Tom Donovan Dead At Age 89, Director and Producer of Many Daytime Soaps

Tom Donovan died in Englewood, New Jersey, on October. 27 at age 89.

Donovan's soap opera directing credits included GENERAL HOSPITAL, ANOTHER WORLD, RYAN'S HOPE, A WORLD APART, HIDDEN FACES, LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING and OUR PRIVATE WORLD.

He was also credited as a producer on GENERAL HOSPITAL, A WORLD APART, WHERE THE HEART IS and LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING.

Donovan was a director in early television and later a producer who played a key role in the 1960 merger between the Screen Directors Guild and the Radio Television Directors Guild, leading to the formation of the DGA.

Directors Guild of America president Taylor Hackford said, "Tom's mark upon the new DGA was indelible. He was president of the New York Local of the RTDG when discussions first began in the late 1950s about forming a new, unified organization to represent film and television directors and the teams that support them under one roof, and then in 1962, he chaired the committee that organized a restructuring of the new guild that eased regional friction and consolidated power in a National Board in which both the East Coast and the West Coast were fully represented -- an organizational structure that continues today."

In 2006, he and his wife, Marie, retired to the Actors Fund's Lillian Booth Actors' Home in New Jersey. She died in August.

He is survived by a son and a daughter.