Buzz Kulik; Director of TV Productions

Buzz Kulik, one of the most prolific and respected directors of television productions, died Wednesday of heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He was 76.

Kulik, who began his career during the “golden age” of television in 1947, directed the Emmy Award-winning 1970 “Hallmark Hall of Fame” presentation “A Storm in Summer,” and “Brian’s Song,” the acclaimed 1971 TV movie that chronicled the friendship between Chicago Bears football players Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo. “Brian’s Song” was such a hit that it became one of the few television movies to have a theatrical release.

“He refused to lower his artistic standards for television,” said TV historian Tom O’Neil, author of the reference book “The Emmys.”

“Emmy-sweeping TV films like ‘Storm in Summer’ and ‘Brian’s Song’ were early standard bearers that proved the TV movie didn’t have to be a throwaway work of the week,” O’Neil said.

Born Seymour Buzz Kulik in Kearney, N.J., the director served as a first lieutenant in the Army during World War II. After his discharge in 1945, he worked in the mail room at the New York advertising agency J. Walter Thompson.

His life changed when he saw a notice asking for volunteers to work as directors in a new industry called television. Kulik began directing cameras at Yankee Stadium and then moved into directing episodes of such live television dramatic anthology series as “Lux Video Theatre,” “Kraft Television Theatre,” “Playhouse 90,” “Climax!” and “You Are There.”

As a staff director at CBS in the 1950s, he honed his craft directing episodes of such TV series as “Gunsmoke,” ’The Defenders” and “Twilight Zone.” He received his first Emmy nomination for directing an episode of “Dr. Kildare” in 1961.

From 1965 to 1967, Kulik was vice president of West Coast productions for Bob Banner Productions. He was a producer-director under contract at Paramount in 1967.

In 1971, Kulik directed what is considered the first miniseries, “Vanished,” starring Richard Widmark, a four-hour NBC thriller about the disappearance of the president.

Kulik, who often produced many of his movies, also directed such miniseries as “From Here to Eternity,” “Rage of Angels,” “George Washington,” “Kane & Abel,” “Around the World in 80 Days” and Jackie Collins’ “Lucky/Chances.”

He also had an uncanny ability to elicit strong performances from his cast. Peter Ustinov won an Emmy for “A Storm in Summer,” as did Anthony Hopkins for 1975’s “The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case.”

“One of his enduring trademarks was that those movies were performance-driven first and foremost, rather than plot-driven,” O’Neil said.

Though his TV movies and specials won numerous Emmys over the years, the award eluded Kulik. Besides “Dr. Kildare,” he received Emmy nominations for directing “A Storm in Summer,” “Brian’s Song,” “Babe” and “George Washington.” He received an award from the Directors Guild of America for “Brian’s Song.”

It was clear that Kulik loved the immediacy of the small screen.

“I’ve forgotten the kind of instantaneous response you get [from television],” he said in an interview with The Times in 1970. “While ‘Storm in Summer’ was playing, calls were coming in from the East. People stopped me on the street to talk about the play. I heard strangers talking about it in stores. It’s something that doesn’t happen anywhere else--not in theaters or movies.”

Kulik also directed several features, including the 1961 youth drama “The Explosive Generation,” the 1973 Burt Reynolds film “Shamus,” and Steve McQueen’s last movie, “The Hunter,” which was released in 1980.

Kulik is survived by his wife, Lorraine; his daughter, Jennifer; son, Glen; and four granddaughters. Funeral services are set for 11 a.m. Sunday at Mount Sinai Memorial Park in Los Angeles.