Prolific television director dies

Earl Bellamy's credits included Westerns such as The Lone Ranger

Earl Bellamy, who directed classic television series such as Rawhide, MASH and The Munsters, has died aged 86.

The director had credits on scores of popular TV shows in a career spanning several decades up to the 1980s.

He worked on almost every show in the Western genre, among them The Lone Ranger and Laredo, and was also at home on comedies, dramas and feature films.

Mr Bellamy was awarded the Golden Boot Award last year for his contributions to Westerns in film and television.

'A workhorse'

The director died at a hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after suffering a heart attack on Sunday, according to the New York Times.

He had lived in Mexico since 1991, having moved to Hollywood with his family from Minneapolis in 1920.

Boyd Magers, a friend of Mr Bellamy and publisher of a Western film publication, said: "He did a lot of everything. He was a workhorse."

Mr Bellamy, the son of a railroad engineer, directed nearly two dozen feature films, starting with the George Raft Western Seminole Uprising in 1955.

But his first love was television, with other credits including Hart to Hart, The Doris Day Show and Chips.