Biography
An American television and film director. He has directed many well-know television series, including Gunsmoke, The Patty Duke Show, Gilligan's Island and Happy Days among dozens of others. In addition, Nelson has directed five films, including two for Walt Disney Pictures. In 1978, Nelson was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Directoral Achievement for Washington: Behind Closed Doors. He was married to actress Judi Meredith and has two sons. Nelson has semi-retired, but continues to occasio...
Known For
Complete Filmography

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films
2014
as Self - Director, Allan Quatermain
A documentary about the rise and fall of the Cannon Film Group, the legendary independent film company helmed by Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yor...

Melanie Darrow
1997
Director
A flamboyant female defense attorney takes on a seemingly airtight case, defending an apparently gold-digging husband against the charge of murdering ...

Fast Company
1995
Director
A homicide detective is assigned to solve a murder case. The trouble is that his wife, a reporter, has been assigned by her employer to cover the same...

Ray Alexander: A Menu for Murder
1995
Director
Ray investigates the murder of a judge.

Ray Alexander: A Taste For Justice
1994
Director
Ray investigates the murder of a psychiatrist.

Fugitive Nights: Danger in the Desert
1993
Director
A lady private eye on her first job working a routine divorce case teams up with a cynical, heavy-drinking police detective after inadvertently stumbl...

The Return of Ironside
1993
Director
After forty years of good and faithful services, Robert T. Ironside, reprocessed police force of San Francisco, is finally on the point of tasting wit...

The Sands of Time
1992
Director
Three nuns are caught up in the midst of Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.

Revolver
1992
Director
Nick Suster, a secret intelligence agent paralyzed by an assassin's bullet, sets out to track down his assailant and in the process, uncovers a major ...

The Hit Man
1991
Director
When a desperate kid tries to steal the car of a famous movie director to help his family pay their debt to a predatory lender, the director and his s...

The Lookalike
1990
Director
A mentally disturbed woman is further tormented after discovering a girl who closely resembles her recently deceased daughter

Get Smart, Again!
1989
Director
KAOS has invented a weather machine so Maxwell Smart and Agent 99 are called back into action to foil this evil plan.

Police Story: The Watch Commander
1988
Director, Executive Producer
This is the story of policeman who has been on the job for over forty years. And one of his duties is to look out for all of the officers under him ca...

Shooter
1988
Director
"Shooter" (a.k.a., Matt Thompson, a.k.a., Gruwald) is a photographer in 1967 Saigon, Vietnam. Working out of a news agency for a major magazine, Thomp...

Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold
1986
Finance, Director
After his brother Robeson disappears without a trace while exploring Africa in search of a legendary 'white tribe', Allan Quatermain decides to follow...

Murder in Three Acts
1986
Director
In Acapulco, Hercule Poirot attends a dinner party in which one of the guests clutches his throat and suddenly dies. The causes seem to be natural unt...

The Baron and the Kid
1984
Director
Johnny Cash heads the cast in this sentimental drama, which follows a famed pool hustler (Cash) whose reunion with his long-lost son (Greg Webb) sets ...

More Than Murder
1984
Director
Private eye Mike Hammer tries to clear his friend, Captain Chambers, who has been framed for cocaine possession.

For Love and Honor
1983
Director
A military drama set on a Texas base focuses on the ups and downs of young paratroopers, who, while they're gearing up for possible combat assignments...

Murder Me, Murder You
1983
Director
Private eye Mike Hammer probes his long-lost love's death while seeking their daughter.

Murder in Coweta County
1983
Director
Wallace a wealthy landowner in Meriwether County, Georgia, has virtually unlimited power in the county, including having the sheriff under his control...

Jimmy the Kid
1982
Director
Gang of bumbling crooks kidnap a bratty little kid, find out they got more than they bargained for.

The Pride of Jesse Hallam
1981
Director
Jesse Hallum sells the family farm to see that his daughter receives the medical care she needs at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital. The big city ch...

The Black Hole
1979
as Drone with Mask Removed (uncredited)
The explorer craft USS Palomino is returning to Earth after a fruitless 18-month search for extra-terrestrial life when the crew comes upon a supposed...

The Black Hole
1979
Director
The explorer craft USS Palomino is returning to Earth after a fruitless 18-month search for extra-terrestrial life when the crew comes upon a supposed...

A Movie Star's Daughter
1979
Director
A shy teen enrolls in a new school and doesn't make friends easily. Then, overnight, everyone wants to be her friend, once it is discovered that her f...
It's a Mile from Here to Glory
1978
Director
A high school track star is involved in a life-threatening accident and now must learn to depend on others for his day-to-day living.

To Kill a Cop
1978
Director
Earl Eischied is a man with his hands full. As the Chief of Detectives in New York City he is trying to break up a group of black militants that are o...

Freaky Friday
1976
Director
School girl Annabel is hassled by her mother, and Mrs. Andrews is annoyed with her daughter, Annabel. They both think that the other has an easy life....

Panache
1976
Director
A stylish comedy swashbuckler mixing romance, masterful swordplay, political treachery, and 20th-Century pratfalls in 17th-Century France, this film w...

The Boy Who Talked to Badgers
1975
Director
A young boy gets along better with the animals he befriends around his family's Canadian farm than with the people he lives with.

Medical Story
1975
Director
A young intern goes up against three older surgeons as to whether or not a young actress should get a hysterectomy.

The Girl on the Late, Late Show
1974
Director
A television producer decides to find out the whereabouts of a former movie actress whose career has long since faded, then discovers that his inquiri...

Santee
1973
Director
Jody Deakes joins up with his father after many years, just to discover that his dad is part of an outlaw gang on the run from a relentless bounty hun...

Molly and Lawless John
1972
Director
Molly, the shy, romance-starved wife of an arrogant frontier sheriff, finds herself drawn to a prisoner in her husband's jail. This prisoner, a handso...

The Boy from Dead Man's Bayou
1971
Director

Secrets of the Pirate's Inn
1969
Director
A gang of kids helps a sea captain search for a pirate’s treasure that’s rumored to be hidden somewhere in the old dilapidated inn the sea captain jus...