Robert Butler, the long-time director best known for directing the pilot episodes of Star Trek and Batman, has died. Butler’s family announced the helmer’s passing through his obituary in the Los Angeles Times on Saturday. He was 95.
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Butler was the first director on Star Trek, filming a two-part pilot featuring Jeffrey Hunter as the ship’s first captain. After notes from CBS executives at the time, Butler and Gene Roddenberry reworked the pilot a bit, which included the new casting of William Shatner as James T. Kirk.
“I read the script and said, ‘This is just a palette of science fiction,’” Butler told the Television Academy in a 2004 interview. “I remember talking to my wife about it and saying, ‘This is too nuts, I don’t know whether to do this.’ She said, ‘Ah, why don’t you do it?’ So I did.”
He added, “NBC saw the show and said, ‘We like it, we want it, we don’t understand it, do it again.’”
Butler then worked on the pilot for the Adam West-starring Batman series in 1966. In a separate interview, this time for a book released in support of the series, the director revealed why he enjoyed working on the series so much.
“On pilots, everyone is hungry. Everyone is paying attention,” he in the behind-the-scenes look. “There is less goofing around. They want to sell it. They want to get it on the air. [Everyone has the attitude of,] ‘How can I help? What can I do?’”
Butler is survived by his wife Adri, children Robert Jr. and Conrelia, and grandsons Rainer and Liam. The family of the late helmer, a long-time trustee of the Directors Guild Foundation, asks that donations be made to the Directors Guild Foundation in lieu of flowers.
