Four Star Television

Last updated
Four Star Television
FormerlyFour Star Productions (1952–1959)
Company type Subsidiary
Industry Television production
Founded1952;72 years ago (1952) (as Four Star Productions)
January 12, 1959;65 years ago (1959-01-12) (incorporated as Four Star Television)
Founders Dick Powell
David Niven
Charles Boyer
Ida Lupino
Joel McCrea
Defunct1997 (1997)
FateSold to Compact Video as the result of a leveraged buyout by MacAndrews & Forbes
SuccessorsTV:
Four Star International
Library:
20th Television
Headquarters Beverly Hills, California
Costa Mesa, California
Key people
David Charnay (president)
Dick Powell (president)
David Niven (president)
Ida Lupino (president)
Charles Boyer (president)
Products Television

Four Star Television, also called Four Star International, was an American television production company. Founded in 1952 as Four Star Productions by prominent Hollywood actors Dick Powell, David Niven, Charles Boyer and Joel McCrea, it was inspired by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz founding Desilu Productions a year earlier. McCrea left soon after its founding to continue in films, television and radio, and was replaced by Ida Lupino as the fourth star—although Lupino did not own stock in the company. [1]

Contents

Four Star produced several popular programs in the early days of television, including Four Star Playhouse (its first series), Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre , Stagecoach West , The June Allyson Show (also known as The DuPont Show Starring June Allyson), The Dick Powell Show , Burke's Law , The Rogues and The Big Valley . Despite its stars sharing equal billing, Powell played the biggest role in the company's early success and growth.

Powell became President of Four Star within a few years of its formation and, in 1955, Four Star Films, Inc. was formed as an affiliate which produced such hit shows as The Rifleman ; Trackdown ; Wanted Dead or Alive ; Richard Diamond, Private Detective and The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor . There were also failed series, including Jeannie Carson's Hey, Jeannie!

In late 1958, Four Star Productions and Four Star Films were merged into a new holding company called Four Star Television, and began publicly trading on the American Stock Exchange on January 12, 1959. After Powell's death in 1963, Four Star was led by Thomas McDermott, followed by Aaron Spelling. It was then purchased and developed for global film and television markets by David Charnay, and subsequently was sold to Ron Perelman; Perelman sold it to 20th Century Fox Television in 1996. [2] [3] [4]

History

Dick Powell

Dick Powell, a Hollywood veteran of twenty years in 1952, longed to produce and direct. While he did have some opportunities to do so, such as RKO Radio Pictures' The Conqueror (1956) with John Wayne, Powell saw greater opportunities offered by the then-infant medium of television.

Four Star Playhouse

Powell came up with an idea for an anthology series, with a rotation of established stars every week, four stars in all. The stars would own the studio and the program, as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz had done successfully with the Desilu studio.

Powell had intended for the program to feature himself, Charles Boyer, Joel McCrea and Rosalind Russell; however, Russell and McCrea backed out, and David Niven came on board as the "third star". The fourth star would be a guest star at first. CBS liked the idea, and Four Star Playhouse made its debut in the fall of 1952. While it ran on alternate weeks during its first season (the program it alternated with was the television version of Amos 'n' Andy ), it was successful enough to be renewed and become a weekly program beginning with the second season and until the end of its run in 1956.

Actress/director Ida Lupino was brought on board as the pro forma fourth star, though unlike Powell, Boyer, and Niven, she owned no stock in the company.

Westerns

Following the cancellation of Four Star Playhouse, two new programs came on CBS: a comedy called Hey, Jeannie! which starred Jeannie Carson, and a western anthology show Zane Grey Theater , more formally named Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater. Carson's show ran for just a season, but Zane Grey Theater ran for four. It hosted the pilot episodes for Trackdown starring Robert Culp (which in turn hosted a pilot for Wanted: Dead or Alive with Steve McQueen), The Westerner with Brian Keith, Black Saddle with Peter Breck and Russell Johnson and The Rifleman , starring Chuck Connors, Johnny Crawford and Paul Fix.

While not given a production byline, when Joel McCrea and Walter Mirisch developed the 1959–1960 NBC series Wichita Town , adapted from the 1955 film Wichita in which McCrea starred as Wyatt Earp, Four Star provided the production facilities.

Richard Diamond, Private Detective

In 1957 Four Star debuted the first of its many police/detective shows, Richard Diamond, Private Detective . The "Diamond" series was originally created for radio by Blake Edwards, and the character played by Powell, but Powell recast the character with the then-unknown Clark Gable-lookalike David Janssen. Don Taylor portrayed Richard Diamond in the pilot film. Other crime series produced by Four Star included Target: The Corruptors! with Stephen McNally and Robert Harland, The Detectives starring Robert Taylor, Adam West, Tige Andrews, Mark Goddard, Russell Thorson and Lee Farr and Burke's Law starring Gene Barry, Gary Conway, Russell Thorson and Leon Lontoc and Honey West starring Anne Francis and John Ericson.

The Rogues

Another program, The Rogues , starred Boyer and Niven with Gig Young on NBC TV. This was (after Four Star Playhouse) the closest the studio's owners would come to appearing on the same program. The idea was for the three actors to alternate as the lead each week playing moral con-man cousins out to fleece reprehensible villains, often with one or two of the others turning up to play a small part in the caper (real ensemble episodes were rare).

The schedule of who pulled leading man duty was largely determined by the actors' movie commitments, thereby giving Niven, Boyer, and Young additional work between film roles. In any event, Young wound up helming most of the episodes since he usually had more spare time than Niven or Boyer, but even he had to be replaced by Larry Hagman as another cousin for two episodes when Young was too busy. The series lasted only through the 1964–65 season.

A powerhouse Hollywood launching pad

The studio was successful in the late 1950s as a result of the success of its programs. Four Star also helped bring some prominent names in television and movies to public attention including David Janssen, Steve McQueen, Robert Culp, Chuck Connors, Mary Tyler Moore, Linda Evans, Jeannie Carson, Lee Majors, The Smothers Brothers, Aaron Spelling, Dick Powell, David Niven, Joel McCrea, Charles Boyer, Ida Lupino, Richard Long, Peter Breck and Sam Peckinpah. The studio was well known as being sympathetic to creative staff. Powell often battled with network executives on behalf of writers, directors, and actors.

Dick Powell's death, Aaron Spelling's exit

On January 2, 1963, a day after his last appearance on his program The Dick Powell Show aired, Dick Powell died of stomach cancer. The stomach cancer was likely a result of having directed Howard Hughes's The Conqueror, amidst dust clouds of atomic test radiation in Utah. Out of a cast and crew of 220 people, 91 contracted various forms of organ cancers by 1981, including stars John Wayne, Susan Hayward and Agnes Moorehead. [5]

An ad executive named Thomas McDermott was brought in to run the studio for Niven, Boyer, and Powell's family. But without Powell's vision, the studio went into a period of decline. Within two years after Powell's death, Four Star had decreased to only five programs on the air. After another two years, all but one had gone off the air; The Big Valley was the only show left. Aaron Spelling began his career at Four Star Television as a staff writer and after a number of hits began producing television shows for Four Star. Spelling left the studio in 1966 to form his own production company with Danny Thomas, Thomas Spelling Productions. [6] [7]

For a brief time, Four Star Television owned Valiant Records, but sold the label to Warner Bros. Records in 1966, shortly after pop group The Association released their first records for the label. Early copies of the album And Then... Along Comes the Association show the Four Star disclaimer blacked out at the bottom of the label.

David Charnay's acquisition

From 1967 to 1989, David Charnay was the leader of a buyout group that owned a controlling interest in Four Star Television and subsequently renamed the company Four Star International. [8] For more than two decades, he served as president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Four Star. He directed the company, employing his only son, John Charnay as Director of Public Relations, as well as employing many of Hollywood's leading producers, stars, and executives of the late 20th and early 21st century, including Deke Heyward, Morey Amsterdam, Dick Colbert, Tony Thomopoulos, and collaborating with Aaron Spelling and George Spota for continued film and television projects, as well as many Hollywood stars and starlets before many producers advanced to create their own companies.
[9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19]

Four Star amassed a sizable inventory of programs for syndication, including The Rifleman , Wanted: Dead or Alive , The Rogues , Zane Grey Theatre and The Big Valley . While it did get a hit of sorts in producing a show called Thrill Seekers (a sort of proto-reality TV program, and the first reality show in the United States), the studio's primary niche was in its successful syndication to global film and television audiences. [4] In 1985, Four Star renewed its ties with Charnay himself. [20] During his tenure, they made a pact with Color Systems Technology to do a colorized version of Wanted Dead or Alive , which led to a lawsuit from Compact Video and Four Star against CST. [21]

Final acquisitions: Compact Video, Ronald Perelman and Rupert Murdoch

By 1987, David Charnay had sold Four Star to Robert Seidenglanz's Compact Video Systems, which was then majority-owned by Ronald Perelman. [22] After Compact Video shut down, its remaining assets, including Four Star, were folded into Perelman's MacAndrews and Forbes Incorporated. In 1989, Perelman acquired New World Entertainment and Four Star was merged into New World by April 1990. After Four Star International became part of New World, Four Star operated as in-name-only. [23] In 1993, Four Star acquired 50% of Genesis Entertainment. As part of the acquisition, Genesis acquired television distribution rights to Four Star's 160 feature films and television series. [24] [25]

Four Star International is now owned by The Walt Disney Company, with most of its library of programs controlled by 20th Television as a result of the buyout between Rupert Murdoch and Ron Perelman in 1996. [2] [26] [27] [28] [29]

Subsequent program ownership

With the subsequent sale of New World to 20th Century Fox (now owned by The Walt Disney Company) in 1997, the Four Star catalogue is now owned by Disney Platform Distribution, with a few exceptions:

Programs

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dick Powell</span> American actor (1904–1963)

Richard Ewing Powell was an American actor, singer, musician, producer, director, and studio head. Though he came to stardom as a musical comedy performer, he showed versatility and successfully transformed into a hardboiled leading man, starring in projects of a more dramatic nature. He was the first actor to portray private detective Philip Marlowe on screen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ida Lupino</span> British actress and filmmaker (1918–1995)

Ida Lupino was a British actress, director, writer, and producer. Throughout her 48-year career, she appeared in 59 films and directed eight, working primarily in the United States, where she became a citizen in 1948. She is widely regarded as the most prominent female filmmaker working in the 1950s during the Hollywood studio system. With her independent production company, she co-wrote and co-produced several social-message films and became the first woman to direct a film noir, The Hitch-Hiker, in 1953.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chuck Connors</span> American athlete and actor (1921–1992)

Kevin Joseph Aloysius Connors was an American actor, writer, and professional basketball and baseball player. He is one of only 13 athletes in the history of American professional sports to have played in both Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association. With a 40-year film and television career, he is best known for his five-year role as Lucas McCain in the highly rated ABC series The Rifleman (1958–63).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Culp</span> American actor (1930–2010)

Robert Martin Culp was an American actor and screenwriter widely known for his work in television. Culp earned an international reputation for his role as Kelly Robinson on I Spy (1965–1968), the espionage television series in which he and co-star Bill Cosby played secret agents. Before this, he starred in the CBS/Four Star Western series Trackdown as Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman in 71 episodes from 1957 to 1959. The 1980s brought him back to television as FBI Agent Bill Maxwell on The Greatest American Hero. Later, he had a recurring role as Warren Whelan on Everybody Loves Raymond, and was a voice actor for various computer games, including Half-Life 2. Culp gave hundreds of performances in a career spanning more than 50 years.

<i>The Rifleman</i> American Western television program

The Rifleman is an American Western television series starring Chuck Connors as rancher Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the fictional town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show was filmed in black and white, in half-hour episodes. The Rifleman aired on ABC from September 30, 1958, to April 8, 1963, as a production of Four Star Television. It was one of the first primetime series on US television to show a single parent raising a child.

<i>Trackdown</i> (TV series) American Western TV series (1957–1959)

Trackdown is an American Western television series starring Robert Culp that aired on CBS between 1957 and 1959. The series was produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Television and filmed at the Desilu-Culver Studio. Trackdown was a spin-off of Powell's anthology series, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre.

<i>The Rogues</i> (TV series) NBC comedy-drama (1964-65)

The Rogues is an American television series that aired on NBC from September 13, 1964, to April 18, 1965, starring David Niven, Charles Boyer, and Gig Young as a related trio of former con men who could, for the right price, be persuaded to trick a very wealthy and heinously unscrupulous mark. Although it won the 1964 Golden Globe award for Best Television Series, the show was cancelled after one season consisting of thirty episodes.

<i>Four Star Playhouse</i> 1952 American TV series or program

Four Star Playhouse is an American anthology series that ran from September 25, 1952, through September 27, 1956.

<i>The Dick Powell Show</i> American television series

The Dick Powell Show is an American television anthology series that aired on NBC from September 26, 1961 until September 17, 1963, primarily sponsored by the Reynolds Metals Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">20th Television</span> American television production company

20th Television, Inc. is an American television production company which is a division of Disney Television Studios, part of the Disney Entertainment division of The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment distributes the television series produced by 20th Television in home media formats through the 20th Century Home Entertainment banner.

<i>The Guns of Will Sonnett</i> American television series 1967-1969

The Guns of Will Sonnett is a Western television series set in the 1870s that was broadcast in color on the ABC television network from 1967 to 1969. The series, which began with the working title, "Two Rode West", was the first production collaboration between Aaron Spelling and Danny Thomas, who would later go on to produce The Mod Squad. The series is distributed by CBS Television Distribution and, when telecast, is usually seen in tandem with another 1960s short-lived Western series, the Mark Goodson-Bill Todman production Branded; King World was previously responsible for distributing both shows.

<i>Black Saddle</i> American TV Western series (1959–1960)

Black Saddle is an American Western television series starring Peter Breck that aired 44 episodes from January 10, 1959, to May 6, 1960. The first season of 20 episodes aired on NBC from January 1959-September 1959. ABC picked up the second season in the 1959-1960 season with 24 new episodes produced. The half-hour program was produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Television, and the original backdoor pilot was an episode of CBS's Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, with Chris Alcaide originally portraying the principal character, Clay Culhane, in an episode entitled "A Threat of Violence."

David Alan Ladd is an American film and television producer and former actor.

<i>Johnny Ringo</i> (TV series) Television series

Johnny Ringo is an American Western television series starring Don Durant that aired on CBS from October 1, 1959, until June 30, 1960. It is loosely based on the life of the notorious gunfighter and outlaw Johnny Ringo, also known as John Peters Ringo or John B. Ringgold, who tangled with Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Buckskin Franklyn Leslie.

<i>Hotel de Paree</i> 1959 American TV series or program

Hotel de Paree is a Western television series starring Earl Holliman that aired thirty-three episodes on the CBS Friday evening from October 2, 1959, until September 23, 1960, under the alternate sponsorship of the Liggett & Myers company and Kellogg's.

Herschel Burke Gilbert was an American orchestrator, musical supervisor, and composer of film and television scores and theme songs, including The Rifleman, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater, and The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor. Gilbert once estimated that his compositions had been used in at least three thousand individual episodes of various television series.

<i>The DuPont Show with June Allyson</i> American TV anthology series (1959–1961)

The DuPont Show with June Allyson is an American anthology drama series which aired on CBS from September 21, 1959, to April 3, 1961, with rebroadcasts continuing until June 12, 1961.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Devon</span> American actor (1926–2010)

Richard Devon was an American character actor and voice actor who between the late 1940s and 1991 performed in hundreds of roles on stage, radio, television, and in feature films.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Alcaide</span> American film and television actor (1923–2004)

Chris Alcaide was an American film and television actor. He mostly appeared on western television shows including, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Rawhide, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Trackdown, Laramie, Death Valley Days, Tales of Wells Fargo, Maverick, Zane Grey Theatre and The Rifleman.

<i>Dick Powells Zane Grey Theatre</i> 1956 American TV series or program

Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre is an American Western anthology television series broadcast on CBS from October 5, 1956 until May 18, 1961.

References

  1. ↑ "Joel McCrea Biography and History". Turner Classic Movies. October 20, 1990. Retrieved November 19, 2017.
  2. 1 2 "Perelman's Not Out of the Game Just Yet". Los Angeles Times . July 18, 1996. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  3. ↑ "Four Star International". Bloomberg. 1989-04-13. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
  4. 1 2 "David Charnay, former Four Star Chief". Variety. 2002-10-07. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
  5. ↑ Karen G. Jackovich, Mark Sennet (November 10, 1980). "The Children of John Wayne, Susan Hayward and Dick Powell Fear That Fallout Killed Their Parents". People magazine. Retrieved March 22, 2009.
  6. ↑ Candy Spelling (November 7, 2013). "A Prime-Time Life on Display". Huffington Post . Retrieved November 14, 2017.
  7. ↑ "Aaron Spelling Obituary". The Daily Telegraph . June 26, 2006. Retrieved November 14, 2017.
  8. ↑ "David Charnay, 90, TV Production Chief". The New York Times. 2002-10-09. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2016-10-04.
  9. ↑ "The youngest TV executive in Hollywood is John Charnay, of Four Star International. He's all of 25!". The Indianapolis Star. 1975-02-02. p. 33. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
  10. ↑ "The youngest TV executive in Hollywood is John Charnay, of Four Star International. He's all of 25!". Detroit Free Press. 1975-03-26. p. 50. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
  11. ↑ "John Charnay, director of public relations,Four Star International, and news editor of The Hollywood Reporter, joins ICPR public relations, Los Angeles, as account executive". Broadcasting & Cable. 1977-05-02. p. 73. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
  12. ↑ "When Aaron Spelling Ruled Television: An Oral History of Entertainment's Prolific, Populist Producer". The Hollywood Reporter. 2015-09-18. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
  13. ↑ William H. Taft (1986). Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century Journalists. Routledge. p. 342. ISBN   978-1-317-40325-8.
  14. ↑ Harris M. Lentz III (2002). Obituaries in the Performing Arts, 2002: Film, Television, Radio, Theatre. McFarland Publishing. p. 135. ISBN   0-7864-1464-2.
  15. ↑ "Morey Amsterdam, Actor, Comedian, Writer". L.A. Times. 1996-10-28. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
  16. ↑ "Obituary: Morey Amsterdam". The Independent. 1996-11-04. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
  17. ↑ "TV pioneer Dick Colbert dies". The Hollywood Reporter. 2009-08-25. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
  18. ↑ "Archives, 1977, Broadway". The New York Times. 1977-01-28. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
  19. ↑ "Tony Thomopoulos, Producer". IMDb . 2017-11-18. Retrieved 2017-11-18.[ unreliable source? ]
  20. ↑ "Four Star deal" (PDF). 1985-11-11. Retrieved 2021-10-04.
  21. ↑ "Four Star, Compact Sue CST In Colorization Deal". Variety . 1987-07-29. p. 96.
  22. ↑ CROUCH, GREGORY (1987-12-22). "Reasons Emerge for the Liquidation of Compact Video". Los Angeles Times. ISSN   0458-3035 . Retrieved 2016-10-04.
  23. ↑ "How New World was created: a timeline" (PDF). World Radio History. 9 September 1994. Retrieved 3 October 2023.
  24. ↑ "LA Times"Four Star Acquires 50% of Genesis Entertainment articles.latimes.com, Retrieved on 12 June 2016
  25. ↑ "Perelman buys 50% of Genesis" (PDF). World Radio History. 24 May 1993. Retrieved 3 October 2023.
  26. ↑ https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/513CKT1MCTL.jpg [ bare URL image file ]
  27. ↑ http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-92526318.html [ dead link ]
  28. ↑ "OBIT/Hollywood Producer and Novelist David B. Charnay Dies at Age 90". Business Wire. October 7, 2002.
  29. ↑ McLellan, Dennis (October 6, 2002). "David Charnay, 90; Journalist, Publicist and TV Syndicator". Los Angeles Times.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.