---
name: "Sutton Roley"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/sutton-roley"
roles: ["Director"]
born: "19 October 1922"
died: "3 March 2007"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 3
average_fi1m_score: 82
updated: "2026-09-16T16:42:35.642692+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."
---

# Sutton Roley

Director. Born 19 October 1922 in Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania, USA. Died 3 March 2007.

## Details

- **Work:** Director
- **Born:** 19 October 1922, Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania, USA
- **Died:** 3 March 2007
- **Active:** 1963–1973
- **Also known as:** Sutton W. Roley
- **Works often with:** Chester Krumholz, Alexander Singer, Alex March, Arthur Weiss, Charles R. Rondeau, Christian Nyby

## Fi1m on Sutton Roley

> Sutton Roley brought a restless camera and bold framing to episodic television. We admire his willingness to make familiar crime and adventure scenes look different, though his compositions could sometimes distract from what people were saying.

In *Mannix* (1967), a birdcage becomes part of the framing of a scene. Roley liked foreground objects, wide-angle lenses and a camera that did more than sit and observe. After live television in the 1950s, he moved into filmed series and became a regular director of crime, war and adventure programmes. His collaborators included producer Quinn Martin. The trouble, evident in *Mannix*, was that the compositions could distract from the dialogue.

In *The Fugitive* (1963), the strongest reason to keep watching is David Janssen's tired, believable hero. We warmed to him because his weariness makes the repeated predicament feel like something a person has to live through. Roley directed episodes within this mixture of crime, action and melodrama, where an actor's composure matters at least as much as an arresting angle. The narration can insist too much, and the situations repeat, but the man remains worth following. It is television we recommend for its human centre, without pretending that one director accounts for everything that works.

*Mission: Impossible* (1966) offers a different pleasure: Bruce Geller's caper series depends on disguises, teamwork and carefully arranged deception. Roley was one of its directors, and his interest in staging action within busy frames fits a programme in which the arrangement of people matters. We recommend it for the ingenuity and the cast's composure, while admitting that repeated viewing makes the formula easier to spot. A mobile camera cannot, by itself, make an established pattern surprising again. The attraction is watching the team carry out its plans with enough assurance to keep us interested.

His feature work included *Chosen Survivors* (1974), which took his heightened visual style into science fiction and horror. The television film *Satan's Triangle* (1975) is another point of interest for its eerie atmosphere. Still, a scene needs to hold our attention for what happens in it, and his framing could sometimes get in the way of that. Start with *The Fugitive*, but allow a little space between its repeated predicaments.

## Biography

Sutton Roley was an American television director, producer and writer. He began his career in live television in the 1950s, directing and sometimes writing episodes of series including *Lights Out* and *Highway Patrol*, before moving into filmed television.

Roley directed episodes of numerous series, among them *The Fugitive* (1963), *Mission: Impossible* (1966), *Combat!*, *The Man from U.N.C.L.E.*, *Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea*, *Lost in Space*, *Starsky & Hutch*, *Kojak*, *Hawaii Five-O*, *Gunsmoke* and *Airwolf* (1984), on which he also wrote an episode. He directed the feature films *How to Steal the World* (1968) and *Chosen Survivors* (1974), as well as several television movies.

Roley retired in the late 1980s and died in 2007.

*Sources: imdb.com, findagrave.com, legacy.com.*

## On Fi1m (3)

- *Kojak* (1973), Fi1m 80, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/kojak.md)
- *Mission: Impossible* (1966), Fi1m 82, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/mission-impossible-1966.md)
- *The Fugitive* (1963), Fi1m 84, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/the-fugitive-1963.md)

## Also known for

- *Airwolf* (1984), Director, Writer
- *Starsky & Hutch* (1975), Director
- *Hawaii Five-O* (1969), Director
- *Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea* (1964), Director
- *Lost in Space* (1965), Director
- *Combat!* (1962), Director
- *Gunsmoke* (1955), Director
- *The Man from U.N.C.L.E.* (1964), Director

---
© 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/sutton-roley