He began his career in the 1940s, while still in his teens, working as an assistant director for his uncle, Hollywood producer Sam Katzman. He started out on adven- ture movie serials such as Brenda Starr, Reporter (1945), Superman (1948), Batman and Robin (1949), The Great Adventures of Captain Kidd (1951), Riding with Buffalo Bil (1954), et al. During the 1950s he continued working as assistant director, mostly with his uncle, in feature films such as A Yank in Korea (1951), The Giant Claw (1957), Face of a Fugitive (1959) and Angel Baby (1961). Besides his big screen work, Katzman also served on television shows, including The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, The Mickey Rooney Show and Bat Masterson. His additional early work in television production (and occasional writing and directing) includes shows crime drama Tallahassee 7000 (1961), western drama The Wild Wild West (1965-1969), the second season of crime drama Hawaii Five-O (1969- 1970), legal drama Storefront Lawyers (1970-1971), the final five seasons of western drama Gunsmoke (1970-1975) as wel as its spinoff series Dirty Saly (1974), legal drama Petrocelli (1974-1976) for which he was nominated an Edgar Allan Poe Award, and the two science fiction dramas The Fantastic Journey (1977) and Logan's Run (1977-1978). In 1965, he wrote, produced and directed the science fiction film Space Probe Taurus (also known as Space Monster).