Don Mischer, one of many preeminent dwell occasion administrators of the previous 5 many years, died peacefully in his sleep final evening, April 11, in Los Angeles. The 15-time Emmy winner was 85.
Mischer didn’t cease working till the top and handed away simply as he was lastly planning to retire for good.
“I need you to know that, after greater than six many years in tv, I shall be doing my final present tomorrow on Saturday, April fifth right here in Los Angeles,” he instructed Deadline final week. “I began on the PBS station in Austin on the College of Texas campus in 1963, and I turned 85 final week. Man it appears like time has simply flown by.”
Mischer’s closing present was the 2025 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony, hosted by James Corden, which passed off at Barker Hangar Santa Monica with tech titans and A-list movie star attending and Katy Perry amongst these performing. The present, nicknamed the Oscars of Science, is streaming on YouTube as we speak. You may watch it right here.
Mischer’s dwell tv profession is unparalleled and options directing and producing nearly each main occasion, together with two Academy Awards, 15 Emmy ceremonies, a number of Kennedy Middle Honors, Individuals’s Selection Awards and Breakthrough Prize Ceremonies, the annual 9/11 memorials at Floor Zero in New York in addition to quite a few different specials, along with his directing credit exceeding 100.
His in depth resume consists of the Opening Ceremonies of each the 1996 Summer time Olympics and 2002 Winter Olympics; the Tremendous Bowl Halftime Exhibits with Michael Jackson, Prince, Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen; the Obama Inaugural Live performance on the Lincoln Memorial the place 750,000 gathered on the Nationwide Mall; Motown 25; the Democratic Nationwide Conference; and Carnegie Corridor: Stay at 100.
In 2023, Mischer revealed his autobiography, :10 Seconds To Air: My Life In The Director’s Chair, through which he shared the tales behind a number of the most iconic TV moments that he helmed, together with Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean efficiency on the Motown 25 particular and Prince’s Tremendous Bowl half-time efficiency within the pouring rain. He additionally wrote about working with Muhammad Ali, Frank Sinatra and different legends.
In an interview with Deadline’s Pete Hammond on the launch of the ebook, Mischer, a College of Texas at Austin graduate with a Bachelor and Grasp of Artwork levels, shared how he fell in dwell with dwell TV.
“I used to be 9 years outdated when tv got here to my hometown, which was San Antonio, Texas, and I keep in mind going to the very first (TV present),” he recalled. “I used to be in a giant health club, and on the ground, there have been cameras, lights, booms, and mariachi bands, and sq. dancers, and nation bands, and all of this. All the basketball courtroom was ringed with screens so we may sit within the stands, see it taking place dwell on the ground, and see it on tv. And it planted the seed, I grew to become infatuated with tv.”
Mischer relished the unpredictable, high-risk nature of huge dwell tv occasions.
“There is no such thing as a feeling like counting down the ultimate seconds to a dwell broadcast of the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympic Video games, realizing that 80% of the planet shall be watching it dwell and you’ve got just one shot to drag it off,” he mentioned. “There aren’t any retakes. No fixes. No modifying. And watching it is going to be an enormous stadium of individuals, heads of state, the world press, and practically each pair of eyes on this planet, and it’s over in a flash. That is the joys and problem dwell tv.”
Mischer received 15 Emmy Awards (together with 13 Primetime Emmys), a report 10 DGA Awards, a Peabody, two NAACP Picture Awards, the 2012 Norman Lear Achievement Award in Tv from the PGA, and the 2019 DGA Lifetime Achievement Award for Tv, together with a slew of different accolades. In 2014, he acquired a star on the Hollywood Stroll of Fame.
“It’s been fairly a private journey for me from the very starting of tv in 1949 – from Tremendous Bowl halftimes with Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, The Stones, Prince (within the rain), and Bruce Springsteen; to Olympic Opening Ceremonies; Carnegie Corridor’s one centesimal Anniversary and Obama’s Inaugural Live performance on the Lincoln Memorial,” Mischer wrote Deadline final week. “And from the Oscars; to The Kennedy Middle Honors and Muhammad Ali’s lighting the Olympic Cauldron) and in Atlanta. However now Mom Nature is telling me to decelerate!”
He by no means bought to try this, dying simply days later.
Mischer is survived by his spouse Suzan, his 4 kids, Heather, Jennifer, Charlie and Lily, in addition to two grandchildren, Everly and Tallulah.
Pete Hammond contributed to this report.
