Lela Swift (born Lillian Siwoff; February 1, 1919 – August 4, 2015) was a television director and producer, best known for her work on ''

Dark Shadows ''Dark Shadows'' is an American gothic soap opera that aired weekdays on the ABC television network, from June 27, 1966, to April 2, 1971. The show depicted the lives, loves, trials, and tribulations of the wealthy Collins family of Collinspo ...

'', which she also produced from 1970–71, and '' Ryan's Hope''.

Early life

She was born in 1919 as Lillian Siwoff in

New York City, New York New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Her brother was baseball statistician and owner of the

Elias Sports Bureau The Elias Sports Bureau is a privately held company providing historical and current statistical information for the major professional sports leagues operating in the United States and Canada. Elias is the official statistician for Major League Ba ...

, Seymour Siwoff.

Career

Swift started her career in the secretarial pool at CBS. She worked behind the scenes on news programs there. She worked through the studio system ranks at CBS and served as an assistant director on several anthology series. Her directorial career began in 1950. In 1961, she moved to NBC and worked on the Purex Specials for Women series. In 1966, she joined

Dan Curtis Dan Curtis (born Daniel Mayer Cherkoss; August 12, 1927 – March 27, 2006) was an American director, writer, and producer of television and film, known among fans of horror films for his afternoon TV series ''Dark Shadows'' (1966–1971) and ...

to work on ABC's ''

'' television series. It lasted five seasons with 1,225 episodes. Swift directed almost half of the episodes during its run. She later served as one of the directors for the series '' Ryan's Hope'', a daytime drama about a large working-class Irish-American family that lasted 14 years.

Awards

Swift received four

Daytime Emmy The Daytime Emmy Awards, or Daytime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the New York–based National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (N ...

nominations for her work on ''Ryan's Hope'', winning in 1977, 1979, and 1980. She also received a Daytime Emmy nomination in the Best Individual Director for a Special Program category for an episode of ''

The ABC Afternoon Playbreak ''The ABC Afternoon Playbreak'' is an American television anthology series that was broadcast on ABC from 1973 to 1975. The ninety-minute dramas aired once a month and featured some of the more popular television and film stars of the 1970s ( Dia ...

''.

Death and legacy

She died in

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing t ...

on August 4, 2015. She was buried at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery.

Personal life

Her husband, Gilbert ("Geb") Schwartz, died on January 30, 2015 after suffering from Alzheimer's disease for many years. The couple had two sons, Russell and Stuart, who both work in the television industry; Russell is an executive at Starz, and Stuart is a TV producer known for his work on ''

Unsolved Mysteries ''Unsolved Mysteries'' is an American mystery documentary television show, created by John Cosgrove and Terry Dunn Meurer. Documenting cold cases and paranormal phenomena, it began as a series of seven specials, presented by Raymond Burr, Ka ...

'' (not to be confused with Stuart Schwartz who produced news programs for

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...

including '' Good Morning America'').many citations confuse her son with a Stuart Schwartz who produced news programs including ''Good Morning America'' for

References

External links

* 1919 births 2015 deaths American television directors American women television producers Burials at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery American women television directors Television producers from New York City 21st-century American women {{Tv-director-stub