Remembering Tom Cherones

We are sad to learn that director Tom Cherones has passed away at the age of 86. Cherones began his career in public television before going on to work as a production manager and producer. He then moved into directing, amassing impressive sitcom credits including Seinfeld, Ellen, Caroline in the City, and NewsRadio.

Below are some selections from his 2011 interview:

On advice for young people aspiring to get into the entertainment industry:

“I was 35 by the time I got to Hollywood. But I didn’t know that’s what I wanted to do. I was very happy in public television till I decided that I know how to do this job and I know there must be more money in it than in public television. So… I advise the young people... that I talk to: if you know that that’s what you want to do, go now. Don’t wait. Go now, look around, get a job if you can on a set. See what job you like the best. Maybe you’ll discover, you had no idea. ‘Here, I like this job. Maybe that’s what I’ll try to do.’”

On working with Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld on Seinfeld:

“Well, Larry and Jerry shared an office and they worked on the scripts together and they would ask me, ‘Can we do this? Can we do that?’ I would always say, ‘We’re in Hollywood. We can do anything. So you write it and I’ll shoot it.’  So in that way I gave them some freedom I think they didn’t have, that nobody had in the sitcom world before. And Castle Rock supported everything we did. There was never any budget questions … and we were deficit financing. They were. But they let us do what we had to do. So, they wrote it and we shot it. And I think that gave them some freedom.”

On the Seinfeld “Parking Garage” episode:

Watch Tom Cherones' full interview and read his obituary in The Hollywood Reporter.