James Burrows

Burrows was born to a Jewish family in Los Angeles, California, the son of Ruth (née Levinson) and Abe Burrows, a well-known composer, director and writer. James has one sister, Laurie Burrows Grad. When James was still a young child, his family moved to New York where James attended New York's High School of Music & Art. Burrows is a graduate of Oberlin College and the graduate program of the Yale School of Drama. ==Career==

1967–1973: Early career After Yale, Burrows returned to California where he became employed as a dialogue coach on O.K. Crackerby!, a television series starring Burl Ives and created by Burrows' father, Abe. Burrows then took a job as an assistant stage manager for the 1967 play Holly Golightly, an adaptation of the novella ''Breakfast at Tiffany's''. The production was unsuccessful, but the job served as Burrows' introduction to its star, Mary Tyler Moore. He also went to direct the short lived Broadway play The Castro Complex. Burrows continued working in theater as a stage manager and transitioned into directing plays. Burrows directed traveling plays and a production at a Jacksonville, Florida dinner theater. 1974–1981: Television director While working in theater, Burrows wrote Moore and her then husband Grant Tinker seeking a job at their production company, MTM Enterprises. Burrows is best known for his comic timing, complex blocking for actors, and incorporating more sophisticated lighting in television studio shoots. He is also credited as being one of the first sitcom directors to increase the typical multi-camera television shoot from three to four cameras. Burrows and the Charles brothers wanted to create a show where they could have more control. and its later three-year revival. In 2007, he directed episodes of the Chuck Lorre created CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory starring Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Sara Gilbert, and Mayim Bialik. From 2003 to 2006 he directed numerous episodes of another Chuck Lorre created CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men starring Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer. During this time he also directed episodes of shows such as the CBS sitcoms The Class, Courting Alex, and Gary Unmarried, the Fox sitcom Back to You, and the ABC sitcom Hank. 2010–present: Revivals and recognition Burrows directed high-profile sitcoms during the 2010s including the CBS sitcoms Mike & Molly (2010–2016) starring Billy Gardell, and Melissa McCarthy, and The Millers (2013–2015) starring Will Arnett, Margo Martindale, Beau Bridges. Burrows reunited with Matt LeBlanc with Man with a Plan (2016–2020). He also directed the sitcom B Positive (2020–2022) starring Annaleigh Ashford. Burrows directed episodes of numerous television series including the ABC sitcoms Romantically Challenged, Better with You, the CBS sitcoms $#*! My Dad Says, 2 Broke Girls, Partners, Friends with Better Lives, Superior Donuts, and The Neighborhood, the NBC sitcoms Sean Saves the World, Crowded, and the Netflix comedy series Disjointed. By 2012, Burrows had directed over 50 pilots for television series. Burrows has directed over 1,000 episodes of television, a milestone he achieved in November 2015 with the NBC sitcom Crowded. To celebrate Burrows' achievement, NBC aired a special tribute on February 21, 2016, titled Must See TV: An All-Star Tribute to James Burrows featuring cast reunions from many of the series Burrows has directed such as Cheers, Taxi, Friends, Frasier, The Big Bang Theory, Will & Grace and Mike & Molly. In January 2020, Andy Fisher and Burrows won the Directors Guild of America Award for Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Specials for ''Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear's All in the Family and The Jeffersons''. In 2016, Burrows directed his 1,000th TV episode, on NBC's Crowded. Burrows took part in two revivals, Will & Grace (2017–2020) with the original cast reunited. He received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series for the episode, "We Love Lucy". In 2023, he directed the first two episodes of the revival of Frasier on Paramount+. == In front of the camera ==

Burrows has had cameo appearances in several of the shows for which he has directed. In the first season of Friends, Burrows appeared in the episode "The One with the Butt" as the director of the film in which the character Joey Tribbiani is cast as Al Pacino's "butt double". He appears as a fictionalized version of himself directing the show-within-a-show in the 2005 HBO series The Comeback, as well as its subsequent seasons in 2014 and 2026. An episode of Scrubs, "My Life in Four Cameras", had a character named Charles James in honor of Cheers creators Burrows and Glen and Les Charles. It was previously asserted in Sitcoms: the 101 Greatest TV Comedies of All Time (2007) that Burrows served as the silhouette of the customer who knocks on the door in the final scene of Cheers, but Burrows himself refuted this claim on episode 9 of the NewsRadio-themed podcast Dispatches from Fort Awesome, revealing that the actual "Man Who Knocks" was agent Bob Broder. ==Personal life==

Burrows is married to celebrity hairstylist Debbie Easton; the couple lives in Manhattan. Burrows was previously married to Linda Solomon. He has three daughters and one stepdaughter. ==Filmography==

Acting Television As a director Film Television == Awards and nominations ==

Over the course of his career, Burrows has been nominated for fifteen Directors Guild of America awards, and for an Emmy Award every year between 1980 and 2005, excluding 1997. Burrows has won eleven Emmy Awards and five Directors Guild of America Awards. The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences celebrated Burrows' forty-year career by hosting a panel in his honor on October 7, 2013. ==Bibliography==