Howard Buton Zieff (October 21, 1927 – February 22, 2009) (pronounced Zeef) was an American director,

television commercial A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...

director, and

advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

photographer.

Early life

Zieff was born to

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

parents in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, Illinois, then moved to

Los Angeles, CA. Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

with his family.Mel Heimer. "Zany TV commercials do so sell goods," ''The Titusville Herald'' (Pennsylvania), November 11, 1969, page 5.

Career

He studied art for one year at Los Angeles City College, then dropped out in 1946 to join the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

. He learned photography at the

Naval Photography School Naval Air Station Pensacola or NAS Pensacola (formerly NAS/KNAS until changed circa 1970 to allow Nassau International Airport, now Lynden Pindling International Airport, to have IATA code NAS), "The Cradle of Naval Aviation", is a United State ...

Pensacola, Florida Pensacola () is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle, and the county seat and only incorporated city of Escambia County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 54,312. Pensacola is the principa ...

and then, after his discharge, at the Art Center College of Design in

Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. Its ...

. He became a commercial photographer in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

in the 1950s, earning a reputation in the 1960s as one of the city's best-known advertising photographers. His campaigns included "You Don't Have To Be Jewish" for Levy's rye bread, "Mamma Mia, that's a spicy meatball" for Alka-Seltzer, and ads for the ''

New York Daily News The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in Ta ...

'', Polaroid, and

Volkswagen Volkswagen (),English: , . abbreviated as VW (), is a German motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a global brand post ...

. Bernard Weinraub, "Arts In America; From Ordinary Faces, Extraordinary Ads"
''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', 21 February 2002. His advertising was known for its humor as well as its high production values; for a

Hertz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one her ...

rental-car ad, he commissioned the construction of a facsimile of West Hollywood's Sunset Strip, while an ad for Tetley tea included locating old

Spitfire The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force and other Allies of World War II, Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. Many variants of the Spitfire were built, from the Mk 1 ...

planes. In 1969, Zieff sold his company to

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the multi ...

in order to focus on filmmaking. After the release of '' My Girl 2'' in 1994, Zieff retired from directing as he became increasingly debilitated by

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

Death

Zieff died aged 81 at

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is a nonprofit, tertiary, 886-bed teaching hospital and multi-specialty academic health science center located in Los Angeles, California. Part of the Cedars-Sinai Health System, the hospital employs a staff of over 2, ...

in Los Angeles at 8:10am on Sunday, February 22, 2009, with his wife (retired motion picture literary agent) Ronda Gomez-Quinones at his side. ''Private Benjamin'' star Goldie Hawn was among those to pay tribute to him, saying he had a "special talent for directing comedies, always a rare gift. What I remember and cherish most was his humour and love of laughter." He is interred at Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in the

Hollywood Hills The Hollywood Hills are a residential neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. Geography The Hollywood Hills straddle the Cahuenga Pass within the Santa Monica Mountains. The neighborhood touches Studio City, Unive ...

of Los Angeles.

Filmography

References

External links

*
The Times: Howard Zieff: American director who was known as the king of comedy

Howard Zieff
at

Find a Grave Find a Grave is a website that allows the public to search and add to an online database of cemetery records. It is owned by Ancestry.com. Its stated mission is "to help people from all over the world work together to find, record and present f ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zieff, Howard 1927 births 2009 deaths 20th-century American photographers Television commercial directors Neurological disease deaths in California Deaths from Parkinson's disease Los Angeles City College alumni 20th-century American Jews Film directors from Los Angeles 21st-century American Jews Burials at Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery