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John Forsythe

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John Forsythe
in the trailer for The Trouble With Harry (1955)
Born
John Lincoln Freund

John Forsythe (born January 29, 1918 in Penns Grove, New Jersey), is an American stage, television and character actor who starred in three television series that spanned three decades such as single playboy father Bentley Gregg in the 1950s sitcom, Bachelor Father (1957 – 1962), as the unseen millionaire Charles Townsend on the popular 1970s crime drama, Charlie's Angels (1976 – 1981) and as conniving and beloved patriarch Blake Carrington on the popular 1980s soap opera, Dynasty (1981 – 1989). He’s also well-known for hosting World of Survival during the 1970s.

Early life

Forsythe, the older of three children, was born as John Lincoln Freund in Penns Grove, New Jersey to a factory worker. He was raised in Brooklyn, New York where his father worked as a Wall Street Businessman during the great depression of 1929.

At only 16 years of age he graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn and began attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1936 at age 18, he took a job as the announcer at Ebbets Field Stadium in Brooklyn, New York confirming a childhood love of baseball.

Movie career and army service

Despite showing initial reluctance, he moved to an acting career at the suggestion of his father. While there he met actress Parker MacCormick and the two were married in 1939. The couple had their first son, Dall in 1941 but divorced the following year. Despite this, Forsythe kept in contact with Dall.

As a bit player for Warner Brothers, Forsythe appeared promising in several small roles. As a result he was given a small role in Destination Tokyo (1943). Leaving his movie career for service in World War II, he worked to recover injured soldiers who had developed speech problems. His time in the military ended before year end.

Also in 1943 he 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 in 80 Days. Julie became Forsythe's second wife and in the early 1950s the marriage produced two daughters - Page and Brooke, the latter four years younger.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s Forsythe helped found and worked at the prestigious Actors Studio where he met other promising young actors such as Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, James Dean, Richard Egan, Rod Serling and a starlet from Britain namedJoan Collins.

During this time he appeared successfully on Broadway in Mister Roberts and The Teahouse of the August Moon.

In 1955 Alfred Hitchcock hired him to star in the movie The Trouble with Harry (1955) alongside a young Shirley MacLaine. This movie did not do well at the box office, and Forsythe found high profile movie work increasingly hard to find.

Television work

Bachelor Father

Now nearing 40, in 1957, he moved into series television, starring 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 smash hit and moved to NBC a few years later.

On various episodes of the had the pleasure of working with such up-and-coming startlets 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 due to declining ratings.

Post-Bachelor Father

In the early 1960s he made further movies including Kitten with a Whip (1964) and In Cold Blood (1967) but made several attempts at developing new television series - including The John Forsythe Show (1965-1966) and To Rome with Love (1969-1971), but neither were successful.

Between 1971 and 1977 he served as narrator on the syndicated nature series, The Wildlife of Survival.

Charlie's Angels

His big break came in 1976, he began of what would be a 13 year relationship with Aaron Spelling with the role of a mysterious millionaire and private investigator, Charles Townsend, on the crime drama Charlie’s Angels for ABC. The character of Charlie never appeared on-screen and so Forsythe wasn't required on the set at all. Instead he would record his voice on tape which was presented as a speaker phone conversation in the show, instructing the eponymous Angels of their mission for the episode. Though he wasn't needed much for the set, he did in fact become friends before and after the show. His real co-star on the show was Jaclyn Smith who played one of his leading ladies, Kelly Garrett, who stayed with the show until its end, and Kate Jackson who met him at a race track in the 1970s, won the role of Sabrina Duncan, who was the "smart" angel. Jackson stayed with Angels for 3 seasons until she left in 1979 due to other projects.

Charlie's Angels was almost immediately 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 and the show even survived the departure in 1977 of its biggest visible star, Farrah Fawcett - replaced by Cheryl Ladd after a contract dispute. Ladd, a neighbor and good friend of Forsythe's, was immediately offered the role of Kris Monroe, Jill's younger sister, and she would often hear his voice over the loudspeaker for the next four seasons.

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

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

During 1981 and his last working days on Charlie’s Angels, Forsythe beat George Peppard to play the role of conniving and beloved patriarch Blake Carrington in Dynasty (actually, Peppard got the part and quit over differences with the writers) – ABC's answer to the highly successful CBS series Dallas and another Aaron Spelling production. Between 1985 and 1987 Forsythe also appeared as Blake Carrington in the short-lived spin-off series The Colbys.

The show was another hit for Forsythe and proved his most successful role yet as his name and character became a pop culture icon of the 1980s and made him one of Hollywood’s leading men and sex symbols. Typical episodes might include family feuds, revolutionaries gunned down in the palace chapel, illegitimate children, sex or drugs but would always feature glitz and glamorous clothes.

He 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, and five times for Soap Opera Digest Awards, winning twice.

On screen, he was reunited with Bachelor Father guest star Linda Evans who had replacedAngie Dickinson to play Blake’s compassionate and caring younger wife Krystle. The chemistry of Forsythe and Evans clicked and were together promoted as the principal married couple on the show, appearing on numerous talk shows and news magazine shows.

The show also reunited Forsythe with Joan Collins, who had been one of his students during the 1950s.

During his time on Dynasty, Forsythe celebrated his 45th marriage anniversary to Julie Warren.

Dynasty lasted until 1989, a total of 9 seasons and Forsythe was the only actor to appear in all 220 episodes.

Evans said of her favorite actor that when Forsythe wanted to make the show, Dynasty, even better than all of the 1980s soaps were, he made the mark that just about every other serial had, all the charm, sex, and even real-issues that were tackling into the modern society. Not only did Forsythe wanted to make sure that all of the women needed to feel safe, but to also have a compassion with each and every one of them, as the show went on for years. In addition to her & Forsythe both owning their fine line of colognes/perfumes for the duration of the 1980s, Joan Collins, also owned hers, as well, therefore, Evans herself, Forsythe & Collins were all a part of the product phenomenon.

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 1 year.

Post-1990s work and life

On August 15, 1994, Forsythe's wife of 51 years, the former Julie Warren, died in hospital after he made the difficult decision to remove her life-support system. She had been in a coma following severe breathing difficulties.

In 2002 - eight years after Julie’s death - Forsythe married businesswoman Nicole Carter who is 22 years his junior. Forsythe has 1 son, 2 daughters, 6 grandchildren and 4 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 is now retired from acting. Besides spending time with his family, he now enjoys ownership of an art gallery. Forsythe has not smoked since 1982, when he quit following advice from a physician that he was at strong risk of emphysema.

On May 2, 2006, Forsythe appeared alongside his 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 aired on CBS.

It was announced that Forsythe was being treated for colorectal cancer on 13 October 2006, [1] but was discharged from hospital in a month. [2]

Filmography

Television Work


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