LOS ANGELES — As a top television comedy director who won an Emmy directing “The Dick Van Dyke Show” in the early 1960s, John Rich was faced with a tough choice in 1970.
On the same day he received a phone call from Mary Tyler Moore wanting to set up a meeting to discuss his directing the initial episode of her new TV series, he got a call from Norman Lear who wanted to send him a script for a pilot he was about to produce.
