Noam Pitlik

Former WRTIer

The following is from the Temple University Alumni Review, Summer 1979...

Although it is not always easy to switch professions - even while remaining in the same field - the shift from actor to director has become increasingly common in Hollywood.

Some people have made the transition not only with ease, but with extremely successful results.

For more than 20 years, Pitlik was an actor whose career spanned television, film and stage. It was a prosperous career which included performances in 18 films, among them The Graduate, Front Page and A Child is Waiting, and numerous televisions shows.

Pitlik's television credits ranged from Hogan's Heroes, on which he played one of the German generals, to shows such as FBI, Gunsmoke Mod Squad, All in the Family, Sanford & Son, Bob Newhart Show, Gomer Pyle, Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare and That Girl.

A theater major at Temple, Pitlik had started his acting career while still a student. After graduation, he moved to New York, where, except for a two-year stint in the Army, he worked as an actor and stage manager, and also earned a master's degree in theater at New York University.

In 1961, Pitlik, a native of the Logan section of Philadelphia, moved to Los Angeles, and for the next 14 years acted in television, movies and commercials. He began directing in 1973, getting his first job from Dick Van Dyke. By 1975, he had become a full-time director and an ex-actor.

"It wasn't a case of my needing to change functions for economic reasons," Pitlik recalls. "I used to figure out what I made a day as an actor, and it was obscene. I changed for emotional reasons. I had become very frustrated by the kinds of things I was doing in acting, and I was looking for a change in my life that would be more challenging. I enjoyed acting, but I never seemed to get enough to do. When you're a director, I found that kind of work much more appealing."

Pitlik also found that the switch in occupations was not terribly difficult. "The transfer was pretty simple," he says. "One of the major skills a director must have is to understand acting and the problems of being an actor. For me, as an actor, this was easy."

It was also fairly easy for Pitlik, who makes his home in Encino, California, to get jobs. Often a director works on a freelance basis, and Noam did a number of episodes for the New Dick Van Dyke Show, as well as sitcoms such as Fish, the Betty White Show, Phyllis, The Practice, Ball Four, One Day at a Time and many others. He was also the original director of Alice.

Several years ago, he began working with Barney Miller, the popular detective comedy show. To date, Noam has directed more than 50 Barney Miller episodes, and this year was under exclusive contract with the show, directing 21 of the 24 episodes.

And, as he had originally sought, he works hard. Pitlik and his co-workers spend four to five days putting together each week's one-half hour show, rehearsing the first two days, filming the next two, then editing and often working 12 to 14-hour days.

"We shoot over and over until we feel it's right," he says. "When it comes to directing, you try to make the material work, and then put a camera where you can see what's happening. It's what you put in front of the camera that counts.

"In television, one's directional skills are in their simplest form. It's hard to influence the material. Unlike directing films, in which the style of the director is often clearly identified, the function of a television director is not so clearly seen. But I'm not really sure it should be.

"Your main responsibility is to create an atmosphere in which each of the people involved in the production can conform to their best work. Although a director oversees all aspects of the production, there are many people involved, and he's dependent on all of them. There's no more collaborative business than the television business. Each person contributes to the success or failure of a show whether he or she is a writer, actor, cameraman or whatever."

Nevertheless, a number of Noam's shows, including Barney Miller, have been enormously popular. And Pitlik has established a reputation in Hollywood as a top-level directors, although to a large extend he has been typed as a comedy director - a label he would prefer to lose.

"I've been very fortunate, though," he says. "I was looking for the best, most challenging time I could have, and I found it. Hour by hour, day by day, for me, there isn't a more pleasurable kind of work than this."

Noam received his BA from Temple University in 1954. He was involved with WRTI during his years at the University.

He won an Emmy for Outstanding Directing in a Comedy or Comedy-Variety or Music Series for "The Harris Incident," an episode of the television show, Barney Miller.

On February 18, 1999 at the age of 66, Noam passed away from Lung Cancer.

Photo and article from the collection of Gerry Wilkinson.