Gabrielle Beaumont, who has died of cancer aged 80, was a British television director who blazed a trail for women in Hollywood. She worked on worldwide hits such as M*A*S*H and The Waltons, and was the first woman to direct an episode of a Star Trek series. In the UK her work included the drama Riders (1993), based on the raunchy Jilly Cooper novel.
Beaumont turned up in Los Angeles in 1980 with cans of film from a horror movie she had just directed, The Godsend, and met the producer Aaron Spelling. Not interested in her film, Spelling – with the industry then under pressure to employ more female directors – simply asked her: “Can you goddamn direct?” Her reply came: “Goddamn yes!” Spelling assigned her to an episode in that year’s series of Vega$, set among the desert city’s colourful casinos and starring Robert Urich as a Vietnam veteran-turned-private eye.
The following year, the gloss and glitz continued as Beaumont worked on Dynasty, Spelling’s answer to Dallas, featuring another oil-rich family, headed by Blake Carrington (played by John Forsythe), and set in Denver, Colorado. When she joined towards the end of that first series, Dynasty was only just beginning to catch on with viewers. For the second run (1981-82), she suggested her friend Joan Collins for the role of Alexis, Blake’s ex-wife, and was instrumental in turning the soap around.
In 1989, she directed Star Trek: The Next Generation, the first live-action sequel to the 1960s sci-fi series. Later, she worked on episodes of the Star Trek series Deep Space Nine (in 1997) and Voyager (in 2000).
At the beginning of the 80s, Beaumont was among fewer than 100 professional female directors in the US, whereas by the end of the decade there were about 500.
She was sometimes accused by TV critics of lacking subtlety, but like Spelling she knew how to make dramas for mass audiences. She was back in Britain to direct the miniseries Riders, billed in TV Times magazine as a “sex sizzler”, and took a cameo acting role in it as Lady Roxborough.
She later caused controversy with the drama Diana: A Tribute to the People’s Princess (1998), which she wrote and directed as a TV movie, broadcast eight months after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. It focused on the last year of Diana’s life, including her final weeks with Dodi Fayed. Lawyers for the princess’s family failed to block its worldwide screening and reviewers variously described the production as “tacky” and a “mixture of Mills & Boon and Hollywoodese”. Beaumont defended the production, saying: “Obviously, we do not know what was said between Diana and Dodi, so we were trying to get inside their heads to see how they ticked.”
Gabrielle was born in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, to Diana Beaumont, an actor, and her husband, Gabriel Toyne, an actor-manager and fight arranger. The author Daphne du Maurier was Diana’s cousin. Taking her mother’s maiden name on leaving Our Lady of Sion school, in Notting Hill, London, Gabrielle had a short acting career in productions such as Counterpoint, a triple bill including the stage premiere of Harold Pinter’s play A Night Out (Comedy theatre, 1961). Then, as assistant stage manager, she worked on the Lionel Bart musical Blitz! (Adelphi theatre, 1962).
She joined BBC television in 1964 as a production assistant but soon moved into the film industry. After producing two movies, The Johnstown Monster and The Corpse (both 1971), she went to the ITV company Thames Television to direct daytime programmes – the chat series Good Afternoon! from 1973 to 1976, the serials Marked Personal in 1974, Couples in 1975 and Rooms in 1977, and the preschool show Rainbow between 1978 and 1980. She also directed The Tomorrow People during 1978. Two years later, Beaumont joined London Independent Television, a consortium led by the TV presenter Hughie Green that failed in a bid for both of the capital’s ITV franchises.
Her early work in the US included episodes of M*A*S*H, The Waltons and the Dallas soap spin-off Knots Landing (all 1981), as well as that year’s TV movie Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story. Continuing as a director-for-hire, she took in episodes of other major series such as The Dukes of Hazzard (1982), Hart to Hart (1982-83), Cagney & Lacey (1984), Remington Steele (1985-86), the Dynasty spin-off The Colbys (1986), Hill Street Blues (1983-86), Miami Vice (1987), Beauty and the Beast (1987), LA Law (1988-92), Law & Order (1993), Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman (1996), Beverly Hills 90210 (1994-98) and Baywatch (2000). She then retired to Mallorca.
Beaumont’s first marriage, to the actor Olaf Pooley (1982-93), ended in divorce. In 1994, she married the cinematographer Michael J Davis; he died in 2008. Amanda, the daughter of her first marriage, died in 1989. Beaumont is survived by her brother, Christopher Toyne, a producer.
• Gabrielle Beaumont, director, born 7 April 1942; died 8 October 2022
