Robert Lieberman Dies: ‘Fire In The Sky’, TV & Commercials Director Was 75

Robert Lieberman, who directed the sci-fi cult classic Fire in the Sky and won the inaugural DGA Award for Commercials, has died in Los Angeles after a long battle with cancer. He was 75.

His death on July 1 was confirmed by his manager, John Bauman.

Lieberman kicked off his 50-plus year career as an assistant editor in commercials but by the mid-’70s had worked his way up to directing. He ended up helming more than a thousand spots for McDonald’s, Hallmark, Oreo among countless others and winning the DGA Award in 1979 and 1995. He worked with talent ranging from spanned from President Bill Clinton, Ray Charles and Jerry Lewis to Michael Jordan, Anne Hathaway and Kenan Thompson, and much of this work was done through Harmony Pictures, the company he founded with partner Stuart Gross.

Lieberman was in the vanguard that brought a more cinematic, filmmaker’s eye to television. He directed a first-season episode of Thirtysomething that many credit with setting the template for the show’s unique, director-focused vision, according to his son, Nick Lieberman, a filmmaker whose Theater Camp opened this past weekend. He went on to direct 19 pilots, 16 of which went to series, including Gabriel’s Fire, Strong Medicine, and USA’s The Dead Zone. He also did episodes of Dexter, The X-Files and The Expanse.

In between, Lieberman developed and directed the films Table for Five, starring Jon Voight and Richard Crenna; All I Want for Christmas with Thora Birch and Lauren Bacall; and D3: The Mighty Ducks.

His son said Lieberman sometimes shared this message: “My advice to people who are trying to get in the business is you’ve got to be absolutely fearless and relentless. If you want it, you’ve got to want it with everything in your being. … I wanted to be in this business, and now looking back over my whole career, I love that I spent my life in this business. I got to go to work and have fun: Do what I wanted to do, create what I wanted to create, wake up in the morning with blank canvases and go out and paint — and with somebody else’s money. It’s craziness, and I got to do it for over 50 years.”

Along with his son Nick, Lieberman is survived by his wife, Victoria Peters; his daughter, Erin, and son-in-law, producer Trent Othick; sons Lorne and Joey; a step-daughter, Kristen Konvitz, an agent at UTA; three grandchildren; a sister, Fern Kelman; and former wives Myrna Lieberman and Marilu Henner.