Director

Director (pronounced dih-rek-ter or dahy-rek-ter)

(1) A person or thing that directs others or other things (Director of Engineering, Director of Sales et al).

(2) In corporate law, one of a group of persons chosen to control or govern the affairs of a company or corporation, usually as a member of a board of directors and sometimes also including executive functions.

(3) The person responsible for the interpretive aspects of a stage, film, or television production; the person who supervises the integration of all the elements, as acting, staging, lighting etc.

(4) In musical or other artistic productions (stage, art galleries, opera etc) one in charge of all artistic (and sometimes administrative) matters (in larger operations the roles sometimes specialized: sound director, script director etc).

(5) The manager or chief executive of certain schools, institutes, government bureaux etc.

(6) In military use, a mechanical or electronic device which continuously calculates firing data for use against an airplane or other moving target, configured usually to display graphical information about in real time the targets of a weapons system.

(7) In chemistry, the common axis of symmetry of the molecules of a liquid crystal.

(8) In music, a synonym for conductor (US use, now less common).

(9) A counsellor, confessor, or spiritual guide (now less common).

1470-1480: The construct was direct(us) + -or.  A borrowing in the sense of “a guide” from the Anglo French directour & the French directeur the agent noun from the Latin dirigere (set straight, arrange; give a particular direction to) and its source, the Late Latin directorem, from the Latin dīrectus, the perfect passive participle of dīrigō (straighten, direct), the construct being dis- (asunder, in pieces, apart, in two) + regō (to direct, to guide, keep straight; make straight; rule), from the primitive Indo-European root reg (move in a straight line).  The -or suffix was from the Middle English -our, from the Old French -eor, from the Latin -ātor and reinforced by the Old French -or and its source, the Latin -tor & -tōrem.  It was used to create an agent noun, often from a verb, indicating a person or object (often machines or parts of them) that do the verb or part of speech with which they are formed.  In electrical engineering it has the specific use of being appended to the names of members of classes of components, especially those that have an extensive property name of the same root suffixed with -ance (eg to convey the sense that resistors possess resistance and inductors possess inductance).  The alternative spelling directour became rare in the late eighteenth century and is long obsolete.  Director, directorate & directorship are nouns, directing is a verb, directed is a verb & adjective, directorial is an adjective and directorially is an adverb; the noun plural is directors.  The feminine forms of the noun (directress & directrix) were always rare and are now thought extinct (and certainly proscribed).

Lindsay Lohan with Spanish fashion designer Estrella Arch (b 1974), on the catwalk at the conclusion of Emanuel Ungaro's Spring-Summer show in Paris, October 2009.  Ms Lohan was employed as a creative director at the House of Emanuel Ungaro, founded in 1965 by French fashion designer Emanuel Ungaro (1933–2019)

The noun director (corporate sense of “one of a number of persons having authority to manage the affairs of a company” was known as early as the 1630s; the theatrical sense of “the leader of a company of performers” dates from 1911 and if was from here the use was picked up by those in charge of the artistic or technical aspects of movie-making.  The noun directorship (condition or office of a director) has been in use since the 1720s, the adjective directorial (that directs) known since 1770.  The noun directorate was used first in 1834 of “a body of directors” and may immediately have be used individually of the “office of a director” but this was certainly first documented in 1837.  Director is a word defined both by its history of use (film director, director of football etc) and law (company director) so although titles like supervisor, head, manager, leader, administrator, chief, boss etc certainly implies “one who directs”, they’re traditionally not used as direct synonyms because “director” is a “loaded word”.  It’s also modified as needed (art director, managing director, sub-director et al).

1967 Imperial Crown Coupe with "Mobile Director Package"; note the rearward facing front passenger seat.  

In the years between 1955-1975, Chrysler re-created Imperial as a separate, stand-alone division within the corporation (albeit with some sharing with other divisions of engine-transmission combinations and certain other components), emulating the structure Ford used with Lincoln.  Although the approach, especially during the early years, yielded some success, the separation didn’t survive the troubled decades of the 1970s (by which time the platform and body-shells were shared with the other divisions and much of the earlier distinctiveness had been surrendered); a couple of subsequent, half-heated, revivals proved abortive.  The Imperial in 1967-1968 had actually switched from the separate frame used since 1955 to the unitary construction of the full-sized ranges offered by other divisions but maintained a certain degree of difference by virtue of a unique body, albeit one with slightly reduced dimensions from those of the previous decade.  Although styled with an elegance derived from its simplicity of line, the Imperial continued to not quite match the timeless modernity of the Lincoln or the indefinable but incomparable allure of the Cadillac and although sales did improve in 1967, the volumes were only ever a fraction of its two competitors.  The basic engineering though was sound, the TorqueFlite transmission as responsive and robust as any (although it didn’t quite slur as effortlessly between ratios as the Cadillac’s Turbo-Hydramatic) and the 440 cubic inch (7.2 litre) a notch better, something the others wouldn’t match until 1968.  Significantly, all at the time acknowledged the Imperial was the better road car although, given it operated in a market where quietness and isolation from the environment was afforded more of a premium than handling prowess, any real-world advantage in the target market was probably marginal.

The more stylish if less roadable opposition: 1967 Cadillac Coupe DeVille (left) & 1967 Lincoln Continental Coupe (right).

In those years however, the Imperial did offer something truly unique.  The “Mobile Director Package” was available exclusively on the Imperial Crown Coupe and reflected (within the limits of what the available technology would then permit) what Chrysler thought a company director would most value in an automobile being used as a kind of “office on the move” and it included: an extendable walnut-topped table which could be unfolded over the rear seats, a gooseneck (Tensor brand) high-intensity lamp which could be plugged into the cigarette lighter on either side of the car (in a sign of the times, Imperials had four cigarette lighters installed) and most intriguingly, the front passenger seat could rotate 180° to permit someone comfortably to use the tables and interact with those in the rear.  All the publicity material associated with the Mobile Director Package did suggest the rearward-facing seat would likely be occupied by a director’s secretary and as one might imagine, the configuration did preclude her (and those depicted were usually women) using a lap & sash seat-belt but she would always have been in arm’s reach of at least one cigarette lighter so there was that.  The package was available only for those two seasons and in its first years cost US$597.40 (some US$5500 adjusted for 2023 values).  The cost of the option was in 1968 reduced to US$317.60 (some US$2800 adjusted for 2023 values) but that did little to stimulate demand, only 81 buyers of Crown Coupes ticking the box so even if the new safety regulations hadn’t outlawed the idea, it’s doubtful the Mobile Director Package would have appeared on the option list in 1969 when the new (and ultimately doomed) “fuselage” Imperials debuted.

Imperial's advertising always emphasised the "business" aspect of the package but the corporation also circulated a photograph of the table supporting a (presumably magnetic) chessboard and another with a bunch of grapes tumbling seductively.  The latter may have been to suggest the utility of the package when stopping for a picnic with one's secretary.  Once advertising agencies got ideas, they were hard to restrain.    

The advertising copy at the time claimed the package was “designed for the busy executive who must continue his work while he travels”, serving also as “an informal conference lounge”.  The Imperial was a big car (although the previous generations were larger still) but “lounge” was a bit of a stretch but “truth in advertising” laws were then not quite as onerous as they would become.  More accurate were the engineering details, the table able to “pivot to any of four different positions, supported by a sturdy chrome-plated pillar and in the forward position, it can convert into a padded armrest between the two front seats while extended, it opens out to twice its original size with a lever on the table swivel support to permit adjustments to the height”.  It was noted “a special tool is used for removing the table and storing it in the trunk” the unstated implication presumably that in deference to the secretary’s finger-nails, that would be a task for one’s chauffeur.  The US$597.40 the option listed at in 1967 needs to be compared with the others available and only the most elaborate of the air condition systems was more expensive.

Imperial option list, 1967.

The package as it appeared in showrooms was actually modest compared with the “Mobile Executive” car the corporation sent around the show circuit in 1966.  That Imperial had been fitted with a telephone, Dictaphone, writing table, typewriter, television, a fax machine, reading lamp and stereophonic sound system.  The 1966 show car was also Crown Coupe but it was much more ambitious, anticipating advances in mobile communications which would unfold over the next quarter century.  At the time, car phones were available (the first service in the US offered during the late 1940s) although they were expensive and the nature of the bandwidth used and the lack of data compression meant that the range was limited as was the capacity; only several dozen calls able simultaneously to be sustained.  In 1966, there was even the novelty of a Datafax, able to send or receive a US Letter-sized (slightly smaller than A4) page of text in six minutes.  That sounds unimpressive in 2023 (or compared even with the 14.4 kbit/s for Group 3 FaxStream services of the 1990s) but the appropriate comparison is with the contemporary alternatives (driving, walking or using the US Mail) and six minutes would have been a considerable advance.  As it was, the tempting equipment awaited improvements in infrastructure such as the analogue networks of the 1980s and later cellular roll-outs and these technologies contributed to the extent of use which delivered the economies of scale which eventually would make possible smart phones.

The 1966 car which toured the show circuit demonstrated the concept which, in simplified form, would the next year appear on the option list but things like telephones and fax machines anticipated the future by many years (although fax machines in cars (Audi one of a handful to offer them) never became a thing).  The Dictaphone did however make the list as one of Chrysler's regular production options (RPO) in the early 1970s and the take-up rate was surprisingly high although the fad quickly passed, dealers reporting the customers saying they worked well but they "never used them".