Russell Morash, ‘This Old House’ creator and ‘Father of How-To’ programs that inspired millions, dies at 88

Russell Morash, director and producer of public television staples This Old House and The French Chef starring Julia Child, died Wednesday after a brief illness. He was 88.

GBH in Boston, the producing station that housed Morash’s programs during his tenure, publicly announced his death after it was confirmed by former This Old House producer Nina Fialkow. A public obituary published by the Douglass Funeral Home in Lexington, Mass., said Morash died while surrounded by members of his family.

“As we celebrate the life of Russ Morash, we reflect on the legacy he leaves at GBH, public media and beyond,” said GBH CEO Susan Goldberg in a statement. “Through his work, Russ changed how people interacted with television, increasing the connection between the audience and the programming. His commitment to innovation and to the audience defines our work to this day.”

After joining GBH in 1957 as a camera operator, Morash served as a director for The French Chef when it aired from 1963–73. An obituary published by GBH said Morash vividly remembered speaking to Julia Child for the first time. “The phone rang one afternoon, and this woman I would describe as having the voice somewhere between Eleanor Roosevelt and Tallulah Bankhead plus a couple of packs of Marlboros a day, said — demanded, really — that she have a hot plate on the reading program,” Morash recalled.

In the GBH obituary, former GBH President Henry Becton said Morash “realized that she was not just an author — she was really great on the camera. … I think Russ was certainly the one who found Julia in that sense.”

Morash later created The Victory Garden, which ran from 1975–2010, and The New Yankee Workshop, a woodworking program that aired from 1989–2009.

But This Old House, which started in 1979 and is still airing, was arguably Morash’s most significant contribution. Known as the “Father of How-To” and “the granddaddy of do-it-yourself TV” by media outlets, colleagues and contemporaries, Morash helped popularize the genre of fix-’em-up programs. Audiences can now watch entire television channels and streaming networks devoted to home improvement, as well as a slew of independent DIY-focused content creators on social media platforms.

Morash’s view of his influence varied over the years. In a 1997 Current profile, he downplayed his impact and said he detested the “Father of How-To” moniker.

“I’ve often been tarred by that brush, but I don’t know what it means,” Morash said. “… I’ve never said we’re out to show people how to do anything. … If we were, we would never advance the whole project. We would have taken all day to show how they dug that [cement mold] into the ground over there. We just don’t have the time for it. What we can do is talk about the techniques, the tools, what people should expect from it, but we will never be a substitute for good instructional media.”

But in later years, he arrived at a more generous look at his impact. “Who could have imagined that the home improvement television idea would develop into an entire industry,” said Morash, according to a This Old House remembrance page. “But given the fact that a person’s home is likely his or her most valuable asset, it may explain why so many viewers still depend on” the program, he said.

Morash was born Feb. 11, 1936, in Belmont, Mass., near where he would grow up in Lexington, according to the funeral home’s public obituary. His father, Russell, was a carpenter and builder. He graduated from Boston University’s College of Fine Arts in 1957, where he trained as a theater director. In college, he met his wife, Marian, a James Beard Award–winning chef who later appeared in episodes of The Victory Garden.

After working on The French Chef, Morash said, the idea for This Old House came while he was remodeling his own home in 1976, according to a GBH legacy page about Morash. Once he developed the concept further, he said he had an inkling that it would be a success.

“I thought there were a number of people like myself who lacked any kind of entrée into the black arts of home construction,” he said in a 2010 interview with LAist. “Prior to Home Depot, prior to Google, prior to all the kind of easy information that we all take for granted, there was nothing. There were crusty old characters in hardware stores who would beat on you and get you out of their store as fast as you could.”

Morash stepped down as EP and director of This Old House and its spin-off Ask This Old House in 2004. His daily public television work ended when The New Yankee Workshop ceased production in 2009.

In addition to those programs, Morash also worked on MIT Science Reporter, a co-production between GBH and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in which scientists and engineers explained their work to a general audience. The show aired from 1955–66.

Morash won 14 Emmy Awards and received a Lifetime Achievement award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He was inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2018.

According to the public obituary, Morash is survived by his wife, Marian; brother David Morash; sister Ruth Daniels; daughters Victoria Evarts and husband Thomas Evarts and Kate Cohen and husband Adam Cohen; grandchildren Sophie E. Lockwood, Alexandra E. Ott, Russell Jack Cohen, Remi J. Evarts and Madeleine H. Cohen; and his beloved three great-grandchildren.