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Norman Tokar (November 25, 1919 in Newark, New Jersey - April 6, 1979 in Hollywood) was a prolific director (and occasionally writer and producer) of serial television and feature films, who directed many of the early episodes of Leave it to Beaver, and found his greatest success directing over a dozen films for Walt Disney Productions, spanning the 1950s to the 1970s. After a career as an actor on Broadway in the early 1940s, Tokar moved into television direction on such sitcoms as The Bob Cummings Show and The Donna Reed Show, and the drama Naked City. In the early 1960s, Tokar’s... MORE

Norman Tokar (November 25, 1919 in Newark, New Jersey - April 6, 1979 in Hollywood) was a prolific director (and occasionally writer and producer) of serial television and feature films, who directed many of the early episodes of Leave it to Beaver, and found his greatest success directing over a dozen films for Walt Disney Productions, spanning the 1950s to the 1970s. After a career as an actor on Broadway in the early 1940s, Tokar moved into television direction on such sitcoms as The Bob Cummings Show and The Donna Reed Show, and the drama Naked City. In the early 1960s, Tokar’s success working with the juvenile actors on 93 episodes of the TV sitcom Leave it to Beaver encouraged Walt Disney to hire him to direct family features for his studio, which frequently used children in key roles. His first feature film assignment was the Western Big Red (1962), followed by the Old Yeller sequel Savage Sam (1963) and Those Calloways (1965). After directing the 1966 Fred MacMurray picture Follow Me, Boys!, and the Dean Jones/Suzanne Pleshette slapstick comedy The Ugly Dachsund that same year, Tokar's next directorial assignment (Walt Disney's last before his death) was the 1967 roadshow LESS