Stages: Norman Lloyd and American Television

Norman Lloyd may be best known as “The Man Who Falls off the Statue of Liberty” in the vertiginous finale to Alfred Hitchcock’s Saboteur (1942) but it’s the depth and breadth of his career as a whole—as actor, director and producer, in stage, radio, television and film—that’s truly dizzying. Lloyd started out as a child actor in New York in the 1920s and went on to work with a who’s who of 20^th-century giants including Joseph Losey, Orson Welles, Jean Renoir, Lewis Milestone, Bertolt Brecht, Charlie Chaplin and, of course, Hitchcock. While Lloyd’s great passion remains the theater, happenstance and a discerning sensibility for material and talent led him to a remarkable—and remarkably literate—career in television. There at the medium’s beginning in the early 1950s, Lloyd directed a five-part "Omnibus" biography of Abraham Lincoln written by James Agee before beginning a long run producing and directing for "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour." The 1970s brought him to public television where he executive produced and directed a string of classic plays for "Hollywood Television Theater" before he took on the role of Dr. Daniel Auschlander in the 1980s hit series "St. Elsewhere." The Archive is thrilled to pay tribute, in his centennial year, to Lloyd’s contributions to American television, featuring a selection of works from our collection, with Lloyd appearing in person on Friday, April 18.

Thanks to: Dan Einstein, television archivist, UCLA Film & Television Archive; Mark Quigley, manager, Archive Research & Study Center.