Norman Tokar

Norman Tokar (November 25, 1919 – April 6, 1979) was an American actor, director, writer, and producer born in Newark, New Jersey. He began his career on the Broadway stage before transitioning into radio, television, and eventually feature film direction, where he became closely associated with Walt Disney Productions.

Tokar's Broadway career spanned 1939 to 1947 and included four productions: See My Lawyer (1939), Delicate Story (1940), the comedy The Life of Reilly (1942), and The Magic Touch (1947). Following his stage work, he moved into radio, taking on the recurring role of Willie, Henry Aldrich's friend, on The Aldrich Family, for which he also wrote several episodes.

His transition to television brought work as a director on multiple series, including The Bob Cummings Show, The Donna Reed Show, and the drama Naked City, as well as two episodes of the anthology series Colgate Theatre. He also co-wrote an episode of New Comedy Showcase. His most significant early television credit was directing 93 episodes of the sitcom Leave It to Beaver, work that demonstrated his skill with juvenile performers and drew the attention of Walt Disney.

Disney hired Tokar to direct family features for his studio beginning in the early 1960s. His first assignment was the Western Big Red (1962), followed by Savage Sam (1963), a sequel to Old Yeller, and Those Calloways (1965). In 1966 he directed two films: Follow Me, Boys!, starring Fred MacMurray, and The Ugly Dachshund, a slapstick comedy featuring Dean Jones and Suzanne Pleshette. His next project, The Happiest Millionaire (1967), was Walt Disney's final directorial assignment before Disney's death. The roadshow musical featured a Sherman Brothers score and a cast that included Fred MacMurray, Greer Garson, Tommy Steele, Lesley Ann Warren, and John Davidson. The studio had anticipated the film would achieve the critical and commercial reception of Mary Poppins (1964), but when it did not, the nearly three-hour cut was reduced to 144 minutes and subsequently to 118 minutes for general release; the excised footage remained unseen until a restoration in the 1990s.

Tokar continued directing high-concept comedies for Disney through the late 1960s and into the 1970s, including The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit (1968), The Boatniks (1970), and Snowball Express (1972). He stepped outside the studio for Where the Red Fern Grows (1974), his only non-Disney feature, before returning to direct his most commercially successful film, the comedy western The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975). Candleshoe followed in 1977, and on his final film, The Cat from Outer Space (1978), Tokar also received a co-producer credit.

Tokar died on April 6, 1979, at Cedars-Sinai in Hollywood, California, following a recent heart attack.