By Paul Freeman

Director/Producer’Writer Jeffrey Hayden is definitely a pop culture classic. His list of credits inspires awe.

He directed episodes of such iconic TV shows as “Leave It To Beaver,” “The Donna Reed Show,” “Burke’s Law,” “77 Sunset Strip,” “Batman,” “The Andy Griffith Show,” “Lassie,” “Johnny Staccato,” “In The Heat of the Night,” “Knight Rider,” “Mannix,””Alias Smith and Jones,” “The Incredible Hulk,” “Longstreet,” “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father,” “Love, American Style,” “That Girl,” “Peyton Place,” “Route 66,” “Magnum P.I.” ”Cagney and Lacey,” and “Ironside.” And that’s just a handful of his credits.

He directed one feature for MGM, 1957’s “The Vintage,” starring Pier Angeli, before deciding that TV’s quicker pace was more to his liking.

Since 1951, Hayden has been happily married to screen legend Eva Marie Saint. They have often collaborated on stage work and have performed together in A.R. Gurney’s “Love Letters.”

Theatre remains one of Hayden’s great passions. His productions of “Summer and Smoke,” “Desire Under the Elms,” “Candida,” “The Country Girl,” “Duet for One” and “Death of a Salesman” have been performed around the country.

His award-winning documentaries include “Children in America’s Schools” (with Bill Moyers) and “Primary Colors: The Story of Corita,” both co-produced with Saint.

POP CULTURE CLASSICS:
You started in radio, prior to TV?

HAYDEN:
Yes, I did, at NBC in New York.

PCC:
Was that a fun experience?

HAYDEN:
No, it wasn’t. I was right out of school. I took any job to pay the rent. And it was in the research department of NBC. I was in front of a calculator for a year-and-a-half, punching in numbers. And then they had a program testing division in NBC, where we would invite in audiences and run programs and then discuss the different programs and make reports on them. And so I got into that. That was at least away from the calculating machine.

I met a couple of people by doing that, at NBC, the writers and directors of some of the programs. And I put together a package, based on my connections with a wonderful writer and some designers and I went to ABC Television, which was just getting ready to go on the air. And I presented them with the package for a sitcom that I created. And they bought it for six episodes. It was essentially the first sitcom on television, so far as I know. This was in about ‘48 or ‘49.

We did the six shows, which I produced. Marty Ritt directed. And then they said, ‘Well, there just aren’t any sets out there. We’re spending this money.’ And we did six pretty nice shows. And they used one small studio, while they were building the big studio on 66th Street in New York. And they said, ‘So that’s it. Thanks a lot.’ I said, ‘Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I left a good job at NBC to come over here to do this. You guys gotta give me a job over here.’ So they said, ‘Okay. Go down in the basement of this building’ - which was right off Central Park West - ‘Clean out the horse stalls’ - which is where they kept the horses for the riding academy - And whitewash the walls and we’ll go from there.’

I went down there with a couple of other guys that they hired, to clean out all the dung and the horseshit, which we did. And then we were given buckets of whitewash and we painted the stalls. They wanted us to leave the dividers.

And it was all spanking clean and they shipped in a half dozen Movieolas. And none of us had ever seen a Movieola, let alone knew how to work it. Then in came cans of film, of feature pictures, old movies. And they told us to cut them down for 90-minute shows and two-hour shows, making sure they could cut the commercials in. So for several months, that’s what we did. We learned how to use the Movieola and cut down these old features, which they put on the air. Didn’t cost them very much.

And then they had a new show, called the Roller Derby, on location. And I was sent out to be an associate director on the Roller Derby. And then I just kept going. They opened up other small studios, did some daytime shows, which I got to direct, and then finally became an associate director on their big musical shows and dramatic shows. And I was there for a couple of years, until I had enough of a reputation that I headed out on my own and became a freelance director.

PCC:
And what was the title of that first ABC sitcom?

HAYDEN:
‘The Billy Bean Show,’ starred Arnold Stang, a wonderful character actor. Just died. Wonderful guy.

PCC:
And the Roller Derby must have a wild experience.

HAYDEN:
Yeah, it was fun. It was crazy and wild. We had to drive out to New Jersey. We went out there in a truck. We had three cameras, set them up in the rink and I sat in the truck with the director, set up the shots, timed the show. It was good. I did it for several months. Then I moved back to the studio and started doing some of the daytime interview shows.

PCC:
Who was hosting the interview shows at that time?

HAYDEN:
One of them I remember was Gloria Swanson. Very nice lady. Very cooperative, very pleasant. She would have guests and she would interview the guests. Very easy-to-do show, a couple of chairs in a little studio. And she was awfully nice. Very bright.

PCC:
Something that jumped out at me from the list of credits was ‘Philco Playhouse... ‘

HAYDEN:
Now we’re skipping a couple of years, because I went from those daytime shows to being an associate director on shows like ‘The Paul Whiteman Show,’ which Don Ameche hosted.

PCC:
That was a variety show?

HAYDEN:
Yeah, a big variety show, one hour every week in their big, new studio, TV One, I think it was called. And I did several big shows and then I was assigned to ‘Stop The Music’ as an associate director.

PCC:
Was that a game show?

HAYDEN:
It was a game show, but big, very big, a big orchestra. It was huge, a one-hour show once a week. And the two guys who wrote and produced ‘Stop The Music’ then did a daytime show called ‘The Bert Parks Show.’ That was a 30-minute show, three times a week, in the afternoon, for General Foods, Young & Rubicam was the agency. I remember Jell-O was the big commercial. And that was a daytime variety show. Bert Parks was the host. Robert Sherwood had a little orchestra. There was a comedian. It was a wonderful show. I did it for a year, as a director. Eventually that show went off the air and I was hired to do another big daytime quiz show called, ‘The Big Payoff’ with Bess Myerson. She hosted. It was again a very big daytime show, Young & Rubicam, General Foods, Jell-O commercials. And I did that for about a year. This was all live. It was all well-organized, well-rehearsed.

I did a show called ‘The Mask. I freelanced on several dramatic shows, which is what I wanted to do. And I did that for awhile until I was hired by Max Leibman to do the first color specials on NBC. I did ‘Lady In The Dark’ with Ann Sothern and James Daly, wonderful cast. The adaptation for television was done by Neil Simon and the two guys who wrote ‘Fiddler On The Roof.’ That was a wonderful, big show and a wonderful break for me.

PCC:
Max Leibman was a producer who had a big impact on early television?

HAYDEN:
He was the producer of ‘Your Show of Shows’ and all of these wonderful writers came from ‘Show of Shows’ to do these adaptations, big, big specials for NBC to introduce color. And after ‘Lady in the Dark,’ I did ‘Chocolate Soldier,’ with Rise Stevens and Eddie Albert and I think, Kurt Kasznar. And that, again, was adapted by these wonderful writers from ‘Show of Shows.’ And I think it was after these Max Leibman shows that I went to ‘Philco Playhouse’ for a season. When Delbert Mann left to do ‘Marty,’ I replaced him on ‘The Philco Playhouse.’ I did about five or six of those shows. Sunday night. Big show

PCC:
And one of those episodes, in 1954, “Run Like a Thief,” featured James Dean. Had you known him from Actors Studio?

HAYDEN:
Yes, I did.

PCC:
And what impression did he make on you?

HAYDEN:
We were kind of buddies. We got along very well. I remember the show I did with James Dean, in that same hour episode, the two other actors with him playing his parents, were again, Kurt Kasznar, whom I liked a lot, and a wonderful, great actress named Gusti Huber, who had been on Broadway in several plays. And she was Viennese. And Kurt was Viennese. So when we came to the first day of rehearsal, they had not only all their lines down, but they brought in their own props to rehearse with, because that was the Viennese style. They were very prepared and very disciplined actors.

And here we were, in a situation with Jimmy Dean, who didn’t want to learn his lines, because he wanted to be fresh and wanted to feel his way through and see what he would do here, experiment with this or that, which I could appreciate, coming from the Studio myself. But it made it very difficult for Kurt and Gusti Huber to adapt to this young free spirit. However, we made it.

But those were wonderful shows. That season, I worked with Paul Newman, who was a friend from the Studio, and a script by Stewart Stern. I did a show with Walter Matthau, written by J.P. Miller. Eddie Morris wrote a script.

What happened was, I did that season on ‘Philco Playhouse,’ made a trip to California to do a show with Milton Berle and Ann Sothern, an hour, dramatic show written by Gore Vidal, a very funny, very good show, all live. And once I was in California, the Morris office had me running around town, meeting people, because, at that time, the Hollywood studios, and the people like Dore Schary, Buddy Adler at Fox, the guy from Columbia, all these guys had been watching the ‘Philco Playhouse’ shows and so they knew my work. I went and met all of them and had an offer from all three. I decided to go with MGM, because I liked Dore Schary. Very nice guy. I did one movie for them in the South of France, called ‘The Vintage.’

PCC:
Oh, yes. With Pier Angeli. What was that experience like?

HAYDEN:
It was wonderful, because I worked with a terrific French crew. Joe Ruttenberg was my cameraman, wonderful guy, talented man. It was a good experience. Michele Morgan was in that picture. And she was great. And Mel Ferrer was in it. And Leif Erickson was in it. And Theo Bickel was in that movie. So it was a good experience.

PCC:
And Pier, was she in a good place at that time? Was she still married to Vic Damone?

HAYDEN:
She was married to Vic Damone, on the telephone with him every night. And it was a good experience for me. But that took me two years, until I got through the movie, edited the movie. And at the end of two years, I said, ‘I can’t stand this. I gotta go back to television, where there’s all the action.’ So I did. And that’s when I started doing things like ‘The Loretta Young Show,’ ‘Lassie.’ And then the ‘Donna Reed Show’ got on the air and I had a wonderful time with her, so I stayed on that show for three years.

PCC:
And was Donna Reed much like her character on that show?

HAYDEN:
No, not really. She was much looser, much more progressive politically. All around a very, very terrific lady. Wonderful actress, really good. And had a wonderful mind, in terms of the scripts. We had good writers on that show. And a wonderful executive producer. But she had a lot of input in relation to the scripts.

PCC:
And the rest of the cast? Carl Betz...

HAYDEN:
Carl was wonderful Shelley Fabares was wonderful, Paul Peterson, the two kids, wonderful. And we hired the best actors in town for the guest shots. And it was a wonderful experience.

At the time I was doing ‘Donna Reed,’ Eva Marie and I had two children, ages maybe 7 and 10 or 9 and 12, in that early stage of development. The executive producer, Paul West, he also had some children, boy and girl, about the same ages. I would come in on Monday morning and he would be in the office, coffee waiting. And we would sit down and we would talk about our weekends. We became very friendly. We knew their kids. They knew our kids. We would sometimes socialize. So we would sit and talk about our weekend experiences. Two weeks later, there would be a script on either his story or my story. And that’s how I did that show for three seasons. It was wonderful.

After three years of that, I said, ‘Enough.’ I wanted to move on, so I went to ‘The Andy Griffith Show.’ And did a lot of sitcoms.

PCC:
What was the atmosphere like on ‘The Andy Griffith Show’?

HAYDEN:
It was great. Aaron Reuben was a great producer. And he had the best comedy writers in the business. And the whole setup was wonderful. It was similar to ‘Donna Reed.’ You’d come in, read the script, discuss it, make certain suggestions for improving the script, then go and rehearse in the sets for two or three days and then shoot. It was wonderful.

PCC:
And Ron Howard, was he already curious about things behind the camera?

HAYDEN:
Not really. He was just a nice kid actor. He was always there, very disciplined, very talented and took direction beautifully. His folks, either his father or mother, they were there. And they were very pleasant, talented people themselves. He was just very good. But everybody on that show was very good. A wonderful, wonderful company, like ‘Donna Reed.’

PCC:
It must be nice when you have that kind of consistency there, where it becomes almost like a family?

HAYDEN:
It becomes a family, it does.

PCC:
Then is it difficult, when you go into an established series to direct just one episode?

HAYDEN:
Yes, very, because you have to conform to what came before. You’re not exactly sure. But it works. You do what you’ve got to do. It all works. I did a lot of freelance shows in that period, over at Warner Brothers. And that led me to ‘77 Sunset Strip.’

PCC:
One of my favorites.

HAYDEN:
One of mine, too. I loved doing that show.

PCC:
What are your recollections of that show?

HAYDEN:
It was wonderful. The actors were wonderful. Efrem Zimbalist was terrific. All the other people supporting him were first-rate actors. And we would shoot all morning, then we’d all pile into the commissary for lunch and we’d sit around with the script that we’d have to shoot that afternoon and we would discuss the different scenes. The actors would make certain suggestions and we would go back after lunch and shoot as we had described over the lunch table. And there was a big note on the front of the script saying, ‘This script is the property of Warner Brothers and you must not change one word.’ And we would go back after lunch and change plenty of words. And nobody ever said anything. But there was a wonderful producer on that show, a guy by the name of Joel Rogosin, with whom I spent many years, working on different shows that he would produce.

PCC:
And was this at the height of the Kookie craze?

HAYDEN:
Yes, right smack in the middle of it. We had alternating directors. You had to spend a week or more preparing, then you’d go shoot, then spend another week preparing, then shoot. I was in and out of that show for maybe three seasons. And then, moving on, I went to Universal and did Universal shows for many years.

PCC:
And you worked on ‘Leave It To Beaver,’ another series with good writers.

HAYDEN:
Yes, very good. Another nice producer, Irv Paley. He and I would go to lunch together. A lovely man. He’d say, ‘Come on, let’s go across the street. There’s this great Chinese restaurant.’ And he always had a booth waiting for him, which was nice, because he only had an hour for lunch. He didn’t want to waste any time looking for a restaurant. So we would walk across the street every day and the booth was waiting in his name.

About three months later, my wife said, ‘It looks like you’ve gained 10 pounds. What are you doing?’ I said, ‘Nothing. Just Irv and I go across the street, have this Chinese lunch.’ She said, ‘You’ve got to quit that Chinese lunch business.’ I literally had gained 10 pounds.

PCC:
You did a lot of detective shows, including ‘Mannix.’

HAYDEN:
Great experience. The writers on that show were terrific.

PCC:
Mike Connors as Mannix, perfect match of an actor and a role?

HAYDEN:
He was just a dream to work with. I enjoyed that show a lot. Mike was so good, so easy to work with.

PCC:
One of the ‘Mannix’ episodes features Susan Strasberg. Did you know her from the Studio?

HAYDEN:
Yes, well, I worked at the Studio in New York for 10 years, so I knew Lee and Paula, her father and mother. And knew her, as a little girl, actually. She was talented. She had certain emotional problems later in life. And then she had cancer, sadly.

PCC:
And working with Raymond Burr on ‘Ironside’?

HAYDEN:
That was an interesting show. Again, Joel Rogosin from ‘77 Sunset Strip’ produced ‘Ironside.’ Cy Chermak was the exec producer. The thing about working on ‘Ironsides’ was this - Ray would not go on location. So it was six days of shooting, sometimes seven. Of the six days, two days were always scheduled on location. But Ray Burr would not go on location. So we would have to take his double, shoot plates of wherever we were on location, with the back of the double, and the other actors, and then shoot Ray Burr’s close-ups back in the studio. Plus the fact that he would not learn all those lines and so he had three teleprompters set next to the cameras. So you had to place your cameras so as not to interfere with his teleprompters. But he was a wonderful actor, I mean, really a good actor. With a great mind. He would take a script that wasn’t altogether so great, and he would punch it up, just rewrite it in his trailer and hand the new lines to his crew, his actors and away we’d go. He was a very talented guy.

PCC:
Among the vast list of credits, what other shows bring back fond memories?

HAYDEN:
A show I loved was ‘Palmerstown U.S.A.’

PCC:
Oh, that was the Alex Haley show?

HAYDEN:
Right, Alex Haley, Norman Lear. And that was probably one of my most favorite shows.

PCC:
It was critically acclaimed, but couldn’t get the ratings?

HAYDEN:
Yeah, it just didn’t catch on for one reason or another.

PCC:
And Michael J. Fox was in that?

HAYDEN:
Of course, as a young boy. He was very young, but very good. Very talented. One day, Monday morning came around, we were out at the Disney ranch, he didn’t show up. That was very unusual, because he was so disciplined, always on time. Knew his lines. Well, what happened was, he had gone home for the weekend, home being Canada, which I didn’t know. And coming back across the border, to get back to the studio, they stopped him and said, ‘Who are you? Where are you going?’ And Norman Lear had to pull some strings and got him out of customs and back on the set by the middle of the day. That was funny. But he was wonderful. That whole series was wonderful. Beautiful scripts.

‘The Bold Ones’ was another of my favorite shows. They had three different segments of ‘The Bold Ones, -’The Senator,’ ‘The Lawyers’ and ‘The Doctors.’ I did a lot of ‘The Doctors’ shows. And they were great.

PCC:
That was the one with John Saxon?

HAYDEN:
John Saxon, E.G. Marshall and David Hartman. Wonderful. E.G. held the whole thing together.

PCC:
You directed another of my favorite series, ‘Alias Smith and Jones.’

HAYDEN:
One of mine, too. I loved doing that. I did a couple of seasons. A lot of episodes. And then Pete Duel took his life. And I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t do it. We were very close, he and I, developed a very good rapport, a very strong friendship. And it was just too emotionally overwhelming to me, when he did this crazy thing.

PCC:
He had such charm. Did he seem troubled?

HAYDEN:
Yes, he did. And I know he had problems with drugs. But he never let me down on the set. Never. Never.

PCC:
Was it difficult to overcome the show’s similarities to Butch and Sundance?

HAYDEN:
No, I think the show held its own. Roy Huggins, terrific writer, produced it and wrote many of the segments. He just did wonderful scripts. And I thought Pete Duel was terrific. And we put a lot of effort into the production, to make it look good.

PCC:
You did ‘Peyton Place.’

HAYDEN:
Yes, one solid year, 50-some episodes.

PCC:
That was a sensation at the time, wasn’t it?

HAYDEN:
Yes and I loved doing that, because the actors were so good. And the scripts were the best. Paul Monash. the exec producer, was a wonderful writer and he hired some of the best writers in the business on that show. You look up the writers on ‘Peyton Place’ and you’ll see some of very finest television and film writers of that period.

PCC:
And what about ‘Burke’s Law’? Seems like that would be a fun one to work on.

HAYDEN:
Oh, yes, that was fun. Aaron Spelling was the producer. And Gene Barry was a very nice guy. But the thing that was so much fun, the format was such that it was a William Morris package. And they would get their top stars for $100 a day. So you shot six days. Four of the six days, you would be almost guaranteed four major names, each working one day. So I met so many people, because each episode had four so-called names, some of them not the biggest names, but all well known in the business. And Gene Barry was a fun guy, so I enjoyed that show.

PCC:
You did episodes of ‘Batman’ and ‘The Incredible Hulk.’ Is it gratifying to have been involved in series that have developed cult followings?

HAYDEN:
You don’t think about those things. You just go to work and try to get all the pages done.

PCC:
And you did ‘Route 66’?

HAYDEN:
Yes, I did a couple of those and I loved that, because I got out on location The two shows I did were in the South. I would get on a plane and I would arrange to be met at the plane in whatever city or town it was and I would be taken not to the motel, but to the closest local theatre, regional or community theatre, to see whatever was playing. And that’s how I would cast our shows. So it was great fun. Stirling Silliphant wrote the episodes I did. Very talented. One of the episodes featured William Shatner. Wonderful. Fun guy.

PCC:
You’ve said every actor you’ve worked with, you could find something appealing about them.

HAYDEN:
Yes, I tried. And 95 percent of the time, it works. Not always. I don’t even remember the name of show. I was at Universal. I used to do a number of westerns, because of ‘Smith and Jones.’ I remember doing one western, the name of which I’ve forgotten. The star of the show, I’ve forgotten his name. He would go out to lunch. He’d come back. I’d have to stand him up next to a horse, because he couldn’t stand without leaning on the horse. I’m not exaggerating that. So I only did the one episode of that show and said, ‘Get me out of here!’

PCC:
Back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, you’d see a lot of the same character actors on show after show - Andrew Duggan, John Dehner.

HAYDEN:
Oh, John Dehner, I used him all the time. He was just so wonderful. Wonderful to work with. Very talented. He could do any part you gave him. Andy Duggan same way. But Dehner was just a prince. I did a lot of work with him.

PCC:
You worked with Anne Francis on ‘Further Adventures of Gallagher,’ a ‘Disneyland’ episode.

HAYDEN:
Oh, yeah, I loved that show. I loved working at Disney, because the lot was so accommodating. First of all, Walt was the producer on that show. I did six one-hour shows, like a mini-series. And I spent six months on the lot. That’s how leisurely and wonderful it was. With the best commissary in town. It was a joy. Walt Disney was a terrific producer. He was hands-on, in every part of the script and the production. I must say, I had a certain concern about going to work at Disney, because he had a reputation for being so rough on the unions. But it turned out that he was just a terrific guy. Terrific. And he spent money on those shows. Wonderful.

PCC:
Looking back on the career, what are the most rewarding aspects?

HAYDEN:
Well, not in television, frankly. See, in between all of these television shows, I would always manage to do a play. In the early days, in summer theatre, then out here, in L.A., with local theatre groups. And those are the best memories for me. As I go back and think over the years, the plays that I did were the most meaningful.

Although, I think of shows like ‘Peyton Place,’ which was wonderful, ‘Smith and Jones,’ was wonderful. ‘Palmerstown’ was wonderful. I enjoyed ‘Mannix.’

I did enjoy going from show to show to show and exercising, with discipline, what it was that I could do, in terms of shooting these shows on time and trying to make them better. I enjoyed all of the shows, some more than others. But directing plays, that was my first love.