Barbara Schultz

Years active1959–1987TelevisionVisions (1976–1980)

Barbara Ann Schultz (February 4, 1927 – September 2, 2019) was an American television producer and director. She is best known for her work as the executive producer and artistic director for the anthology drama series Visions (1976–1980) on PBS.

Early life and education

Born in Manhattan on February 4, 1927, Schultz was raised in New Jersey by her homemaker mother and attorney father. She graduated from Barnard College in 1948, receiving a degree in English studies. She originally pursued acting, first taking roles in student productions at Barnard and making her Broadway debut in 1952 with a bit part in a production of the play Desire Under the Elms by Eugene O'Neill.^[1]

Career

Turning away from acting, Schultz went into production amid the first Golden Age of Television. She started as an assistant story editor at Burt Lancaster's production company Hecht-Hill-Lancaster. She worked five years as a story editor at David Susskind's company Talent Associates and worked on series like The Defenders and The Trials of O'Brien (CBS) before stepping into an assistant producer role at Armstrong Circle Theatre.^[2] She became executive story editor, then executive producer, of CBS Playhouse.^[1] After Playhouse, her focus turned to CBS's programming for children, producing CBS Children's Hour and the reboot of educational series You Are There.^[1]

Visions and after

In 1974, Schultz joined the Los Angeles-based public broadcaster and PBS member station KCET as executive producer and artistic director of Visions, a weekly anthology series in which each episode would be a feature-length dramatic film by a screenwriter with no prior experience in television. KCET sought to maximize Schultz's artistic license and independence, with minimal interference.^[3]

Jean Shepherd, who wrote The Phantom of the Open Hearth for Visions, said Schultz "not only encouraged us at every turn but gave us a totally free hand, something most writers only dream about."^[4] Michael J. Arlen, writing for The New Yorker, said the high quality of Visions "has been a credit to its creators—especially to Barbara Schultz, the remarkably able and responsive woman who has been the program's artistic director and creative force."^[5] In 1979, Schultz received the Crystal Award from the Women in Film and Television^[6] and the Evelyn F. Burkey Award from the Writers Guild of America, East at the 31st Writers Guild of America Awards.^[7]

After Visions ended, Schultz occasionally directed episodes of sitcoms like Family Ties and Diff'rent Strokes. However, directing work quickly dried up for her; a longtime friend and collaborator on Visions, Sandra Schulberg, said "the industry was not very receptive to a woman director of her age."^[1] She also directed plays for the Los Angeles chapter of the New York–based Ensemble Studio Theatre.^[8]

Death and legacy

Schultz died at her home in Manhattan on September 2, 2019, from complications from heart disease.^[1] She has been cited as a pioneering woman in the early American TV industry, which typically discouraged women from participating at executive levels of production. Her status as a trailblazer has been cited alongside such contemporaries as Jacqueline Babbin,^[9] Frances Buss Buch, Ida Lupino and Lela Swift.^[10]

Filmography

Credits adapted from the website of the Paley Center for Media's She Made It initiative.^[11]

Series	Year(s)	Network	Credited as				Notes
			Executive producer	Producer	Director	Other
Armstrong Circle Theatre	1959–1963	CBS	No	No	No	Yes	Story editor, assistant producer (later)[2]
The Defenders	1963–64		No	No	No	Yes	Story editor
The Reporter	1964		No	No	No	Yes	Story editor
The Doctors and the Nurses	1964–65		No	No	No	Yes	Story editor
The Trials of O'Brien	1965–66		No	No	No	Yes	Story editor
CBS Playhouse	1967–1970		Yes	No	No	Yes	Also executive story editor
CBS Children's Hour	1969–70		Yes	No	No	No
You Are There	1971–72		No	Yes	No	No
The Electric Company	1972		No	No	No	Yes	Consultant
Visions	1976–1978	PBS	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Also creator
Family Ties	1985, 1987	NBC	No	No	Yes	No	Episodes: "The Old College Try", "Matchmaker"
Diff'rent Strokes	1986	ABC	No	No	Yes	No	Episode: "Bulimia"
You Again?	1986	NBC	No	No	Yes	No	Episode: "Enid Quits"
Webster	1987	ABC	No	No	Yes	No	Episode: "A Test of Characters"

Archived works

In 2006, the Paley Center for Media (then known as the Museum of Television & Radio) named Barbara Schultz one of the honorees of its multi-year initiative "She Made It: Women Creating Television and Radio", thereby inducting some of her works into its permanent collections.^[12] More from Schultz's filmography can be found preserved in the UCLA Film and Television Archive,^[13] and two of her productions—J.T. (1969, CBS Playhouse) and The Gold Watch (1976, Visions)—were screened at the Billy Wilder Theater in a retrospective of her work as part of the 2017 UCLA Festival of Preservation.^[14]

Title	Original air date	Series	Preserved by
			Paley Center[15]	UCLA Archive[16]
"My Father and My Mother"	February 13, 1968	CBS Playhouse	No	Yes
"The People Next Door"	October 15, 1968		Yes	No
"Saturday Adoption"	December 4, 1968		No	Yes
"The Experiment"	February 25, 1969		No	Yes
"Shadow Game"	May 7, 1969		Yes	Yes
"Sadbird"	December 1, 1969		No	Yes
J.T.	December 13, 1969	CBS Children's Hour	Yes	Yes
"The Day Before Sunday"	February 10, 1970	CBS Playhouse	No	Yes
Two Brothers	October 21, 1976	Visions	Yes	Yes
The War Widow	October 28, 1976		Yes	Yes
El Corrido	November 4, 1976		No	Yes
The Gold Watch	November 11, 1976		No	Yes
Liza's Pioneer Diary	November 18, 1976		Yes	Yes
The Great Cherub Knitwear Strike	November 25, 1976		No	Yes
Scenes from the Middle Class	December 16, 1976		No	Yes
The Phantom of the Open Hearth	December 23, 1976		No	Yes
The Tapestry and Circles	December 30, 1976		No	Yes
Iowa	October 2, 1977		Yes	No
Freeman	October 9, 1977		No	Yes
Charlie Smith and the Fritter Tree	October 9, 1978		No	Yes
Shoes and String	January 12, 1980		No	Yes
It's the Willingness	January 19, 1980		No	Yes

References

Sources

External links

• Barbara Schultz at IMDb 
• Barbara Schultz at the TCM Movie Database
• Barbara Schultz at Playbill Vault