Biography
George Louis Schaefer (December 16, 1920 – September 10, 1997) was an American director of television and Broadway theatre, who was active from the 1950s to the 1990s. Schaefer was born in Wallingford, Connecticut, and lived in Oak Park, Illinois for much of his boyhood and young adulthood. He was the son of Elsie (née Otterbein) and Louis Schaefer, who worked in sales. Schaefer studied stage directing at the Yale School of Drama. He began his directing career while serving in the U.S. Army Spe...
Known For
Complete Filmography

Harvey
1996
Director
An unlikely hero, Elwood P. Dowd. This mild-mannered-but-eccentric bachelor has, for several years, happily kept company with Harvey, a six-foot-tall ...

Beverly Hills Cop III
1994
as Mike
When his boss is killed, Detroit cop Axel Foley finds evidence that the murderer had ties to a California amusement park called Wonder World. Returnin...

The Man Upstairs
1992
Director, Producer
Hepburn plays an elderly woman whose house becomes a hideaway for an escaped convict (O'Neal), and the pair strike up an unlikely friendship.

Laura Lansing Slept Here
1988
Producer, Director
With a glittering cast that includes Katharine Hepburn and Karen Austin in lead roles, Laura Lansing Slept Here is a humorous family movie. Hepburn pl...

Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry
1986
Director, Producer
A rich widow shocks her snobbish WASP family when she decides to marry her Jewish, divorced, doctor. His family is equally shocked.

Stone Pillow
1985
Director
A homeless woman named Florabelle becomes the unwitting guide to the streets for a New York social worker named Carrie who thinks she has lessons to o...

Answers
1985
Director, Writer
Three of Ernest Thompson's short plays are presented, each involving a surprise visitor. In the first, "A Good Time," a vacationing California Highway...

Children in the Crossfire
1984
Director, Producer
For the children of Northern Ireland, violence and hatred are a way of life passed from one generation to the next. In "Children in the Crossfire" fou...

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
1983
Director, Producer
The Herdmans – Gladys, Claude, Imogene, Leroy, Ollie and Ralph – are undeniably the worst kids in the history of the world. They lie, steal, cheat, bu...

Right of Way
1983
Director
Miniature Dwyer is named after her mother, who was making miniature doll houses when Minnie was born. Minnie, too, has built doll houses for years, an...

The Deadly Game
1982
Director
Several criminal lawyers reunite every year in the Swiss mountains to entertain themselves with fake trials and murder mysteries. At one year's party,...

A Piano for Mrs. Cimino
1982
Director, Producer
An elderly widow must find meaning and activity in her life when her son suggests she is no longer capable of handling her own affairs.

People vs. Jean Harris
1981
Director, Producer
This dramatic re-enactment premiered a mere nine weeks after the actual headline-making trial of the refined private school headmistress who was convi...

The Bunker
1981
Director, Producer
Dramatization depicting the events surrounding Adolf Hitler's last weeks in and around his underground bunker in Berlin before and during the battle f...
Barry Manilow: One Voice
1980
Director
A televised concert special featuring Barry Manilow and special guest star Dionne Warwick.

Mayflower: The Pilgrims' Adventure
1979
Director
In 1620, the Assembly of the Pilgrims decides to emigrate to the young America because of the persecution they suffer by the English crown. The film t...

Who'll Save Our Children?
1978
Director, Producer
A childless couple provide shelter for a pair of homeless children. When they try to adopt them the natural parents appear leading to the inevitable c...

First, You Cry
1978
Director
The story of television news correspondent Betty Rollin and her battle with breast cancer, and how her subsequent mastectomy changed her marriage, her...

An Enemy of the People
1978
Director, Producer
A small forest town is trying to promote itself as a place for tourists to come enjoy the therapeutic hot springs and unspoiled nature. Dr. Stockmann,...

The Second Barry Manilow Special
1978
Director
Barry's second TV special aired on ABC in 1978.

The Girl Called Hatter Fox
1977
Producer, Director
A doctor must battle against superstition and prejudice to try to save a young Indian girl, who has been sent to a state reform school as an incorrigi...

Our Town
1977
Director, Producer
3-act play by American playwright Thornton Wilder.
Amelia Earhart
1976
Director
Biography follows the life of famed woman pilot Amelia Earhart, including her marriage to a famous publisher and her disappearance during a flight in ...

The Last of Mrs. Lincoln
1976
Director, Producer
The Last of Mrs. Lincoln depicts the final seventeen years of Mary Todd Lincoln's life, following her husband's assassination.
The Land of Hope
1976
Director
Chronicles the experiences of four immigrant families as they experience the Lower East Side of New York during the early twentieth century.

In This House of Brede
1975
Director
Philippa Talbot is a talented London businesswoman who has decided to give up her position and power to become a nun. The man who loves her is in shoc...

F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Last of the Belles
1974
Director
A semi-fictional account of how writer F. Scott Fitzgerald met his wife while he was in the army and stationed in Alabama in 1919.

A Time For Love
1973
Director
Time for Love features two stories of love. A businessman has a life style change while a rock singer finds it hard to change his way of life and roma...

Once Upon a Scoundrel
1973
Director
After falling for Alicia, greedy and powerful Mexican landowner Carlos has her fiancé thrown in prison on a bogus charge. To trick Carlos into releasi...

A War of Children
1972
Director
A Protestant and a Catholic family's friendship is threatened by the sectarian violence in Belfast. When the daughter of the Catholic family falls in...

Gideon
1971
Director, Producer
The Angel of God and an ordinary shepherd named Gideon debate obedience versus disobedience to God.

Doctors' Wives
1971
Director
The wives of several high-powered doctors feel neglected due to their husbands' focus on their careers, so they embark on a regimen of sex, drugs and ...

Generation
1969
Director
Newlyweds shock the bride's father with plans for natural childbirth in a Greenwich Village loft.

The File on Devlin
1969
Director, Executive Producer
A young woman finds herself engulfed in Cold War intrigue when her father, a Nobel Prize-winning author, vanishes while travelling near the Russian bo...

Pendulum
1969
Director
On the evening of his decoration for bringing a murderer to justice, Washington DC Police Captain Frank Matthews' wife, and her lover are murdered in ...

The Admirable Crichton
1968
Director, Producer
A group of people are shipwrecked when their yacht runs aground on a South Pacific island. The usual hierarchy in an upper-class British family breaks...

Elizabeth the Queen
1968
Producer, Director
In the sixteenth century, Queen Elizabeth I (Dame Judith Anderson) is the ruler of England. Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex (Charlton Heston) is he...
Saint Joan
1967
Director
A television adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's play about the life, battles and subsequent trial of Joan of Arc, based on the kept records from her ...

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
1967
Director, Producer
Peter Schermann is angry at the world after his children move him into a nursing home. Still physically and mentally strong, he searches for a meaning...

Soldier in Love
1967
Director
The story of the Churchills in the court of Queen Anne.

Blithe Spirit
1966
Director, Producer
The play concerns the socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his house to condu...
Barefoot in Athens
1966
Director
The last few days in the life of Socrates, including his trial.

Inherit the Wind
1965
Director, Producer
A young man, Bert Cates, is arrested in a small Bible Belt town for teaching the theory of Evolution in the public school. Two of the finest legal min...
Eagle in a Cage
1965
Director
Recounts the events of the final years of Napoleon, culminating in his exile on the isle of St. Helena.

The Holy Terror
1965
Director, Producer
A television dramatization based on the life and work of Florence Nightingale. The story, set in 1856, relates the incidents in her life following the...

The Fantasticks
1964
Director, Producer
Widowers Amos and Ben plot to romantically unite Amos’ daughter, Luisa, and Ben’s son, Matt, by pretending to feud and forbidding the teens to associa...

Little Moon of Alban
1964
Director
Irish Brigid Mary blames the English for the deaths of her fiance, brother, and father. Becoming a nurse following WWI she finds herself caring for wh...

Macbeth
1964
Director, Screenplay, Producer
Hallmark Hall of Fame's second version of Shakespeare's classic play, with the same two stars and the same director as its first version, but a differ...

Abe Lincoln in Illinois
1964
Director, Producer
The life of Abraham Lincoln is traced from the 1830s when he was a struggling backwoods lawyer to winning the Presidency in 1860.

A Cry of Angels
1963
Director
Hallmark presents the story of how the greatest oratorio, George Frederic Handel's "The Messiah," came to be written in the English language.
The Patriots
1963
Director
Thomas Jefferson has just returned from France, hoping to relax with his daughters at Monticello. George Washington however, has a favor to ask of him...

The Invincible Mr. Disraeli
1963
Director
The rise of the legendary 19th-century British politician and prime minister Benjamin Disraeli.

Pygmalion
1963
Director, Producer
Can Professor Higgins transform cockney flower girl Eliza Dolittle into a lady by teaching her to speak properly?

Arsenic & Old Lace
1962
Director, Producer
1962 telefilm adaptation of the classic American play about a deranged family and the string of murders they flippantly commit

Victoria Regina
1961
Director
1961 adaptation of "Victoria Regina".
Give Us Barabbas!
1961
Director
Captain Brassbound's Conversion
1960
Director, Producer
A titled Englishwoman proves more than a match for the fearsome Captain Brassbound.

The Tempest
1960
Director, Producer
Prospero, the deposed Duke of Milan, who lives in exile on a remote island as a sorcerer, uses his powers to shipwreck his usurper brother on the isla...

A Doll's House
1959
Director, Producer
A wealthy woman's attempts to help her financially troubled husband go unrewarded.
Winterset
1959
Director, Producer
Immigrant radical Bartolomeo Romagna is falsely condemned and executed for a payroll robbery. Years later, his son Mio sets out to find the truth of t...

Meet Me in St. Louis
1959
Director
Young love and childish fears highlight a year in the life of a turn-of-the-century family up to the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.

The Gift of the Magi
1958
Producer, Director
A musical version of O. Henry's famous Christmas story.

Kiss Me, Kate
1958
Producer, Director
Broadcast live on the Hallmark Hall of Fame series on NBC, a pair of divorced actors are brought together to participate in a musical version of The T...
Johnny Belinda
1958
Director, Producer
In post-war Cape Breton, a doctor's efforts to tutor a deaf and mute woman are undermined when she is raped, and the resulting pregnancy causes scanda...

Little Moon of Alban
1958
Director, Producer
Irish Brigid Mary blames the English for the deaths of her fiance, brother, and father. Becoming a nurse following WW I she finds herself caring for w...

Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates
1958
Director
In Holland, poor but industrious and honorable 15-year-old Hans Brinker and his younger sister yearn to participate in December's great ice skating ra...
On Borrowed Time
1957
Director, Producer
Mr. Brink seems to bring death with him wherever he goes. But can a young boy and his grandfather change this dire situation?

The Yeomen of the Guard
1957
Director
A teleplay adaptation of Gilbert & Sullivan's most serious opera presented on Hallmark Hall of Fame.
The Lark
1957
Director, Producer
Adaptation of Jean Anouilh's 1952 play about Joan of Arc, the young girl who led the French to victory against the English in the Hundred Years' War.

The Little Foxes
1956
Producer, Director
A tale of greed, one-upmanship, family distrust, abuse, apathy, and lost love, set in the deep south at the turn of the twentieth century.

Alice in Wonderland
1955
Director
A young girl named Alice falls down a rabbit-hole and finds herself in Wonderland, a fantasy land of strange characters and ideas.

One Touch of Venus
1955
Director, Adaptation
While touring a museum, Rodney Hatch, an unremarkable barber, places an engagement ring intended for his girlfriend on the hand of a statue of Venus,...

Macbeth
1954
Director
Macbeth (Maurice Evans), the Thane of Glamis, receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by amb...

Fallen Angel
1945
Assistant Director
An unemployed drifter, Eric Stanton wanders into a small California town and begins hanging around the local diner. While Eric falls for the lovely wa...