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UPDATED WITH DGA STATEMENT Bud Yorkin, a film and TV director, producer and writer who partnered with Norman Lear on the groundbreaking television comedies _All In The Family, Maude, Good

Times _and _Sanford and Son_, died today of natural causes at his home in Bel-Air. He was 89. “As one of television’s most influential director-producers, Bud was a driving creative force

behind some of most memorable and innovative sitcoms and variety shows on television, including The Jeffersons, Sanford and Son and An Evening With Fred Astaire,” said DGA president Paris

Barclay in a statement. “Through his work on All in the Family, including directing one of the original pilots, Bud helped usher in a new era of topical television with a groundbreaking mix

of comedy and social commentary, making the show one of the most influential in TV history. During his 40-year career, Bud received multiple Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award, as well as a DGA

Award nomination for his television special Danny Goes It Alone (1961). A DGA member since 1955, Bud served for 14 years on the Guild’s Western Directors Council beginning in 1981. The DGA

extends its condolences to his family, friends and colleagues.” Yorkin won writing and directing Emmys for the special _An Evening With Fred Astaire _(1959) and another for directing _The

Jack Benny Program_ in 1960. But it was as director and co-producer of many of the 1970s shows that broke the sitcom mold that Yorkin helped write pop-culture history by introducing topical,

real-world elements of class, race, politics and social change, as well as previously unseen settings into comic situations. “In 1959, Bud produced and directed _The Fred Astaire Show,_

which won nine Emmys,” Lear said tonight in a statement. “We then became partners. His was the horse we rode in on, and I couldn’t love or appreciate him more.” Yorkin and Lear met while

working on _The Colgate Comedy Hour_, and they formed Tandem Production in 1959. The pair teamed on TV productions throughout the 1960s, but everything changed when Yorkin saw, and Lear

first read about, a British TV comedy _Till Death Us Do Part. _ Together they set about transforming its basic premise of an urban show about a working-class family into a Queens, NY-based

comedy called _All In The Family_. WATCH ON DEADLINE Lear and Yorkin had their star, Carroll O’Connor, as the bigoted, blustering family patriarch Archie Bunker. They sent the show to ABC —

where it went nowhere. After recasting the younger roles with Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers, Yorkin directed the pilot and took it to CBS. “ABC passed on [_All In The Family_] — it was too

controversial,” Yorkin told the Archive of American Television in 2007. “Now we’re watching the second pilot … and Fred Silverman’s walking by and he’s says, “This is going on CBS.” I must

say they had some bravery. We never changed three words from the first show that went on the air.” Silverman picked it up for 13 episodes on the spot. It took, however, a long series of

battles with CBS’ standards-and-practices suits before the first show was broadcast. _All In The Family_ was an an instant sensation when it bowed in January 1971, reigning as the No. 1

primetime program for its first five seasons and remaining in the top 12 throughout the decade. A product of the tumultuous times, it would become one of the most controversial and

culturally influential half-hour comedies in TV history, winning the Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy in each of its first three seasons and being nominated every year of its run. That show’s

success also helped extinguish CBS’ fixation on rural comedies — read _Green Acres, Petticoat Junction _and the mother of them all,_ The Beverly Hillbillies_ — and usher in a new era of

urban-based, socially conscious and relevant comedies during a time when the country was in the throes of the anti-Vietnam War and Civil Rights movements. Yorkin and Lear would go on to own

1970s TV comedy, teaming in rapid succession on _Sanford And Son, _which bowed in 1972; the _All In The Family_ spinoff _Maude_ (1972); the _Maude_ spinoff _Good T__imes_ (1974). _Sanford_

and _Maude_ also were out-of-the-box commercial and critical hits, among the top four primetime shows in their freshman year and staying among the top 10 for several seasons. _The

Jeffersons_ (1975), another _All In The Family_ spinoff, starring Sherman Hemsley as the Bunker’s former neighbor, an African-American entrepreneur who makes it out of Queens and “moves on

up” to Manhattan’s Upper East Side, would run for 11 seasons under Lear’s TAT banner. Yorkin and Lear split up Tandem in 1975, and Yorkin later formed TOY, a partnership with Saul Turtletaub

and Bernie Orenstein that was acquired by Columbia Pictures Television. In 1976, Yorkin was the exec producer of another urban comedy, this time on ABC. _What’s Happening!!_ lasted through

the decade. Born Alan Yorkin on February 22, 1926, in the coal mining town of Washington, PA, he discovered a passion for writing comedy sketches while serving in the Navy during World War

II. After earning a degree in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon (then Carnegie Tech) on a football scholarship, he started his television career as a camera engineer for NBC.  He

soon switched to working as a stage manager, then a writer, for NBC’s variety showcase, _The Colgate Comedy Hour_.  Hosts Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis eventually tapped Yorkin to work as a

director on that show, which led to other helming gigs for such variety series as _The Spike Jones Show _and_ Light’s Diamond Jubilee_. He went on to direct _The Dinah Shore Show, The Tony

Martin Show, The George Gobel Show _and_ The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show. _In 1957, he wrote, directed and produced the wildly popular special _An Evening With Fred Astaire_ and its follow-up 

_Another Evening With Fred Astaire_. Yorkin also directed a number of features as well, including _Come Blow Your Horn_ (1963), _Never Too Late_ (1965), _Divorce American Style_ (1967),_ The

Thief Who Came To Dinner_ (1973),_ Arthur 2: On The Rocks_ (1988) and his final project _Love Hurts_ (1990). Yorkin is survived by his wife Cynthia Sikes Yorkin; sons David and Michael; 

daughters Nicole and Jessica; and four grandchildren. A private funeral is planned.