Tommy Goetz; TV Production Designer for “Taxi,” “Coach”

Tommy Goetz, 57, television production designer for such series as “Taxi” and “Coach.” Goetz began his career in Chicago’s improvisational Second City in the late 1950s. He gravitated to New York, where he became a stage manager for “The Ed Sullivan Show” and early Barbra Streisand specials. He next worked as a cameraman for the Swedish Broadcasting Union covering civil rights and anti-Vietnam confrontations in the 1960s and was assigned to the White House for three years. Moving into network television in the mid-1970s, he gave sitcoms the look of depth and height familiar to theater audiences. In addition to “Taxi,” and “Coach,” Goetz created sets for “The Associates,” “Newhart,” “Valerie,” “Best of the West,” “Get a Life” and others. Goetz and seven of his neighbors also established a cable television community news show for Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach, which Goetz described as a “visual newspaper.” On March 20 in Los Angeles of heart failure.