James Burrows was an American television director and producer who was one of the most prolific and influential directors in the history of American television comedy, serving as co-creator and a principal director of Cheers, the NBC sitcom that ran from 1982 to 1993 and that is consistently ranked among the greatest television series ever made, and who directed episodes of virtually every major American television sitcom of the past four decades, making him the director most associated with the development of the multi-camera studio audience comedy format in its most successful commercial and artistic manifestations. He died in 2026.
He was born James Burrows on 30 December 1940 in Los Angeles, California, the son of Abe Burrows, the legendary Broadway director and writer, growing up in an entertainment family whose environment gave him early exposure to the professional world of comedy writing and production. He attended Oberlin College and then Yale University’s drama programme before beginning his career in theatre and subsequently moving to television, where his abilities as a comedy director attracted attention and where his work on shows including Taxi, which he joined in 1978, established his reputation as one of the finest comedy directors in the industry.
He co-created Cheers with Glen Charles and Les Charles in 1982, developing the concept of a Boston bar as the setting for a comedy about the community of regulars and staff whose relationships provide the show’s ongoing narrative. Cheers ran for eleven seasons, winning the Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series four times and producing 111 Emmy nominations across its run, and the ensemble cast it developed over its seasons, including Ted Danson, Shelley Long, Kelsey Grammer, John Ratzenberger, Rhea Perlman, and others, gave the show a depth of character and consistency of performance quality that has made it an enduring standard for what American television comedy can achieve. His direction was central to establishing and maintaining the show’s comic rhythms, its use of the multi-camera studio format, and the specific balance between the show’s comedic and dramatic dimensions that gave Cheers its distinctive character.
After Cheers he directed episodes of Friends, Will and Grace, Frasier, Mike and Molly, Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, and dozens of other television comedies, accumulating more than 1,000 episodes directed across his career and becoming the director most consistently called upon by the producers of major American television comedies to provide the quality and reliability that their productions required. His ability to work within the multi-camera comedy format with a consistent standard of excellence across such an enormous volume of work is a professional achievement without parallel in the history of American television.
He received multiple Emmy Awards for his directing work and was given the honorary title of Dean of Directing by the Directors Guild of America, a recognition of his unique position in the history of American television comedy direction. His contribution to the development of the sitcom as an artistic and commercial form was acknowledged by the industry he had served so productively and for so long, and the network of writers, actors, and producers who had worked with him across his decades of directing constituted a significant portion of the creative community of American television comedy.
His death in 2026 ended the career of the most prolific and distinguished director in the history of American television comedy, a figure whose work was inseparable from the golden era of the American sitcom. He died in 2026.