![\"James](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/f3544dac08a904d0dc4703d2dbb2378a9d-James-Burrows-lede.rvertical.w600.jpg\")
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\n James Burrows.
\n Photo: Aaron Rapoport\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
Last month, the TV world lost one of its most legendary craftsmen: James Burrows<\/a>. Over his half-century-plus career, he directed more than 1,000 episodes of television shows, including iconic sitcoms such as Friends, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Cheers, and Taxi, among countless others. One of the many reasons he was beloved in Hollywood was his generosity with his peers and his willingness to help guide younger creatives as they came up in the business. Among those he helped mentor was Pamela Fryman<\/a>, who would carve out a legend\u2014wait for it<\/a>\u2014ary directing career of her own as the helmer of almost every episode of How I Met Your Mother, along with stints on Frasier, Friends, and, most recently, Reba McEntire\u2019s NBC hit, Happy\u2019s Place. Here, Fryman tells how she first met Burrows, the pivotal role he played in changing her career trajectory, and the magic he brought to any set he worked on.<\/p>\n Back in January 1994, the producer Peter Noah asked me to direct an episode of Caf\u00e9 Americain<\/a>, his NBC sitcom starring Valerie Bertinelli.\u00a0It terrified me because I came from daytime TV and I felt ill-equipped. I went in kicking and screaming. But Peter said, \u201cYou\u2019re gonna go to Warner Bros., you\u2019re gonna sit in the front row during rehearsals, and you\u2019re gonna watch the master, Jimmy Burrows.\u201d<\/p>\n So I go to Warner Bros., and I sit in that seat, and I watch. And it\u2019s great fun because I am a fan of sitcoms. That\u2019s how I grew up \u2014 in front of the television. I\u2019m watching Burrows direct, and I\u2019m trying to guess what he\u2019s going to do. Sometimes I\u2019m right and sometimes I\u2019m wrong, but at no time did I think I was the right person for the job. They could have said, \u201cOkay, instead of directing, you\u2019re just going to sit in the front row and watch Jimmy,\u201d and I would have been delighted. But at the end of it, he came up to me and said, \u201cYou come from soaps.\u201d He put up his hands like it was a really tight shot, and he said, \u201cThat\u2019s in here. You now need to widen out.\u201d And he started flapping his arms around. He just started moving his arms around, and I said, \u201cOkay, okay, wider \u2014 got it.\u201d And I ended up directing an episode.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, Caf\u00e9 Americain got canceled, but that August I was offered an episode of a CBS show called Muddling Through with an actress named Jen Aniston. I direct that one episode, still thinking I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing, and that episode turns into three consecutive episodes. Jennifer was hoping Muddling Through wouldn\u2019t get picked up because she had also taped the pilot for Friends; if Muddling Through got picked up, she wouldn\u2019t be able to do Friends. But it didn\u2019t get picked up, and I think because I knew Jennifer, I got to direct Friends that first season.<\/p>\n Jimmy had directed the pilot and the first three episodes and then I went in to direct episode five<\/a>. He popped by that first week, showed me around the set, and said, \u201cFryman, you need to wear comfortable shoes.\u201d (To this day, I still do.) He made everything I did on that episode a little better, and he did it with no ego. It was a team sport; he never made me feel anything but supported. Being on Friends gave me street cred because it was such a juggernaut. It became, \u201cPam \u2014 she\u2019s done Friends,\u201d and I was like, \u201cWait, please, I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing!\u201d I was just thrown into it. But it would not have happened without Jimmy\u2019s blessing in the way he gave it. He certainly didn\u2019t broadcast it, but he made me feel like I could do it. That was everything to me.<\/p>\n In some fortuitous way, I ended up following Jimmy on a lot of shows. When I did George & Leo<\/a> with Bob Newhart and Judd Hirsch, he wanted me to come over to the set when he was directing, to introduce me to Judd and Bob, and to say, \u201cShe knows what she\u2019s doing.\u201d They knew I was okay because Jimmy said I was okay. And that happened time and time again.<\/p>\n Jimmy and I didn\u2019t socialize, but he had my back. I hope I\u2019m not overstating this, but I think he was proud of me. He said he loved watching my career flourish. I would thank him constantly for what he had done for me, and in an annoying way. When I would get a pilot, I would let him know and say, \u201cI\u2019m doing this pilot. My first question is why aren\u2019t you doing it?\u201d I specifically remember doing a Chuck Lorre pilot<\/a>. Jimmy had done so many, and he just said, \u201cThere\u2019s a reason you\u2019re doing it. Go do a good job. It\u2019s going to be great for you.\u201d He was right. He was so happy to share his knowledge, and I looked at him as a kind of North Star. I can\u2019t tell you what he saw in me, but he was everything to my career.<\/p>\n It\u2019s impossible to describe exactly the special ingredient he brought to directing because I think it was magic. But what he did best was listen. He heard the music like nobody hears the music. What I got to observe was how he would try this and then he would try this. It wasn\u2019t like, \u201cI\u2019m Jimmy, I know everything, and this is how it\u2019s going to be.\u201d He experimented and he guided the cast and the script in a way that you almost couldn\u2019t see what he was doing. It was so elegant. It was his gift. There was Jimmy Burrows \u2014 and then there was everybody else.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Vulture Daily<\/p>\n An entertainment newsletter for the pop-culture obsessed.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n