So whatever happened to that Spielberg kid?

RE: “The Director’s Craft” by Peter Rainer [May 18]: As executive story consultant for the TV series “Night Gallery,” I was in executive producer Jack Laird’s office in 1971 when a young director came in to tell Jack that he wouldn’t be able to direct the next episode, which started prepping the very next day. He was simply too worn out from directing a “Movie of the Week” he had just wrapped about a truck chasing a car [“Duel”].

Jack, of course, was furious, but the young director remained adamant, and when he left, I asked Jack what he thought would happen to him after he just walked out on an assignment at the last minute. Jack looked me straight in the eye and answered, “I don’t know, but I’ll tell you this, he’ll never work at Universal again.”

The director, of course, was the very young Steven Spielberg.

Gerald Sanford

Woodland Hills