Arlene Sanford

Discouraged from watching television as a child, Arlene Sanford first explored her interest in television production at the University of Rochester, where she created short films while majoring in psychology. After graduating, she secured a job as a game show writer for Goodson-Todman Productions. She worked her way from writer to production assistant and eventually to associate director while based in New York. Persuaded to move to Los Angeles by veteran television director James Burrows, she made the move and began as an associate director in daytime television, ultimately directing Days of Our Lives. Seeking to direct episodic television, she produced, wrote and directed Welcome Home, a short starring Jamie Lee Curtis, which was picked up by HBO. This project led to her first episodic television assignment on The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd. Since her first assignment in 1987, Sanford has amassed more than a hundred episodic directing credits in all genres, including Designing Wo