John Forsythe

For those of a similar name, see John Forsyth.

John Forsythe
in the trailer for The Trouble with Harry (1955)
Born	John Lincoln Freund
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1943–2003
Spouse(s)	Parker McCormick (1939–1943) Julie Warren (1943–1994; her death) Nicole Carter (2002– 2010; his death)

John Forsythe (January 29, 1918 – April 1, 2010) was an American stage, television and film actor. Forsythe starred in three television series, spanning three decades, as single playboy father Bentley Gregg in the 1950s sitcom Bachelor Father (1957–1962); as the unseen millionaire Charles Townsend on the 1970s crime drama Charlie's Angels (1976–1981), and as ruthless and beloved patriarch Blake Carrington on the 1980s soap opera Dynasty (1981–1989). He hosted World of Survival during the 1970s. Forsythe appeared each year to read children's fiction during the annual Christmas program near his home at the rural resort community of Solvang, California, north of Los Angeles.

Early life

Forsythe, oldest of three children, was born John Lincoln Freund in Penns Grove, New Jersey, the son of Blanche Materson (née Blohm) and Samuel Jeremiah Freund, who was a stockbroker. He was raised in Brooklyn, New York where his father worked as a Wall Street businessman during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

At only sixteen years of age, Forsythe graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn and began attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1936 at the age of eighteen, he took a job as the public address announcer for Brooklyn Dodgers games at Ebbets Field, confirming a childhood love of baseball.

Movie career and army service

The handprints of John Forsythe in front of The Great Movie Ride at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park.

Despite showing initial reluctance, Forsythe began an acting career at the suggestion of his father. He met actress Parker McCormick (December 1918 – July 1980) and the couple married in 1939; they had a son, Dall (born in 1943), but soon divorced.

As a bit player for Warner Brothers, Forsythe successfully appeared in several small parts. As a result he was given a small role in Destination Tokyo (1943). Leaving his movie career for service in World War II, he appeared in the U.S. Army Air Forces play and film Winged Victory, then worked with injured soldiers who had developed speech problems.

Also in 1943, Forsythe met Julie Warren, initially a theatre companion but later a successful actress in her own right, landing a role on Broadway in Around the World. Warren became Forsythe's second wife and in the early 1950s the marriage produced two daughters – Page and Brooke.

In 1947, Forsythe joined the initial class of the soon-to-be prestigious Actors Studio, where he met other promising young actors including Marlon Brando and Julie Harris. During this time he appeared on Broadway in Mister Roberts and The Teahouse of the August Moon.

In 1955, Alfred Hitchcock cast Forsythe in the movie The Trouble with Harry, with Shirley MacLaine in her first movie appearance. The film was unsuccessful at the box office, and Forsythe found high profile movie work harder to find.

Television work

Throughout the 1950s, Forsythe successfully appeared in the new medium and regularly on all the networks, especially as a guest star. For example, during this period, Forsythe notably appeared on the popular anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents in an engaging episode entitled "Premonition" opposite then up-and-coming Cloris Leachman.

Bachelor Father

In 1957, he took a leading role in the situation comedy Bachelor Father for CBS as Bentley Gregg, a playboy lawyer who has to become a father to his niece Kelly (played by Noreen Corcoran), upon the death of her biological parents. The show was an immediate ratings hit and moved to NBC the following season and to ABC in the fall of 1961.

On various episodes Forsythe worked with such up-and-coming actresses as Mary Tyler Moore, Barbara Eden, Donna Douglas, Sally Kellerman, Sue Ane Langdon, and Linda Evans (who immediately formed a crush on the much older actor). During the 1961 season, Bachelor Father moved to ABC, but was cancelled that season because of declining ratings.

After Bachelor Father

In the early 1960s, Forsythe returned to acting in movies including Kitten with a Whip (1964) and In Cold Blood (1967). He also attempted two new television programs: The John Forsythe Show on NBC with Guy Marks, Elsa Lanchester, Ann B. Davis, Peggy Lipton, and Forsythe's two young daughters, Page and Brooke. (1965–1966) and To Rome with Love on CBS (1969–1971) with co-star Walter Brennan. Between 1971 and 1977, Forsythe served as narrator on the syndicated nature series, The World of Survival. He was also the announcer for Michelob beer commercials from the 70s through about 1985, notably during the "Weekends were made for Michelob" era.

Charlie's Angels

Forsythe began a 13-year association with Aaron Spelling in 1976, cast in the role of a mysterious unseen millionaire and private investigator Charles Townsend in the crime drama Charlie's Angels (1976–1981). Townsend's voice is heard over a speaker phone, instructing the eponymous Angels of their mission for the episode. Charlie's Angels was a huge success, much as Bachelor Father had been before, and was exported to over 90 countries. Forsythe quickly became the highest paid actor on television.

During this period, Forsythe invested a lot of money in thoroughbred racing, a personal hobby. Gaining respect with the celebrity thoroughbred circuit, he had served on the Board of Directors at the Hollywood Park Racetrack since 1972, and was on the committee for more than 25 years.

Following heart problems, Forsythe underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 1979. This was so successful that he safely returned to work on Charlie's Angels, and also appeared in the courtroom drama ...And Justice for All later that year. By 1980, Charlie's Angels was starting to decline in ratings, but Forsythe remained under contract to Spelling.

Dynasty

In 1981, nearing the end of Charlie's Angels, Forsythe was selected as a last minute replacement for George Peppard in the role of conniving patriarch Blake Carrington in Dynasty. Another Aaron Spelling production, Dynasty was ABC's answer to the highly successful CBS series Dallas. Between 1985 and 1987, Forsythe also appeared as Blake Carrington in the short-lived spin-off series The Colbys.

Dynasty was a hit for Forsythe and proved his most successful role yet. Forsythe and his character became pop culture icons of the 1980s, making him one of Hollywood's leading men and sex symbols. The series explored real-life and fictionalized topics including family feuds, foreign revolutionary gunplay, illegitimate children, sex, drugs, and featured lavish lifestyles and glamorous clothes.

The series reunited Forsythe with Bachelor Father guest star Linda Evans, who had replaced Angie Dickinson to play Blake's compassionate and caring younger wife Krystle. The chemistry between Forsythe and Evans was apparent and as the principal married couple on the show, the two appeared on numerous talk and news magazine shows. During the run of the series, Forsythe, Evans and Collins promoted the Dynasty line of fragrances.

Dynasty came to an end in 1989, after a total of nine seasons, with Forsythe being the only actor to appear in all 220 episodes.

Forsythe was nominated for Emmy awards three times between 1982 and 1984 for "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series" but each time failed to win. He was also nominated six times for Golden Globes, winning twice. He was nominated five times for the Soap Opera Digest Awards, also winning twice. During this time, Forsythe celebrated his 45th wedding anniversary.

The Powers That Be

In 1992, after a three-year absence, Forsythe returned to series television starring in Norman Lear's situation comedy, The Powers That Be for NBC. The show wasn’t a ratings winner and was cancelled after only one year.

Post-1990s work and life

On August 15, 1994, Forsythe's wife of 51 years, the former Julie Warren, died aged 74 in a hospital after he made the difficult decision to turn off her life-support system. She had been in a coma following severe breathing difficulties. In 2002, Forsythe married businesswoman Nicole Carter, twenty-two years his junior. Forsythe has one son, two daughters, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren from his previous marriages.

Forsythe reprised his role as Charlie for the film version of Charlie's Angels (2000) and its sequel Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003), but then retired from acting. Besides spending time with his family, he enjoyed ownership of an art gallery.

In 2005 actor Bartholomew John portrayed Forsythe in Dynasty: The Making of a Guilty Pleasure, a fictionalized television movie based on the creation and behind the scenes production of Dynasty.

On May 2, 2006, Forsythe appeared with Dynasty co-stars Linda Evans, Joan Collins, Pamela Sue Martin, Al Corley, Gordon Thomson and Catherine Oxenberg in Dynasty Reunion: Catfights & Caviar. The one-hour reunion special of the former ABC series aired on CBS.

It was announced that Forsythe was being treated for colorectal cancer on October 13, 2006. He was discharged from the hospital after one month.

He died on April 1, 2010, from pneumonia, at the age of 92.

Thoroughbred racing

John Forsythe owned and bred Thoroughbred racehorses for many years and was a member of the Board of Directors of Hollywood Park Racetrack. Among his successes, in partnership with film producer Martin Ritt he won the 1976 Longacres Mile with Yu Wipi. With partner Ken Opstein, he won the 1982 Sixty Sails Handicap with Targa, and the 1993 La Brea Stakes with a daughter of Targa, Mamselle Bebette, which he raced under the name of his Big Train Farm, a stable he named for Hall of Fame baseball pitcher, Walter "Big Train" Johnson,

In the 1980s, John Forsythe served as the regular host for the annual Eclipse Awards. He was the recipient of the 1988 Eclipse Award of Merit for his contibution in promoting the sport of Thoroughbred racing.

Filmography

• Northern Pursuit (1943)
• Destination Tokyo (1943)
• The Captive City (1952)
• It Happens Every Thursday (1953)
• The Glass Web (1953)
• Escape from Fort Bravo (1953)
• American Harvest (Revised Edition) (1955) (short subject) (narrator)
• The Trouble with Harry (1955)
• The Ambassador's Daughter (1956)
• Everything But the Truth (1956)
• Dubrowsky (1959)
• Kitten with a Whip (1964)
• Madame X (1966)
• In Cold Blood (1967)
• Silent Treatment (1968)
• Murder Once Removed (1971)
• Topaz (1969)
• The Happy Ending (1969)
• Goodbye and Amen (1977)
• ...And Justice for All (1979)
• Scrooged (1988)
• Stan and George's New Life (1991)
• We Wish You a Merry Christmas (1999) (voice) (direct-to-video)
• Charlie's Angels (2000)
• Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003)

Television work

• Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955)
• Bachelor Father (1957–1962)
• The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962)
• See How They Run (1964)
• The John Forsythe Show (1965–1966)
• A Bell for Adano (1967)
• Shadow on the Land (1968)
• To Rome With Love (1969–1971)
• Murder Once Removed (1971)
• The World of Survival (1971–1977) (narrator)
• The Letters (1973) (unsold pilot)
• Lisa, Bright and Dark (1973)
• Cry Panic (1974)
• The Healers (1974)
• Terror on the 40th Floor (1974)
• The Deadly Tower (1975)
• Charlie's Angels (1976–1981)
• Amelia Earhart (1976)
• Tail Gunner Joe (1977)
• Emily, Emily (1977)
• Never Con a Killer (1977) (pilot for The Feather and Father Gang)
• Cruise Into Terror (1978)
• With This Ring (1978)
• The Users (1978)
• A Time for Miracles (1980)
• Dynasty (1981–1989)
• Sizzle (1981)
• Mysterious Two (1982)
• On Fire (1987)
• Miss Universe Pageant (1989)
• Opposites Attract (1990)
• Dynasty: The Reunion (1991)
• The Powers That Be (1992–1993)
• I Witness Video (host from 1993–1994)
• People's Century (1995) (miniseries) (narrator in U.S. version)
• Dynasty Reunion: Catfights & Caviar (2006)

External links

• Official site
• John Forsythe Archive of American Television interview (2000)