Providing home enthusiasts nationwide with award-winning programming, Russell Morash has been called the father of “how-to” and “know-how” television. As the founder of This Old House in 1979, he introduced the premier home improvement television series to America and continues to inspire a legion of homeowners who never knew they could do it themselves.
“Who could have imagined that the home improvement television idea would develop into an entire industry,” says Russ. “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 This Old House.”
Russ, whose forebears were carpenters and shipwrights, conceived the idea of This Old House in 1976 while remodeling his own home. The first 13-week This Old House series, featuring the renovation of a Victorian home in the Dorchester area of Boston, set a new ratings record for WGBH when it was broadcast locally in 1979. The series aired nationally on PBS the following season and quickly became a perennial favorite.
The real star of that debut season wasn’t any of the on-screen personalities — it was the run-down 1860 house in Dorchester, MA, itself. From that initial renovation of a derelict house in a struggling urban area, This Old House stood apart as the original home-improvement TV show, launching what PBS would later call a “how-to home revolution” and eventually becoming the most popular series on public television.
The original cast came together almost by accident. After surviving more than one renovation himself, Russ persuaded WGBH to underwrite the show and assembled a crew that included carpenter Norm Abram, host Bob Vila, and plumber Ron Trethewey. As Norm later recalled of those early days: “I thought I’d be in the background of a couple scenes carrying around ladders.”
In His Own Words: Russ Morash, the show’s creator, has described the spark behind the concept: “There’s a real fascination in watching a craftsperson execute a task and solve a problem.” Early in his television career, Russ would occasionally cross paths with a plumber or electrician arriving to fix something at his home as he was leaving for work. “I’d come back, and there’d be a bill on the table, but I really didn’t know what the person had done while I was away.” That got him thinking: Maybe there was a show in there somewhere, one that would document and demystify the home-renovation process.
Prior to tackling home renovation, in 1963 Russ teamed up with a budding cookbook author with an unmistakable accent and a marvelous sense of humor to create The French Chef with Julia Child. For the next 30 years Russ and Julia created a number of cooking classics for television, which continue to represent the gold standard of that genre.
In 1975, Russ teamed with Jim Crockett to begin Crockett’s Victory Garden, later The Victory Garden, a televised gardening adventure which continued for 30 years until Russ hung up his trowel in 2003. From 1989 through 2009, he also served as executive producer and director of The New Yankee Workshop, which featured the craftsmanship of host Norm Abram.
In 1976, when Russ first proposed a show about home renovation to public television, TV execs wondered aloud: How will he re-create a house inside a TV studio? The unscripted, gritty-reality style of taping on-site that he had in mind was a radical idea — one that would transform the medium. As TOH Magazine noted on the show’s 25th anniversary, Russ “was already a TV pioneer, having introduced Americans to Julia Child as The French Chef,” and his insistence on filming real renovations in real time broke the mold of largely staged and scripted television.
On set, Russ’s warmth and wit were legendary. During one shoot, he joked with a workman who balked at being introduced as a “master plasterer” — the worker said he’d get an earful from his dad, a true master with 45 years of experience. Calling for another take, Russ grinned and said, “Remember, Bob, the whole world is watching — your father in particular.”
By the year 2000, Russ had already been nominated more than 40 times as an executive producer and director of several PBS shows. That year alone, This Old House garnered five Daytime Emmy nominations, and with 13 wins at the time, Russ ranked among the most decorated figures in television directing.
Along the way, Russ has accumulated 14 national Emmy Awards, including 11 for “Outstanding Director of a Service Show.” And in 2014, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded Russ a Lifetime Achievement Emmy for his many contributions. In 2018, he was inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
In 2022, This Old House itself received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 49th annual Daytime Emmy Awards—only the third television show in the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ 67-year history to receive the honor. The recognition prompted reflections on the show’s remarkable longevity (43 seasons and counting), which began in 1979 when creator Russ Morash had the then-unheard-of notion of filming a real home renovation for television.
Russ is a “fellow” of the National Association of Garden Writers and has been honored with the prestigious George Robert White Medal for 2005 by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society.
A native of Lexington, Massachusetts, Russ trained as a theater director at Boston University, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1957. He joined the WGBH staff that same year, and in 1958, was made a producer/director.
An avid gardener in his own right, Russ once reflected on the simple pleasures of tending his Nantucket property. Surveying the acre of turf he’d planted around his shingled cottage, he told TOH Magazine: “It’s restful and serene, like looking out to sea.” He added, with characteristic enthusiasm: “I’ll bet you didn’t know that grass is the world’s largest crop. And for some, it’s a cash cow.”
Russ lives with his wife, Marian, formerly known as The Victory Garden’s “Chef Marian,” in an 1851 farmhouse they restored 30 years ago and plan to tackle again when they find the time.
The Morashes also designed a Nantucket island getaway with three generations in mind. As Russ wrote in a 2003 TOH Magazine feature, the family opens the shingled cottage around Easter and doesn’t close up until after Christmas—with the house packed full from mid-June through September as Russ and Marian play host to the entire clan, including five grandchildren who bunk in a guest house out back. Family traditions there include softball on the front lawn, clamming and scalloping, and cooking with produce from Russ’s garden.
Russ is also the creator of This Old House television and has long practiced what the show preaches. Writing in TOH Magazine, he described the perpetual renovation lifestyle he shares with Marian: “We proceeded to add a new master bedroom, fireplace, kitchen, and guest cottage—and then we took the whole place down and built a new house. I doubt either home will ever truly be finished. It’s a way of life for us, this living in the blueprint.”
