[1] After a brief career in radio and later as a television stage manager for pioneering shows including Studs' Place with Studs Terkel and Kukla, Fran & Ollie, Auerbach became the first director of Mr. Wizard in 1951,[2] following a brief stint on Zoo Parade, a live program from the Lincoln Park Zoo with Marlin Perkins that predated the long-running Wild Kingdom.
[3] With Auerbach as the principal director, Love of Life was part of the early careers of actors Frances Sternhagen, Paul Michael Glaser, Christopher Reeve, Roy Scheider, Bonnie Bedelia, Jessica Walter, Nancy Marchand, Ray Wise, Tony Lo Bianco,[4] Jonathan Frakes,[5] Warren Beatty[6] and Peter Falk.
By the time of his retirement from directing in the 1990s, Auerbach had reached iconic status in New York daytime drama circles, with a career that spanned five decades.
Given the never-ending production cycle of soap operas (without rerun seasons) and the massive number of minutes produced each week (many soap operas are now daily one-hour shows, as opposed to the early 15-, 30-, or 45-minute episodes),[8] It seems likely that Auerbach has directed more dramatic (i.e., non-news) television than any other American director (approximately 3,000 hours).
Auerbach received the Directors Guild of America's Robert B. Aldrich Award in 1991, and was named a Honorary Life Member of the Directors Guild in 2004,[9] joining a small, elite group that includes Charles Chaplin, David Lean, Frank Capra, Walt Disney, Darryl F. Zanuck, Louis B. Mayer, Jack L. Warner, Lew Wasserman, Elia Kazan, Chuck Jones, Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Jack Valenti.