Boris Sagal
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Boris Sagal (October 18, 1917 - May 22, 1981) was an American television and film director.
Born in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, Sagal emigrated to the United States where he attended the Yale School of Drama. Probably best known for directing the cult classic film The Omega Man, Sagal had a long and relatively undistinguished career in Hollywood as a television director. His many TV credits include episodes of The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Columbo, Peter Gunn, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Sagal was killed in a freak accident during production of the made-for-TV movie World War III, when he was nearly decapitated after walking into the rotor blades of a helicopter in the parking lot of the Timberline Lodge in Oregon - the same lodge used for the exterior aerial shots of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining. Sagal was replaced with another director the very next day.
Sagal's death is ironic in that among his directorial credits was the pilot episode of the popular TV series Combat!. This series starred Vic Morrow who, years later, also died from being struck by the rotor blade of a helicopter...within a year of Sagal, and also while shooting a film on location. In Morrow's case, that film was The Twilight Zone. (This picture was co-directed by John Landis, whom Morrow had personally thanked for giving him the chance to star in it; Vic considered TZ a welcome change of pace from the numerous B-movies he had been forced to fall back on during most of the 1970s.)
He is the father of Katey Sagal, Joe Sagal, and Doublemint twins Jean Sagal and Liz Sagal by his first wife, Sara Zwilling, who died in 1975. His second wife was Marge Champion whom he married on January 1, 1977 until his own death in 1981 in Portland, Oregon.
There is a directing fellowship in his name at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts.
