James Burrows Age, Death, Wife, Children, Family, Biography

Some Lesser Known Facts About James Burrows

• James Edward Burrows was born in a Jewish family in Los Angeles, California.

• His father, Abe Burrows, was a composer, director and writer of popular music. The family moved to New York when Burrows was still a young child.

• In 1965, Burrows moved back to California.

• He became a dialogue coach for O.K. Crackerby! starring Burl Ives and produced by his father Abe.

• He then moved on to becoming an assistant stage manager for the 1967 play, an adaptation of the novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which was called Holly Golightly.

• Unfortunately, the production was not a success, but it introduced him to its leading lady, Mary Tyler Moore.

• Burrows also started performing for the road company of Cactus Flower and the Broadway production Forty Carats as early on as the show departed for a run in the south.

• He went on to direct the short-lived Broadway play The Castro Complex.

• He remained in the theatre, as a stage manager, and eventually progressed into directing plays.

• He led touring shows and a show at a dinner theatre in Jacksonville, Florida.

• Burrows was still in theatre when he wrote to Moore and her then husband Grant Tinker asking for a job at their production company MTM Enterprises.

• He was brought on as a director in 1974 by Tinker.

• Burrows was a director at MTM Enterprises for The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show.

• Tinker wanted mentor Burrows to have the opportunity to work with director Jay Sandrich, who had directed The Mary Tyler Moore Show and later The Cosby Show and The Golden Girls.

• In this time, he actually directed a number of the shows, such as Phyllis, Rhoda and On Our Own.

• He was known for his comic timing, complex blocking for actors and his use of more sophisticated lighting in television studio shoots.

• He is also given credit as one of the first directors of the sitcom era to boost the normal amount of cameras used in a television shoot from three to four.

• Cheers was developed by Burrows with brothers Glen and Les Charles.

• The three wanted to create a show where they could have more control.

• Cheers first aired on NBC on 30 September 1982. Initially the series failed in the ratings, but it eventually became popular, having aired 275 episodes in eleven seasons.

• Of the 275 episodes, Burrows directed 240 of them. Burrows later went on to helm the NBC comedy Frasier, a spin-off of Cheers that followed the exploits of Dr. Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer).

• In 1993, he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series for the pilot episode, The Good Son.

• He directed 32 episodes of the series between 1993-1997. David Hyde Pierce, John Mahoney, Peri Gilpin and Jane Leeves also appeared in the show.

• Friends’ creator (and end-actor) Burrows produced 15 episodes of the NBC sitcom starring Aniston, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc and Lisa Kudrow.

• It is a series about 6 friends who live in NYC. In 1994 he was nominated for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series for the episode The One with the Blackout of Season 1.

• In 2003, he had directed the pilot episode of another Chuck Lorre created CBS sitcom, Two and a Half Men, starring Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer.

• He also directed episodes of The Class, Courting Alex and Gary Unmarried on CBS, Back to You on Fox and Hank on ABC.

• In 2007, he directed the pilot episode of The Big Bang Theory, which starred Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Sara Gilbert and Mayim Bialik, and was the creation of Chuck Lorre.

• Burrows took command of a number of successful sitcoms from 2010. These were the CBS sitcoms Mike and Molly (2010-2016) and The Millers (2013-2015) with Will Arnett, Margo Martindale and Beau Bridges.

• By 2012, Burrows had co-directed more than 50 pilots for television series. In November 2015, he reached the 1,000-directed episodes mark with Crowded, his NBC comedy.

• To celebrate this milestone, on 21 February 2016, a special episode of NBC’s Must See TV was dedicated to James Burrows. Special cast reunions for Cheers, Taxi, Friends, Frasier, The Big Bang Theory, Will and Grace and Mike and Molly.

• In January 2020, Burrows and Andy Fisher received a Directors Guild of America Award for Variety, Talk, News and Sports Specials for the special, Live in Front of a Studio Audience, a recreation of the All in the Family and The Jeffersons that went on to win the Emmy Award for Variety Talk Show.

• Burrows directed all of the episodes for the Will and Grace revival since 2017, reuniting the original cast, until the end of 2020.

• He was nominated for an Emmy for the episode We Love Lucy in which he was the Outstanding Director for a Comedy Series.

• In 2023, he directed the first two episodes of the Frasier revival on Paramount+.

• He also executive produced the ABC specials (Live in Front of a Studio Audience) that recreated All in the Family, The Jeffersons, All in the Family and Good Times, The Facts of Life and Diff’rent Strokes in 2019 and 2021, respectively.

• He appeared in a couple of shows he directed as Burrows. He was on the first season of Friends in The One with the Butt as the director of a film starring Joey Tribiani (Al Pacino’s butt double).

• Throughout his career, Burrows had won 11 primetime Emmy Awards and five D.C.A. Awards. In 2015, he was awarded the DGA’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

• He also setup a joint venture called 3 Sisters Entertainment with NBC.

• James Burrows passed away on 19 June 2026 aged 85.