| Barbara Schultz | |
| Birth Name: | Barbara Ann Schultz |
| Birth Date: | February 4, 1927 |
| Birth Place: | New York City, U.S. |
| Death Place: | New York City, U.S. |
| Alma Mater: | Barnard College |
| Years Active: | 1959–1987 |
| Television: | Visions (1976–1980) |
Barbara Ann Schultz (February 4, 1927 – September 2, 2019) was an American television producer and director. She is best known for her work as the executive producer and artistic director for the anthology drama series Visions (1976–1980) on PBS.
Born in Manhattan on February 4, 1927, Schultz was raised in New Jersey by her homemaker mother and attorney father. She graduated from Barnard College in 1948, receiving a degree in English studies. She originally pursued acting, first taking roles in student productions at Barnard and making her Broadway debut in 1952 with a bit part in a production of the play Desire Under the Elms by Eugene O'Neill.
Turning away from acting, Schultz went into production amid the first Golden Age of Television. She started as an assistant story editor at Burt Lancaster's production company Hecht-Hill-Lancaster. She worked five years as a story editor at David Susskind's company Talent Associates and worked on series like The Defenders and The Trials of O'Brien (CBS) before stepping into an assistant producer role at Armstrong Circle Theatre. She became executive story editor, then executive producer, of CBS Playhouse. After Playhouse, her focus turned to CBS's programming for children, producing CBS Children's Hour and the reboot of educational series You Are There.
In 1974, Schultz joined the Los Angeles-based public broadcaster and PBS member station KCET as executive producer and artistic director of Visions, a weekly anthology series in which each episode would be a feature-length dramatic film by a screenwriter with no prior experience in television. KCET sought to maximize Schultz's artistic license and independence, with minimal interference.
Jean Shepherd, who wrote The Phantom of the Open Hearth for Visions, said Schultz "not only encouraged us at every turn but gave us a totally free hand, something most writers only dream about." Michael J. Arlen, writing for The New Yorker, said the high quality of Visions "has been a credit to its creators—especially to Barbara Schultz, the remarkably able and responsive woman who has been the program's artistic director and creative force." In 1979, Schultz received the Crystal Award from the Women in Film and Television and the Evelyn F. Burkey Award from the Writers Guild of America, East at the 31st Writers Guild of America Awards.
After Visions ended, Schultz occasionally directed episodes of sitcoms like Family Ties and Diff'rent Strokes. However, directing work quickly dried up for her; a longtime friend and collaborator on Visions, Sandra Schulberg, said "the industry was not very receptive to a woman director of her age." She also directed plays for the Los Angeles chapter of the New York–based Ensemble Studio Theatre.
Schultz died at her home in Manhattan on September 2, 2019, from complications from heart disease. She has been cited as a pioneering woman in the early American TV industry, which typically discouraged women from participating at executive levels of production. Her status as a trailblazer has been cited alongside such contemporaries as Jacqueline Babbin, Frances Buss Buch, Ida Lupino and Lela Swift.
Credits adapted from the website of the Paley Center for Media's She Made It initiative.
| Series | Year(s) | Network | Credited as | Notes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Executive producer | Producer | Director | Other | |||||
| Armstrong Circle Theatre | 1959–1963 | Story editor, assistant producer (later) | ||||||
| The Defenders | 1963–64 | Story editor | ||||||
| The Reporter | 1964 | Story editor | ||||||
| The Doctors and the Nurses | 1964–65 | Story editor | ||||||
| The Trials of O'Brien | 1965–66 | Story editor | ||||||
| CBS Playhouse | 1967–1970 | Also executive story editor | ||||||
| CBS Children's Hour | 1969–70 | |||||||
| You Are There | 1971–72 | |||||||
| The Electric Company | 1972 | Consultant | ||||||
| Visions | 1976–1978 | Also creator | ||||||
| Family Ties | 1985, 1987 | Episodes: "The Old College Try", "Matchmaker" | ||||||
| Diff'rent Strokes | 1986 | Episode: "Bulimia" | ||||||
| You Again? | 1986 | Episode: "Enid Quits" | ||||||
| Webster | 1987 | Episode: "A Test of Characters" | ||||||
In 2006, the Paley Center for Media (then known as the Museum of Television & Radio) named Barbara Schultz one of the honorees of its multi-year initiative "She Made It: Women Creating Television and Radio", thereby inducting some of her works into its permanent collections. More from Schultz's filmography can be found preserved in the UCLA Film and Television Archive, and two of her productions—J.T. (1969, CBS Playhouse) and The Gold Watch (1976, Visions)—were screened at the Billy Wilder Theater in a retrospective of her work as part of the 2017 UCLA Festival of Preservation.
| Title | Original air date | Series | Preserved by | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paley Center | UCLA Archive | |||
| CBS Playhouse | ||||
| J.T. | CBS Children's Hour | |||
| CBS Playhouse | ||||
| Two Brothers | Visions | |||
| El Corrido | ||||
| Liza's Pioneer Diary | ||||
| Scenes from the Middle Class | ||||
| Iowa | ||||
| Freeman | ||||
| Charlie Smith and the Fritter Tree | ||||
| Shoes and String | ||||
| It's the Willingness | ||||