Ted Post

During his nearly 50-year career, Ted Post directed hundreds of episodes of popular TV series like "Peyton Place" and "Rawhide," and ventured into Hollywood with several highly-regarded films. Post initially trained to become an actor, a dream he soon abandoned in favor of directing on Broadway. By the early '40s Post had a successful theater career and was among the first directors to transition from live theater to the new medium of television; he helmed numerous episodes of live anthology series like "Schlitz Playhouse" and "The Ford Television Theatre" before moving on to Western shows like "Gunsmoke," which won four Emmys during its 20-year primetime run, and "Rawhide," where he developed a friendship with lead actor Clint Eastwood. He later went on to direct Eastwood in one of his first post-"Rawhide" films, 1968's "Hang 'Em High," and reunited with the by-then major action star in 1973's gritty vigilante film "Magnum Force." Between 1964 and 1969 Post worked exclusively on the primetime soap opera "Peyton Place," directing over 65 episodes of the popular TV series about the sordid secrets of a small suburban town. Post later released "Beneath the Planet of the Apes," the first sequel to the hugely successful sci-fi film about a spaceship that crash lands on a mysterious planet ruled by apes, and filmed the pilot episode of the female detective series "Cagney & Lacey."