Randy Douthit is an internationally recognized director and executive producer. The 72-year-old was born in Newberg, OR, but lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Tanya. He is mainly known for his work producing Emmy ward-wining ‘Judge Judy,’ a job he held for 25 years.
During an interview with Inspirey, Douthit revealed he has been interested in television work since he was a young boy. He first saw television at his grandparent’s house at four years, which gave him a dream of being like people hosting television shows. At nine years, he produced a show called ‘the Variety Show’ and sold tickets around the neighborhood on his bike.
He officially started his career at 23 when he joined Portland’s KGW as the director. He directed ‘How Come,’ a Peabody award-winning children’s show. He later worked on ‘Seattle Today,’ a daily morning talk show that helped propel the channel’s audience tenfold.
He then moved to CNN when it was still in its infancy stages, working on airing daily occurrences as they happened. He became the director and executive of ‘Crossfire,’ the channel’s leading show. He also worked on ‘Capital Gang,’ a news panel program, and both shows later became CableAce Award winners.
In 1985, Randy Douthit created ‘Larry King Live,’ a Peabody award-winning primetime show he directed and executive produced. After a few years, he left CNN and joined Quincy Jones Entertainment, where he helped create ‘French Prince of Bel Air,’ a primetime sitcom.
Even with many successful and award-winning shows, Randy Douthit says ‘Judge Judy’ will always be his favorite. He became its producer since it premiered in September 1996 to its last episode in September 2021.
He loved the experience of working with Judge Sheindlin so much that he started working with her on ‘Judy Justice,’ which debuted on Amazon Studios in November 2021. In addition to his production duties, Douthit also helped work on developing Queen Bee Productions, a production company founded by Judy Sheindlin.
As someone who has worked with many people and on different projects, Randy Douthit emphasizes the importance of a stable daily routine. Therefore, he starts his days with a workout, calls, then goes to his production office to prepare for his upcoming production. He then reads proposed cases and edits existing shows.
To ensure audiences love what he makes, he concentrates on what they need or want, then develops a strategy to create a program that will fulfill those needs or wants.