SITCOM LEGEND

‘Full House’ Director Dies at 94

The native New Yorker was a standup comic before directing the iconic show.

Howard Storm, a director best known for his work on Full House, died of natural causes in Beverly Hills on Tuesday. He was 94. The native New Yorker began his entertainment career as a stand-up comic. He performed as the opening act for singer Andy Williams and also appeared numerous times on the iconic program The Merv Griffin Show. He later pivoted to directing, partnering early on with director Woody Allen, for whom he worked as an assistant on Bananas and Take the Money and Run during the 1970s. Storm’s most successful period came as a sitcom director, beginning in the mid-1970s with six episodes of Rhoda, 59 episodes of Mork & Mindy, two episodes of Taxi, and later, in the 1990s, directing several episodes of hugely popular shows, including Full House and Everybody Loves Raymond. He also had a few notable film endeavors, most notably directing 1985’s Once Bitten, one of Jim Carrey’s earliest roles. Storm is survived by his two sons, his daughter-in-law, and his two grandsons. His wife, Patricia Ridgely, died earlier this year.