Dwight Hemion, 81; TV director won 18 Emmys
Dwight Arlington Hemion, a television director and producer best known for his musical specials who won 18 Emmy Awards and was nominated a record 47 times, died Monday at his home in Rectortown, Va. He was 81.
The cause was renal failure, his wife, Kit, said.
In television specials starring Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Mikhail Baryshnikov and many other world-class performers, Hemion and his partner, producer Gary Smith, captured popular and critical acclaim.
"Hemion defined an era in television," Ron Simon, curator of radio and television at the Paley Center for Media in New York City, said this week. "He created great variety television for home audiences."
Starting in the late 1960s, Hemion "defined the music spectacular," Simon said.
Shows that Hemion directed were made in a comparatively simple style without elaborate editing or special effects. "The artist was the star," Smith said in an interview this week.
For "Baryshnikov on Broadway," which won Hemion two Emmys in 1980, one segment had the ballet dancer joining the kick line from "A Chorus Line," the Broadway musical.
"We learned that Baryshnikov had a passion for musical theater," Smith said.
It was the type of revealing detail Hemion looked for. In every show, "we wanted to make it feel that there was a new insight into the performer," Smith said.
Another Hemion special, "Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music," was an Emmy winner in 1966 and featured Sinatra in his early 50s, singing songs that conveyed the bittersweetness of life. It was another side to the legend built on Sinatra's glamorous, jet-setting public image.
At times, Hemion directed television specials on location. One early example featured trumpeter Herb Alpert, opening the show with a performance in a Tijuana bullring. The show won two Emmys, one for outstanding director and one for outstanding musical program, in 1968.
Hemion began collecting television's top prize in 1965 with an Emmy for "My Name Is Barbra." He worked with Streisand a number of times after that and earned Emmys for other specials, including "Color Me Barbra" in 1966 and, most recently, "Barbra Streisand: The Concert" in 1995.
Other major performers Hemion worked with included Luciano Pavarotti, Neil Diamond and Bette Midler.
"Every star who had a special wanted Dwight to direct it," Gail Purse said this week. She worked with Hemion through the 1990s when he directed a number of "Disney's Young Musicians Symphony Orchestra," programs that aired on the Disney Channel.
