Robert Butler (born November 17, 1927) is an American-born director. He was a very influential and very in demand television director from the mid-1960s to the early part of the 1990s. He helped to launch the career of Kurt Russell through four Walt Disney movies (Including The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and The Barefoot Executive), but his major contributions were made on the small screen. Butler has won two Emmy Awards for outstanding directing, the first in 1973 for The Blue Knight pilot episode and the second in 1981 for his Hill Street Blue premiere.