Katy Garretson facts for kids

Kathleen Garretson (born May 15, 1963) is an American television director, producer, and podcaster. She has directed episodes of popular TV shows like Frasier, 2 Broke Girls, and Fuller House. She also produced the Garage Sale Mystery movies for Hallmark. In 2012, she received a special award called the Frank Capra Lifetime Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of America (DGA). Katy Garretson also hosted a popular podcast called "Mojo Girl Madness."

Early Life and Education

Kathleen Garretson was born in Nuremberg, West Germany. Her father was a Captain in the U.S. Air Force, stationed there at the time. Her parents were John Thomas Garretson from Arizona and Elinor Van Haltern from Texas.

Katy Garretson went to the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. She earned degrees in both Journalism and Business Communications. While at USC, she was part of the Delta Delta Delta sorority. She was also an award-winning member of the USC Speech & Debate Team. Her interest in the film industry began when she worked as a tour guide at Universal Studios during college.

Career in Entertainment

Katy Garretson has had a long career in the entertainment world. She is a TV director and also teaches directing at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. After graduating from USC, she worked briefly as a production assistant. Then, she was accepted into the Directors Guild of America (DGA) training program.

Becoming an Assistant Director

After two years as a trainee, she officially joined the DGA as an assistant director. In her first few years, Garretson worked mostly on TV movies and feature films. Some of the movies she worked on include Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Clifford, and Switch.

She continued to work as an assistant director on "movies of the week" and commercials. Later, she became an assistant director for the sitcom Frasier. As she gained more experience with "multi-camera" shows (like sitcoms), she slowly stopped working on "single-camera" productions (like movies).

Directing TV Shows

Katy Garretson made her debut as a director during Frasier's sixth season. She was even nominated for a Directors Guild of America Award for "Best Comedy Director of 1999" for her very first directing job. She continued to direct episodes of Frasier until the show ended in 2004.

She has directed many other TV shows since then. These include the new Punky Brewster reboot, Carol's Second Act, Broke, The Cool Kids, Alexa & Katie, Fuller House, and 2 Broke Girls. She also directed episodes of The Odd Couple, One Big Happy, Young & Hungry, Sullivan & Son, Titus, Reba, Girlfriends, George Lopez, Freddie, One on One, and True Jackson, VP. She even directed episodes of the animated series Sid the Science Kid.

Awards and Leadership

In January 2012, Garretson received the Frank Capra Lifetime Achievement Award from the DGA. This award recognizes a person's long and important career in the film industry. She was the 26th person to receive this award since the Guild started. Director Michael Apted presented the award to her.

Garretson has been very active in the Directors Guild of America. She served on their National Board and as a Council Chair for three terms. She also worked on many guild committees. Currently, she is a member of several DGA committees, including the PAC Leadership Committee and the Frank Capra Award Committee.

Work as a Producer

Katy Garretson is also a television producer. In 2011-2012, she found and helped develop a TV movie called Garage Sale Mystery for the Hallmark Channel. This movie aired in September 2013 and was very popular. It broke many ratings records for the Hallmark Channel.

Because of its success, Hallmark decided to create a series of Garage Sale Mysteries. They even re-branded their movie channel to be the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries Channel. Many Garage Sale Mysteries movies have aired.

Teaching and Community Work

Garretson took a break from directing from early 2012 to 2014. During this time, she served as the CEO/Executive Director of the non-profit I Have A Dream Foundation - Los Angeles. She had been a mentor and volunteer with this organization for many years. She was asked to help rebuild and improve the foundation. By the end of 2014, this work was done, and Garretson returned to her creative work in film and television.

She has also taught classes on directing sitcoms at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. She has been a guest speaker for courses at both the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where she now teaches a graduate course on directing, and the Screenwriting Program at UCLA. Garretson is still active as an alumna of USC. She served on the first Alumni Board of Directors for the Annenberg School of Journalism and Communications. She is also a big fan of USC Trojan Football.

Filmography

Film

Television