Big Daddy

Like a reverse Samson, Michael Lembeck found his strength through an unwanted haircut.

When the executive producer of ABC Family's Baby Daddy was playing basketball back at Beverly Hills High School, his coach told him he'd have to lose his long locks if he wanted to stay on the team.

"They held me down and cut my hair," Lembeck recalls. "I quit the team, tried out for the spring play and that was it."

Following in the footsteps of his actor father, Harvey Lembeck (The Phil Silvers Show), Michael landed roles in everything from Love, American Style to Love Boat and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.

By the late 1980s — not long after his most popular role as Mackenzie Phillips' husband on One Day at a Time — Lembeck was feeling the need for a challenge. He'd already started teaching young actors on the side and, he says, had spent "hundreds of hours in editing bays, learning how to put shows together." Directing was the natural next step, and his friend, writer-producer Barry Kemp, lent a hand.

"I thought he'd give me one show to start with," Lembeck says. "Instead, he gave me seven. [One] was Coach, and that became a success. From there, I was brought in to work on Major Dad, which was 77th in the ratings and looked more like a Marine documentary. I jumped into it, gave them some ideas and by the end of the year, we were number two."

He went on to win an Emmy for directing Friends and worked his way into features, directing four in eight years, including two of Disney's The Santa Clause franchise.

Still, his heart was in sitcoms, but there weren't many left on broadcast TV. So he turned to cable series like Hot in Cleveland and now Baby Daddy.

"I spent my career observing or working with directors like Noam Pitlik, Jimmy Burrows and John Rich," he says. "I want to create a feeling on sets like they did — no yelling, just creative people working together to be their best."