LOS ANGELES — Jack Shea, a Hollywood veteran who directed popular sitcoms such as “The Jeffersons” and who, as president of the Directors Guild of America, forcefully argued for minority hiring and local production, has died. He was 84.

Shea’s death Sunday at a Los Angeles care facility was caused by complications from Alzheimer’s disease, a family spokesman said.

His first TV directing gig came when he was 27, a frightened novice who suddenly was asked to fill in when the director of the game show “Truth or Consequences” called in sick. Over the years, he directed 110 episodes of “The Jeffersons,” 91 of “Silver Spoons,” 15 of “Sanford and Son” and episodes of many others, including “Designing Women,” “Growing Pains” and “The Waltons.”

He also directed 10 Bob Hope Christmas specials, often rehearsing his exuberant casts aboard the airplanes that took them to U.S. military posts around the world.

All the while, Shea held leadership positions in the Directors Guild and in various Catholic organizations. In 1992, he and his wife, Patt Shea, a TV screenwriter who worked on “All in the Family” and other programs, helped form Catholics in Media Associates, a group that seeks to honor films and TV shows expressing spiritual values.

“He loved his family and God and the Directors Guild, though not necessarily in that order,” said his daughter, Shawn Shea, who, like two of her brothers, is also a guild member.

John Francis Shea Jr. was born in New York City on Aug. 1, 1928, the son of a travel agent and his bookkeeper wife. He was a scholarship student at New York’s Regis High School and, in 1950, graduated from Fordham University with a bachelor’s degree in history.

A participant in student productions who soon realized his greater talent lay behind the scenes, Shea started out at NBC as a stage manager on the “Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse.” In 1952, he signed on for two years with the Air Force and was shipped to Los Angeles, where he made instructional films that included a lesson on proper tooth-brushing technique.

Shea later said he couldn’t believe his good fortune at being posted to a place where “everyone was walking around smiling.”

“I didn’t see how they got any work done,” he told the National Catholic Reporter in 2002. “I decided California was for me.”