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David Davis
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David Davis 1936 - 2022
David Davis was born on August 5, 1936 in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York United States, and died at age 86 years old on November 4, 2022 in Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, CA. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember David Davis.
David Davis
August 5, 1936
Brooklyn, Kings County, New York, United States
November 4, 2022
Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, United States
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David Davis' History: 1936 - 2022
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Successful Television Producer. David Davis, who helped usher in a golden age of television in the 1970s as a writer and producer on the groundbreaking and slyly feminist “Mary Tyler Moore Show,” and as a creator of “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Taxi.”
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08/51936August 5, 1936BirthdateBrooklyn, Kings County, New York United StatesBirthplaceADVERTISEMENT BY
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David Davis was born in Brooklyn on Aug. 5, 1936. His mother, Ida (Strongin) Davis, was a Martha Graham dancer. An only child, he moved with his parents to Los Angeles for his father’s career when he was 8. Phil Davis was a writer on “Truth or Consequences,” a radio game show that migrated to television in the 1950s, and “This Is Your Life,” another radio-to-television series. David studied film at the University of California, Los Angeles. In addition to his wife, Julie Kavner, he is survived by his daughters, Samantha Davis Friedman and Abigail Smith, and five grandchildren. His marriage to Joann Leeson ended in divorce in 1972.
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Studied Film at the University of California, Los Angeles.
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11/42022November 4, 2022Death dateUnknownLos Angeles, Los Angeles County, California United StatesCause of deathDeath locationADVERTISEMENT BY
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David Davis, a Force Behind Game-Changing ’70s Sitcoms, Dies at 86 A writer and producer, he worked with James Brooks and others on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and was a creator of “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Taxi.” Cast members of “Taxi” in the show’s garage, with Danny DeVito inside the dispatcher’s cage and Judd Hirsch, in a beige jacket and slacks, with his left hand on his hip and his right hand leaning against the cage. David Davis was a co-creator of, among other hit shows, “Taxi,” an ensemble comedy about New York City cabdrivers, which starred Judd Hirsch, right, as a driver and Danny DeVito, center, as an irascible dispatcher.Credit...Paramount Television, via Everett Collection Cast members of “Taxi” in the show’s garage, with Danny DeVito inside the dispatcher’s cage and Judd Hirsch, in a beige jacket and slacks, with his left hand on his hip and his right hand leaning against the cage. Penelope Green By Penelope Green Published Nov. 13, 2022Updated Nov. 14, 2022 David Davis, who helped usher in a golden age of television in the 1970s as a writer and producer on the groundbreaking and slyly feminist “Mary Tyler Moore Show,” and as a creator of “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Taxi,” died on Nov. 4 in Los Angeles. He was 86. His wife, the actor Julie Kavner, confirmed his death but did not give a cause. Mr. Davis had grown up in the business — his father, Phil Davis, had written for television and radio in the 1940s and ’50s — and got his start on the sitcom “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis,” which starred Dwayne Hickman as a lovelorn teenager and Bob Denver as his beatnik sidekick. He began as a dialogue supervisor and was directing episodes by the time he was 25. He also worked on “Gilligan’s Island” and the demented spy spoof “Get Smart,” among other shows. In 1970, when his friend James Brooks, along with Allan Burns, created “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” which upended cultural and network taboos by celebrating the life of a single working woman in her 30s, Mr. Davis joined them. He was a producer and writer for the show for two seasons. In one memorable episode co-written by Mr. Davis, Ms. Moore’s character, Mary Richards, is audited by a nervous tax official who falls in love with her and her meticulous bookkeeping. Mr. Davis had written it with Bob Newhart in mind as the auditor; he was a longtime fan of Mr. Newhart’s sketches, which he used to hear on the radio on his way to work, in thrall to his quiet timing and overall decency. But Mr. Newhart was not available — the mop-haired Paul Sand got the part — and it would be a few years before Mr. Davis worked with him. Image Cast members and creators of “The Bob Newhart Show” on a living room set. Mr. Davis, wearing a turtleneck, a double-breasted jacket and bell-bottom pants, is seated on a sofa. Mr. Davis, seated far right, and Lorenzo Music, seated far left, created “The Bob Newhart Show” as a vehicle for the understated comedian, seated third from left, who played a psychologist. Suzanne Pleshette, seated next to Mr. Newhart, played his wife. “I wanted to create a very modern marriage between those two,” Mr. Davis said. Standing behind them are, from left, Peter Bonerz, Marcia Wallace and Bill Daily.Credit...CBS, via Getty Images Cast members and creators of “The Bob Newhart Show” on a living room set. Mr. Davis, wearing a turtleneck, a double-breasted jacket and bell-bottom pants, is seated on a sofa. As a producer, Mr. Davis wore many hats. He was especially skilled in the editing room, where he made one particular hat very, very famous. Mr. Brooks said in a phone interview that it was Mr. Davis who chose the shot that ends the opening sequence of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” with a radiant Mary twirling in a rush-hour crowd and tossing her striped blue beret in the air. Mr. Brooks said that when the scene was filmed, the beret fell into the street and Ms. Moore had to scramble to find it. But Mr. Davis froze the shot with the hat aloft — an enduring and powerful image that symbolized Mary’s freedom from the traditional women’s roles of yore as wives, mothers and homemakers, and that became an emblem of the new independence of single working women everywhere. Television is a team sport, and MTM Enterprises, the production company run by Ms. Moore and her husband, Grant Tinker, assembled a roster of all-stars: Mr. Brooks, Mr. Burns, Mr. Davis, Lorenzo Music, Ed. Weinberger and Stan Daniels, all of whom would go on to work together in various combinations on later shows, all of them blockbusters and often all in production at the same time. Mr. Davis and Mr. Music helped to develop “Rhoda,” the hit “Mary Tyler Moore Show” spinoff starring Valerie Harper, which Mr. Brooks and Mr. Burns would go on to oversee; Mr. Davis and Mr. Music also created “The Bob Newhart Show.” Editors’ Picks How You Should Change Your Workout Once You Hit 40 I’ve Listened to This Breakup Song a Million Times Audio Stories are Redefining Pleasure for Women SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “It was unprecedented,” Mr. Brooks said. “We worked in total freedom. It was ours. There was nobody else. Grant was a dream boss and protected us from the network.” In 1972, Mr. Davis and Mr. Music were asked to make a pilot and told it could be whatever they wanted; they decided to build a show around Mr. Newhart. Mr. Davis was in therapy at the time, and they decided Mr. Newhart’s character would be a psychologist, playing to his strengths as a listener. Mr. Davis was also intent on giving him a rich home life, but without children. “I wanted to create a very modern marriage between those two,” he told an interviewer in 2005, describing the relationship between Mr. Newhart and his onscreen wife, Emily, played by Suzanne Pleshette. “And I didn’t think it was that modern at the time. I just thought that’s the way a marriage should be.” Speaking by phone, Mr. Newhart called that decision “refreshing.” “I didn’t want to be the dolt father who keeps getting the family in trouble,” he said. “I think what helped the show stand out was that we were dealing with real people.” In 1972, John O’Connor, reviewing “The Bob Newhart Show” in The New York Times, praised its “low-key zaniness” and Mr. Newhart’s “deceptive” brand of comedy: “Looking like the blandest passenger on the average commuter train, he seems entirely harmless until he starts opening his mouth. Then, with no mugging, with no visible signs of agitation whatsoever, the atmosphere begins to throb with a pronounced sense of lunacy.” Two years later, when Mr. Davis was working on “Rhoda,” which turned Mary’s wisecracking sidekick, played by Ms. Harper, into a leading lady, he cast Ms. Kavner as her self-deprecating sister. (She and Mr. Davis had met before, when Ms. Kavner read for a part on an episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” although another actress was cast.) A year later they were a couple. “He gave me my career, my heart and my life,” Ms. Kavner said, noting that that was her first paying part. She went on to be the voice of Marge, the kindly matriarch with the blue bouffant, on “The Simpsons” and, among other movie roles, the star of “This Is My Life,” Nora Ephron’s 1992 film adaptation of a Meg Wolitzer novel about a stand-up comedian and her family. Image Mr. Davis, in a tuxedo, arm in arm with Julie Kavner, who has a white flower in her hair and is wearing an elegant black dress. Mr. Davis in 1997 with his wife, Julie Kavner. They became a couple shortly after he cast her as Valerie Harper’s self-deprecating sister on “Rhoda,” the hit spinoff of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”Credit...Ron Galella Collection, via Getty Images Mr. Davis, in a tuxedo, arm in arm with Julie Kavner, who has a white flower in her hair and is wearing an elegant black dress. The early 1970s were a boom time for television, particularly for the CBS network, which had such a stellar lineup of adult programming that Americans stayed home on Saturday nights. “Can you imagine?” Mr. Brooks said. “It seems so weird now. Dave and I would stay in with our girlfriends and watch ‘All in the Family’ and curse because the jokes were so good, and then we’d watch my show, and then his show and then Carol Burnett.” The two men lived within a quarter-mile of each other in Malibu and would drive to work in Mr. Davis’s orange convertible Volkswagen Beetle, with the top down and their laundry in the back. “We would drive to Studio City, drop our laundry off, do our shows and then go home,” Mr. Brooks said. “It was idyllic.” They later both left MTM, and in 1978 Mr. Brooks, Mr. Burns, Mr. Daniels, Mr. Davis and Mr. Weinberger created “Taxi,” another adult ensemble comedy. The show, about a group of New York City cabbies, most of whom wished they were working elsewhere, starred Judd Hirsch as a driver who seemed resigned to his fate. Danny DeVito, who played Louie, the sadistic dispatcher, said in a phone interview that Mr. Davis had been responsible for his casting. (The role of Louie had been conceived as a disembodied voice, like the character of Carlton the doorman on “Rhoda,” played with appealing dolor by Mr. Music.) He also credited him with myriad impactful touches on the show, including a sight gag in the first episode. For the entire episode, which introduces the characters, Louie has ruled from his office cage, a high perch in the corner of the taxi garage, a glowering, irascible and larger-than-life figure. But when Alex, Mr. Hirsch’s character, challenges him from below (he wants to take a cab to Florida to meet the daughter he hasn’t seen in 15 years), Louie emerges, and his true stature is revealed — all 4-foot-10 of him. “He put me on the map,” Mr. DeVito said of Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis left television in 1979, after the first season of “Taxi” ended. He was 43. He wanted to spend more time with Ms. Kavner — “I got lucky and kept working,” she said, and they traveled to wherever a job took her — and was determined to make a life outside a studio lot. “He left for the love of his life,” Mr. DeVito said, “but it was OK because we were already on our way.” Image Mr. Music, in jacket and tie, smiles into the camera. Mr. Davis, in a jacket and checked shirt without a tie, stand next to him, holding his hands together and smiling at Mary Tyler Moore. Mr. Music and Mr. Davis with Mary Tyler Moore in 1977, after filming of the last episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”Credit...CBS, via Getty Images Mr. Music, in jacket and tie, smiles into the camera. Mr. Davis, in a jacket and checked shirt without a tie, stand next to him, holding his hands together and smiling at Mary Tyler Moore. David Davis was born in Brooklyn on Aug. 5, 1936. His mother, Ida (Strongin) Davis, was a Martha Graham dancer. An only child, he moved with his parents to Los Angeles for his father’s career when he was 8. Phil Davis was a writer on “Truth or Consequences,” a radio game show that migrated to television in the 1950s, and “This Is Your Life,” another radio-to-television series. David studied film at the University of California, Los Angeles. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his daughters, Samantha Davis Friedman and Abigail Smith, and five grandchildren. His marriage to Joann Leeson ended in divorce in 1972. “Things tend to look great in the rearview mirror,” Mr. Brooks said of his years working with Mr. Davis. “But we knew how great it was. I say this hesitantly because it hadn’t occurred to me before. Dave cared deeply about the work, and I think that may be one of the reasons he gave it up, because he could give that caring to everything else. “It’s not like he stopped working or thinking. He was there if you needed him. But he did the thing that people daydream about. He made it real.” Penelope Green is a reporter on the Obituaries desk and a feature writer for the Style and Real Estate sections. She has been a reporter for the Home section, editor of Styles of The Times, an early iteration of Style, and a story editor at The Times Magazine. More about Penelope Green A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 15, 2022, Section B, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: David Davis, Force Behind ‘Mary Tyler Moore’ and ‘Taxi,’ Dies at 86.ADVERTISEMENT BYLooking for more information?
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Other Davis Family Biographies
Davis, Malissa Jame
Haynes, Ursula (Born Jun 10, 1842)
Jackson, Melissa (Born Apr 1, 1894)
Davis, Juanita (Born Sep 30, 1914)
Davis, Charlotte (Born Nov 6, 1951)
Davis, Sarah (Born Jan 7, 1850)
Turner, Anna (Born Oct 14, 1895)
Swearingen, Twila (Born May 28, 1901)
Davis, W. (Born 1877)
Davis, Maggie (Born 1878)
Davis, Harriet (Born Jan 29, 1875)
Poister, Fannie (Born Aug 31, 1874)
Davis, Mary Catherine (Born Mar 20, 1838)
Davis, Eoline (Born Dec 18, 1881)
Holcomb, Sarah (Born 1835)
Davis), Clara (Born 1863)
Davis, Daniel
Davis, Margaret (Born May 16, 1847)
Davis, Caleb (Born May 8, 1842)
Davis, Thomas (Born Feb 3, 1884)
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