David Yarnell, an Emmy-nominated director and producer, has died at 96. Yarnell’s wife, Toni Howard, shared that the filmmaker died peacefully in his Los Angeles home.
Yarnell has served as a producer for decades, working on such television projects as “Candid Camera,” “In Concert” and “Love, American Style.” Yarnell more recently produced “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” which picked up three nominations at the 2019 Academy Awards.
A graduate of Brooklyn Law School and Cooper Union School of Art in Manhattan, Yarnell started his career working in radio, eventually becoming program director for Channel 5 in New York. He later created the radio series “Firing Line” and produced radio broadcasts of Muhammad Ali fights.
After marrying CAA agent Howard in 1989, the pair created Toni and David Yarnell Merit Award of Excellence in Architecture and Art at Cooper Union.
Yarnell soon moved into television, becoming vice president of programming at Metromedia and RKO General, and later an executive at Screen Gems. He served as a producer and director on “Joe Bob’s Drive-In Theater,” earning an Emmy nomination for his work on the show, which spanned more than a decade.
Yarnell amassed numerous television producing credits, including the CBS movie “Deep in My Heart” (for which Anne Bancroft won an Emmy), ABC’s “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert,” NBC’s “Candid Camera” specials, ABC’s “That’s Incredible,” and ABC’s “Love, American Style,” which later spun off into “Happy Days,” among others.
The filmmaker later founded DY Productions, a company that allowed him to focus on documentary work. Yarnell went on to produce a number of documentaries celebrating film and television, including “AFI 100 Years” for TNT and “Television’s Greatest Performances, Parts I and II” for ABC.
“Can You Ever Forgive Me?” was among Yarnell’s final major projects, earning Oscar nominations for best actress (Melissa McCarthy), best supporting actor (Richard E. Grant) and best adapted screenplay (Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty). Marielle Heller directed the film, which was based on Lee Israel’s 2008 memoir of the same name.
