 1999-2012), coverage of the Winter Olympics, and the first four finales of "Survivor" (CBS, 2000-). He left CBS in 2003, and in 2006 King began working as the director of "Saturday Night Live" (NBC, 1975-). In that capacity, King steered the course for several seasons of the show in addition to numerous specials and retrospectives.