Ralph Levy

The bittersweet bookends of TV director Ralph Levy's long career are as follows. On October 15, 1951, he guided the pilot episode of one of the most celebrated of all sitcoms, "I Love Lucy." On the same date 50 years later, he died quietly in Santa Fe. In between, Levy worked on three dozen different programs except for, strangely enough, any more episodes of "I Love Lucy." What fun it must have been for Levy to work with the deadpan maestro Jack Benny. From 1951 through 1962, Levy directed 56 episodes of "The Jack Benny Program." Levy actually got his career going way back in 1944 with something called "Missus Goes-A-Shopping," one of TV's first game shows. The fact that he had amassed a fairly large number of credits by the time of the "I Love Lucy" pilot assignment, including eight episodes of the music comedy series"The Ed Wynn Show" in 1949-1950, makes him a genuine TV pioneer. Other credits include the nouveau riche hillbilliy family comedy"The Beverly Hillbillies," the Shady Rest Hotel comedy "Petticoat Junction," and four episodes of the original "Hawaii Five-O."