Don Mischer, one of many preeminent reside occasion administrators of the previous 5 a long time, died peacefully in his sleep final night time, April 11, in Los Angeles. The 15-time Emmy winner was 85.
Mischer didn’t cease working till the tip and handed away simply as he was lastly planning to retire for good.
“I need you to know that, after greater than six a long time in tv, I might be doing my final present tomorrow on Saturday, April fifth right here in Los Angeles,” he advised Deadline final week. “I began on the PBS station in Austin on the College of Texas campus in 1963, and I turned 85 final week. Man it seems like time has simply flown by.”
Mischer’s last present was the 2025 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony, hosted by James Corden, which occurred at Barker Hangar Santa Monica with tech titans and A-list celeb attending and Katy Perry amongst these performing. The present, nicknamed the Oscars of Science, is streaming on YouTube at the moment. You’ll be able to watch it here.
Mischer’s reside tv profession is unparalleled and options directing and producing nearly each main occasion, together with two Academy Awards, 15 Emmy ceremonies, a number of Kennedy Middle Honors, Folks’s Alternative Awards and Breakthrough Prize Ceremonies, the annual 9/11 memorials at Floor Zero in New York in addition to quite a few different specials, along with his directing credit exceeding 100.
His in depth resume contains the Opening Ceremonies of each the 1996 Summer season Olympics and 2002 Winter Olympics; the Super Bowl Halftime Exhibits with Michael Jackson, Prince, Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen; the Obama Inaugural Live performance on the Lincoln Memorial the place 750,000 gathered on the Nationwide Mall; Motown 25; the Democratic Nationwide Conference; and Carnegie Corridor: Reside at 100.
In 2023, Mischer printed his autobiography, :10 Seconds To Air: My Life In The Director’s Chair, by which he shared the tales behind a number of the most iconic TV moments that he helmed, together with Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean efficiency on the Motown 25 particular and Prince’s Super Bowl half-time efficiency within the pouring rain. He additionally wrote about working with Muhammad Ali, Frank Sinatra and different legends.
In an interview with Deadline’s Pete Hammond on the launch of the e book, Mischer, a College of Texas at Austin graduate with a Bachelor and Grasp of Artwork levels, shared how he fell in reside with reside TV.
“I used to be 9 years previous when tv got here to my hometown, which was San Antonio, Texas, and I bear in mind going to the very first (TV present),” he recalled. “I used to be in an enormous fitness center, and on the ground, there have been cameras, lights, booms, and mariachi bands, and sq. dancers, and nation bands, and all of this. All the basketball court docket was ringed with displays so we might sit within the stands, see it taking place reside on the ground, and see it on tv. And it planted the seed, I grew to become infatuated with tv.”
Mischer relished the unpredictable, high-risk nature of massive reside tv occasions.
“There is no such thing as a feeling like counting down the ultimate seconds to a reside broadcast of the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympic Video games, understanding that 80% of the planet might be watching it reside and you’ve got just one shot to drag it off,” he mentioned. “There aren’t any retakes. No fixes. No modifying. And watching it will likely be an enormous stadium of individuals, heads of state, the world press, and almost each pair of eyes on the planet, and it’s over in a flash. That is the fun and problem reside tv.”
Mischer gained 15 Emmy Awards (together with 13 Primetime Emmys), a file 10 DGA Awards, a Peabody, two NAACP Picture Awards, the 2012 Norman Lear Achievement Award in Tv from the PGA, and the 2019 DGA Lifetime Achievement Award for Tv, together with a slew of different accolades. In 2014, he acquired a star on the Hollywood Stroll of Fame.
“It’s been fairly a private journey for me from the very starting of tv in 1949 – from Super Bowl halftimes with Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, The Stones, Prince (within the rain), and Bruce Springsteen; to Olympic Opening Ceremonies; Carnegie Corridor’s a hundredth Anniversary and Obama’s Inaugural Live performance on the Lincoln Memorial,” Mischer wrote Deadline final week. “And from the Oscars; to The Kennedy Middle Honors and Muhammad Ali’s lighting the Olympic Cauldron) and in Atlanta. However now Mom Nature is telling me to decelerate!”
He by no means obtained to try this, dying simply days later.
Mischer is survived by his spouse Suzan, his 4 kids, Heather, Jennifer, Charlie and Lily, in addition to two grandchildren, Everly and Tallulah.
Pete Hammond contributed to this report.
