---
name: "Jerry Paris"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/jerry-paris"
roles: ["Director"]
born: "25 July 1925"
died: "31 March 1986"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
updated: "2026-09-16T16:15:37.819010+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Jerry Paris

Director. Born 25 July 1925 in San Francisco, California, USA. Died 31 March 1986.

## Details

- **Work:** Director
- **Born:** 25 July 1925, San Francisco, California, USA
- **Died:** 31 March 1986
- **Also known as:** William Gerald Paris

## Biography

Jerry Paris (born William Gerald Paris) was an American actor and director. He appeared in supporting roles in films including *The Wild One* (1953), *The Caine Mutiny* (1954) and *Marty* (1955), and had a recurring role as Agent Martin Flaherty in the first season of *The Untouchables* (1959).

On television, Paris played Jerry Helper, the dentist and next-door neighbour of Rob and Laura Petrie, in 39 episodes of *The Dick Van Dyke Show* (1961–1966). He also directed 84 episodes of the series and won a Primetime Emmy Award in 1964 for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy. He later directed episodes of *The Mary Tyler Moore Show* (1970), *The Odd Couple* and numerous other series.

Paris directed 237 of the 255 episodes of *Happy Days* (1974–1984) and the feature films *Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment* (1985) and *Police Academy 3: Back in Training* (1986). He died in Los Angeles in 1986.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, latimes.com, nytimes.com.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *The Mary Tyler Moore Show* (1970), Fi1m 88, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/the-mary-tyler-moore-show.md)

## Also known for

- *Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment* (1985), Director
- *Police Academy 3: Back in Training* (1986), Priest in Police Line-up (uncredited), Director
- *The Munsters* (1964), Director
- *Marty* (1955), Tommy
- *The Caine Mutiny* (1954), Ens. Barney Harding
- *The Wild One* (1953), Dextro (uncredited)
- *Happy Days* (1974), Director
- *Monkey Business* (1952), Scientist (uncredited)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/jerry-paris