Robert Butler

Although Robert Butler is probably best known for his television work on the cult science-fiction show "Star Trek" (he directed the original pilot "The Cage" and the two-part "Menagerie"), he is also fondly remembered by nostalgic moviegoers for his two live-action Walt Disney movies, "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes" and "The Barefoot Detective," both starring a teenage Kurt Russell. Butler also directed the Disney comedy/western film "Hot Lead and Cold Feet," starring Don Knotts and Darren McGavin. But his legacy as a director resides with the many television shows he has worked on, with some of the most notable ones including the gloriously campy "Batman" of the 1960s, the original "The Untouchables," two episodes of the celebrated suspense anthology "The Twilight Zone" (the racially charged "The Encounter" and the ventriloquist shocker "Caesar and Me"), and the original versions of such enduring franchises as the "The Fugitive" and "Mission: Impossible." Although the '60s and '70s were his true heyday, Butler enjoyed an'80s success or two as well, including the seminal gritty cop show "Hill Street Blues." As the turn of the new millennium approached and and went by, the director's television efforts became increasingly more sporadic and he took to helming such occasional feature films as the white-knuckle airplane triller "Turbulence." Robert Butler died on November 3, 2023 at the age of 95.