Larry Doheny

It's undeniable that television director Lawrence Doheny worked best in the milieu of machismo. He started developing his career-long penchant for private eye stories and crime dramas early on, directing two episodes of the 1961 Audie Murphy TV oater "Whispering Smith," which turned actual case histories from the 1870s Denver Police Department into weekly stories. That was followed by three episodes of the Florida crime drama "Tallahassee 7000," starring a young Walter Matthau, and a one-time directorial stint on the popular "Naked City." He made a brief foray into musical comedy with his only feature film effort, 1961's "Teenage Millionaire" (which he also wrote), trying to cash in on the rock and roll youth craze. It was not well received. A 12-year interim occurred between that film and his next credit, the made-for-TV movie "Houston, We've Got a Problem," about the nearly disastrous Apollo 13 mission. He returned to directing episodic television and comfortably took on more police drama with 1972's "Adam-12." He found his true niche throughout the 1970s and early '80s, working with such masculine stars as James Garner on "The Rockford Files," Robert Conrad on "Black Sheep Squadron," Robert Urich on "Vega$," and Tom Selleck on "Magnum, P.I.."