His work earned fourteen Emmy Awards, and he was the 2014 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Daytime Emmy awards.
Early life
Russell Fredrick Morash, Jr. was born on February 11, 1936, in Belmont, Massachusetts. He grew up in Lexington along with his twin brother David and younger sister Ruth. Morash's father, Russell F. Morash, Sr. was a carpenter and builder while his mother, Naomi Lingley Morash, a secretary. In 1957, Morash graduated from the Boston University College of Fine Arts.
Career
Morash started his edutainment career as a cameraman for Boston public-television station WGBH-TV. In 1961, as a cameraman, Morash met Julia Child when she appeared on a WGBH program called I've Been Reading, while promoting her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Viewers flooded the station with calls and letters asking to see more. The French Chef premiered on WGBH in 1962 and then was distributed nationally by American Public Television. Morash began directing The French Chef in 1963. They worked together on other cooking shows for more than thirty years.
Morash's theater-inspired directorial style and the technology of the day, required that the staff and host would shoot each episode in one take. It established an in-the-moment template–also known as 'guerrilla television'–for a new kind of public television show that Morash took with him to launch other series, such as This Old House and The Victory Garden. Russ' aesthetic was minimal, making use of the elements available on location, the audio diegetic, with one camera that would move with the cast to focus on the unscripted action. Geneva Collins wrote in Current that "His visual signature is the long unbroken take with the hand-held camera, with scenes lasting four, six even eight minutes without a cut." Morash himself had stated that he emulated the organic behavior of the human eye rather than use abstract "conventional television techniques," the former which gave the viewer the realist perception that they were in the scene of the action themselves.
This Old House host Steve Thomas said of Morash, "He was a very demanding boss, but was true to the craft" which lead to the show's success and popularity.
The Victory Garden and This Old House spinoff series The New Yankee Workshop were filmed in Morash's own backyard in Massachusetts.
Morash's wife was Marian Morash, a James Beard Award-winning chef who also appeared on Julia Child's cooking show, appeared on The Victory Garden and edited The Victory Garden Cookbook. He and Marian had two daughters and five grandchildren.
Russell died on June 19, 2024 at the age of 88. In its announcement of his death, WGBH eulogized him as the founding "commanding father".
Recognition
Morash's work earned 14 Emmy awards, including 11 for Outstanding Director of a Service Show, and in 2014 the Daytime Emmys Lifetime Achievement award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He was inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcasters' Hall of Fame in 2018.
↑Child, Julia (1985). Julia Child: The Way to Cook (Videotape). New York: Knopf Video Books.
↑Schecter, Roy. "What a Find!". Hamilton College Magazine. The Trustees of Hamilton College. Archived from the original on September 4, 2006. Retrieved September 13, 2026.
↑"Marian Morash". James Beard Foundation. Archived from the original on August 2, 2018. Retrieved August 2, 2018.
