Television director and producer Ira Skutch '41 who helped create and popularize the modern game show format through his work on television series including "Match Game" died of lymphoma on March 16 in Silver Lake, Calif., according to the Los Angeles Times. Skutch was 88 years old.
"He was one of the most gentle, intelligent humanists that I've ever known in my life," his daughter, Lindsay Skutch, said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "There was not a person who did not like this man."
Skutch began his entertainment career in theater, according to Lindsay Skutch.
In addition to being the assistant stage manager for the Broadway play "Angel Street," Skutch also briefly played the role of a police officer, according to Lindsay Skutch.
This experience in theater taught Skutch "how not to direct" but encouraged him to pursue producing, he wrote in his book, "I Remember Television: A Memoir."
Skutch first found work in the budding television industry as a page for NBC in the early 1940s and became a director of "Philco Television Playhouse," one of the first live anthology dramas aired on television, according to the Archive of American Television. Skutch later became vice president at Goodson-Todman Productions, a position he filled for 26 years.
Characterized as a "pioneer" by media outlets including Variety and Entertainment Weekly, Skutch also worked as a stage manager for "Hour Glass," the first hour-long series on network television, according to the Archive of American Television.
In his career, which spanned from 1942 to 1995, Skutch produced or directed over 10,000 television episodes, according to Variety.
In the later years of his life, Skutch focused his efforts as a TV historian and wrote two books "The Days of Live" and "Five Directors" about live television and five historic radio personalities, respectively. He also participated in oral histories depicting the origins and rise of television in conjunction with the Director's Guild of America, according to Lindsay Skutch.
Skutch's four years at Dartmouth had a profound effect on his choice to go into the entertainment business, Lindsay Skutch said.
"There was one professor in the theater department, either the director or one of the professors, and he totally affected [Skutch,]" she said. "My dad talked about him so much."
Skutch is survived by his brother, two children, four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
