Robert Butler was an American Emmy Award-winning television director and producer. He was born in Hollywood, California.
Graduating from UCLA where he majored in English, Butler started his career in entertainment as an usher at CBS. His first credit as a director would come in 1959 when he directed an episode for the military comedy drama Hennesey which starred Jackie Cooper and Abby Dalton.
Butler won two Emmy Awards, the first one for The Blue Knight pilot in 1973 and the second one in 1981 for Hill Street Blues. In 2015 he was honored by the Directors Guild of America with the Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Achievement in Television Direction.
Butler also directed television movies like The Blue Knight (1973), Strange New World (1975), James Dean (1976), Out of Time (1988), White Mile (1994), and Turbulence (1997). Other credits included feature films like Disney's Guns in the Heather (1969), The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), and The Barefoot Executive (1971).
