Larry Auerbach, known as a pioneering TV director passed away on Saturday, 20 December 2014, CBS informs. The unfortunate piece of news was officially transmitted by the son of Love of Life director, who was 91 year-old at the time of his passing. According to Scott Auerbach, his father died in La Jolla, California, due to complications of glioblastoma.
Love of Live is the long-lasting soap directed by the regretted Larry Auerbach and follows the story of two siblings: ‘’long-suffering Vanessa Dale and her bitchy sister Meg’’. Auerbach was the man behind the cameras for no less than 28 years, as was the first director of the show (hired in 1951) and his involvement spanned until the end of the soap in 1980. As a tribute to the devotion of Auerbach to Love of Life and its crew, the final scene of the show, which was aired on 1 February 1980, screens him walking from set to set in order to switch off the lights.
Larry Auerbach’s list of daytime drama includes the directing of episodes pertaining to soaps like All My Children, One Life to Live or Another World. One Life to Live was the one soap which brought Larry a daytime Emmy in 1984. Apart from his behind the camera position, Auerbach was also the vice president of the Directors Guild of America and was named a DGA Honorary Life Member in 2004.
Paris Barclay, DGA current president, shared the following statement after the death of Larry Auerbach: “Larry emerged as a vigorous presence right after the merger that created the modern DGA, diving headlong into a long career of service to the Guild and his fellow members. Larry worked tirelessly, out of love for his Guild and his profession, to ensure better working conditions and stronger protection of creative rights for Guild members, and he was instrumental in raising the profile of daytime serial directors, the genre to which he dedicated his career. Under his watch as National Vice President and a member of the Eastern Directors Council, Larry helped organize the renovation of the New York headquarters, and he played a major role in ensuring greater health and fiscal security for Guild members through the DGA-Producer Pension and Health Plans. He was a dynamo – a strong and powerful voice for our members for decades – and we will miss him greatly.”