Don Mischer was an Emmy-award winning director and producer. He specialized in directing and producing live telecasts of award shows and sporting events as well as television specials. 

Mischer directed the opening ceremony for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and produced the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, which was the first major global event held after 9/11. He also directed the first Kennedy Center Honors in 1978 and continued to direct them until 1986. He went on to produce the CBS telecast of that event from 1993-2001. Mischer also directed the telecasts of three Academy Awards (2011-2013) and produced the Primetime Emmy Awards 15 times from 1993-2019.

Mischer’s work in television specials included directing and producing Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever (where Michael Jackson performed the moonwalk for the first time), The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson, and Mickey's 90th Spectacular. He also produced Taking the Stage: African American Music and Stories that Changed America, a special which commemorated the historic opening of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. Mischer also directed episodes of Murder, She Wrote and It’s Gary Shandling’s Show.

He received 40 Primetime Emmy nominations and won 13 times over the course of his illustrious and decades-long career.  

Watch his 2008 conversation with The Interviews: An Oral History of Television.

 Don Mischer was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2025.