Pioneering Female TV Director Frances Buss Buch Has Died

Frances Buss Buch, the first woman director at CBS, died at the age of 92 on January 19. She was an on-camera assistant on the very first TV game show— CBS Television Quiz— and also assisted with Richard Hubbell's CBS newscast, which included the announcement of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Among Frances Buss Buch's TV credits as a director were: game show The Missus' Goes-A-Shopping, interview show Vanity Fair (also producer), cooking show To the Queen's Taste with Dione Lucas (also producer), and children's show The Whistling Wizard. She was a producer on the talk show Mike and Buff, featuring then husband-and-wife team Mike Wallace and Buff Cobb. She is also credited as a director who contributed to the first commercial TV show that was broadcast in color— the June 25, 1951 special Premiere. Her Archive of American Television interview was conducted on June 16, 2005.