Michael Schultz

Biography

Schultz was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of Katherine Frances (née Leslie), a factory worker, and German American Leo Schultz, an insurance salesman. After his undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Marquette University, he attended Princeton University, where in 1966 he directed his first play, a production of Waiting for Godot. He joined the Negro Ensemble Company in 1968, which brought him to Broadway in 1969. His breakthrough was directing Lorraine Hansberry's To Be Young, Gifted and Black, which he restaged for television in 1972. Schultz' earliest film projects combined low comedy with profound social comment (Honeybaby, Honeybaby and Cooley High), reaching a peak with the ensemble comedy Car Wash (1976) and Which Way Is Up? (1977), starring Richard Pryor. In 1978, Schultz took the reins of the musical Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band with the largest budget ever entrusted to an African-American film director to that date. However, upon its release, the project was a commercial and critical failure. Schultz would go on to make prominent films such as Scavenger Hunt (1979), Carbon Copy (1981), and Disorderlies (1987). More recently,…

Directed

1. Arrow (2012) — Director
2. Charmed (1998) — Director
3. Once Upon a Time (2011) — Director
4. New Girl (2011) — Director
5. Gilmore Girls (2000) — Director
6. Chuck (2007) — Director
7. Black Lightning (2018) — Director
8. The O.C. (2003) — Director
9. All American (2018) — Director
10. Cold Case (2003) — Director
11. JAG (1995) — Director
12. The Tomorrow People (2013) — Director
13. Ally McBeal (1997) — Director
14. black-ish (2014) — Director
15. Hart of Dixie (2011) — Director
16. The Last Dragon (1985) — Director
17. Drop Dead Diva (2009) — Director
18. Everwood (2002) — Director
19. Switched at Birth (2011) — Director
20. The Wonder Years (2021) — Director
21. Starsky & Hutch (1975) — Director
22. Brothers and Sisters (2006) — Director
23. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015) — Director
24. Touched by an Angel (1994) — Director
25. The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992) — Director
26. Car Wash (1976) — Director
27. The Rockford Files (1974) — Director
28. Diagnosis: Murder (1993) — Director
29. The Practice (1997) — Director
30. Dead of Summer (2016) — Director
31. In Plain Sight (2008) — Director
32. The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. (1993) — Director
33. Felicity (1998) — Director
34. Dirty Sexy Money (2007) — Director
35. Eli Stone (2008) — Director
36. Found (2023) — Director
37. Chicago Hope (1994) — Director
38. L.A. Law (1986) — Director
39. Cooley High (1975) — Director
40. Carbon Copy (1981) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic (2013) — Self
2. I Am Richard Pryor (2019) — Self - Filmmaker
3. Midi Première (1975) — Self
4. Directors on Directing (2009) — Self
5. SEGAL (2025) — Self