Four Star Television
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Industry | Television production |
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Founded | 1952 (as Four Star Productions) Incorporated as Four Star Television on Jan. 12, 1959. |
Defunct | 1997 |
Fate | Sold to Compact Video as the result of a LBO by MacAndrews & Forbes |
Successors | Four Star International |
Headquarters | Beverly Hills, California |
Key people | David Charnay Dick Powell David Niven Ida Lupino Charles Boyer |
Four Star Television, also called Four Star International, was an American television production company. The company was founded in 1952 as Four Star Productions, by prominent Hollywood actors Dick Powell, David Niven, Charles Boyer, and Joel McCrea. McCrea left Four Star soon after its founding to continue acting in film, television and radio, before being replaced with Ida Lupino as the fourth star, even though Lupino did not own any stock in the company.[1]
Four Star produced several popular programs from the early days of television, including Four Star Playhouse (their first series), Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, Stagecoach West, The June Allyson Show (aka The DuPont Show Starring June Allyson), The Dick Powell Show, Burke's Law, The Rogues and The Big Valley. Despite each of its four stars sharing equal billing, it was Powell who played the biggest role in the success of the company's early growth.
Within a few years of Four Star's formation, Powell became President of the company. In 1955, a second company, Four Star Films, Inc., was formed as an affiliate organization to produce shows as The Rifleman, Trackdown, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Richard Diamond, Private Detective and The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor. There were also failed series, like Jeannie Carson's Hey, Jeannie!
In the late winter of 1958, both Four Star Productions and Four Star Films were merged into the new holding company Four Star Television, and began publicly trading on the American Stock Exchange on January 12, 1959. After Dick Powell died, Four Star was led by Thomas McDermott, followed by Aaron Spelling, was then purchased and developed for the global film and television market by David Charnay and later sold to Ron Perelman before Perelman sold Four Star to Rupert Murdoch's 20th Century Fox Television in 1996.[2][3][4]
History
Dick Powell
Dick Powell, a Hollywood veteran for 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, but 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 fall of 1952. While it only ran 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 became 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.
Richard Diamond, Private Detective
In 1957 it 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 Edwards, with Powell's approval, recast the character with the then-unknown Clark Gable-lookalike David Janssen. Other crime series by Four Star included Target: The Corruptors! with Stephen McNally and Robert Harland, The Detectives starring Robert Taylor, Burke's Law, starring Gene Barry, and Honey West, starring Anne Francis and John Ericson.
The Rogues
Another program, The Rogues, starred Boyer and Niven with Gig Young. This was the closest the studio's owners would come to appearing on the same program since Four Star Playhouse. 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 only lasted 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 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.
Four Star hired Herschel Burke Gilbert to compose the music of many of its programs. In the approximate decade from 1956 to 1966, Gilbert estimated that he had done the composition for some three thousand individual episodes of various television series.
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 the stars; John Wayne 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; The Big Valley was gone. 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 television 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, then the world's largest syndication company.[3] Charnay led a turnaround in Four Star that involved both vertical integration and horizontal integration, which developed the company into a global powerhouse syndicator of its large collection of shows that included: The Rifleman, Wanted: Dead or Alive, The Rogues, Zane Grey (Original Title: "Zane Grey Theater") and The Big Valley. While it did get a hit of sorts in producing a show called Thrill Seekers, (which was 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]
Final Acquisitions: Ronald Perelman and Rupert Murdoch
David Charnay sold Four Star to Ronald Perelman's Compact Video in 1989.[20] After Compact shut down, its remaining assets, including Four Star, were folded into majority shareholder Ronald Perelman's MacAndrews and Forbes Incorporated. In 1989, Perelman acquired New World Entertainment and Four Star became a division of New World. After Four Star International became part of New World, Four Star operated as in-name-only. In 1993, Four Star acquired 50% of Genesis Entertainment. As part of the acquisition, Genesis acquired television distribution rights of Four Star's 160 feature films and television series.[21]
Four Star International is now owned by Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox, with most of its library of programs controlled by 20th Century Fox Television as a result of the buyout between Rupert Murdoch and Ron Perelman in 1996.[2][22][23][24][25]
Four Star International's Asset Diversification
With the subsequent sale of New World to News Corporation (now 21st Century Fox) in 1997, the Four Star catalogue is now owned by 21st Century Fox's TV distribution unit, 20th Television, with a few exceptions:
- The Rifleman, which is now owned by its original co-production company Levy-Gardner-Laven Productions, and whose TV distribution rights are handled by the Peter Rodgers Organization
- Trackdown, which was co-produced with CBS, of which Leslie Moonves is President and CEO, is now owned and distributed by CBS Television Distribution, of which Armando Nuñez now serves as President and CEO
- Wanted: Dead or Alive, which was also co-produced with CBS, now has its TV distribution rights handled by StudioCanal Fox however previously held distribution rights.
- The syndicated game show, PDQ, which was co-produced with Heatter-Quigley Productions and distributed by Four Star, is now owned and distributed by MGM Television, through its ownership of the Heatter-Quigley library (MGM inherited Heatter-Quigley, following MGM's purchase of Orion Pictures, whose predecessor Filmways had bought Heatter-Quigley in the late-1960s)
Programs
- Four Star Playhouse (1952–56) hosts Dick Powell, Ida Lupino, David Niven, Charles Boyer
- Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre (1956–61)
- Hey, Jeannie! (1956–57) starring Jeannie Carson
- Mr. Adams and Eve (1957–58) starring Ida Lupino & Howard Duff
- Richard Diamond, Private Detective (1957–60) starring David Janssen
- Trackdown (1957–59) starring Robert Culp (all rights and library owned by CBS Television Distribution)
- Black Saddle (1958–59) starring Peter Breck
- Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958–61) starring Steve McQueen (All Rights owned by StudioCanal with Mill Creek Entertainment owning video rights sub licensed from Warner Home Video)
- The Rifleman (1958–63) starring Chuck Connors (All Library and trademark rights owned by Levy-Gardner-Laven Productions, Inc.)
- The David Niven Show (Summer 1959)
- The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor (1959–62)
- The DuPont Show with June Allyson (1959–61)
- Johnny Ringo (1959–60) produced by Aaron Spelling, starring Don Durant
- Law of the Plainsman (1959–60) starring Michael Ansara
- The Westerner (1960) produced by Sam Peckinpah, starring Brian Keith
- Michael Shayne (1960–61) starring Richard Denning
- Dante (1960–61) starring Howard Duff
- The Law and Mr. Jones (1960–62) starring James Whitmore
- Stagecoach West (1960–61) starring Wayne Rogers
- The Tom Ewell Show (1960–61)
- Peter Loves Mary (1960–61) starring Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy
- Mrs. G. Goes to College (1961–62) starring Gertrude Berg and Cedric Hardwicke, renamed The Gertrude Berg Show at mid-season
- Target: The Corruptors! (1961–62) starring Stephen McNally and Robert Harland
- The Dick Powell Show (1961–63)
- Saints and Sinners (1962–63) starring Nick Adams & John Larkin
- The Lloyd Bridges Show (1962–63)
- McKeever And The Colonel (1962–63) starring Scott Lane & Allyn Joslyn
- Ensign O'Toole (1962–63) starring Dean Jones
- Burke's Law (1963–65) / a.k.a. Amos Burke, Secret Agent (1965–66) Gene Barry
- Honey West (1965–66) starring Anne Francis & John Ericson
- The Rogues (1964–65) David Niven, Charles Boyer, Gig Young
- Hollywood A Go-Go (1964–65)
- The Big Valley (1965–69) starring Barbara Stanwyck
- The Smothers Brothers Show (1965–66)
- PDQ (1966–69) host Dennis James, produced by Heatter-Quigley Productions
- Malibu U (1967), hosted by Rick Nelson
- Here Come the Stars (1968) host George Jessel
- Can You Top This? (1970), host Wink Martindale
- The Reel Game (1971) hosted and produced by Jack Barry
- Monty Nash (1971–72) starring Harry Guardino, produced by Almada Productions, Inc.
- Thrill Seekers (1973–74) host Chuck Connors
- Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection (1985)
- Matchmaker (1987–88)
- Liar's Club (1988–89) host Eric Boardman
References
- ^ "Joel McCrea Biography and History". Turner Classic Movies. October 20, 1990. Retrieved November 19, 2017.
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(help) - ^ a b "Perelman's Not Out of the Game Just Yet". L.A. Times. July 18, 1996. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
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(help) - ^ a b "Four Star International". Bloomberg. 1989-04-13. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
- ^ a b "David Charnay, former Four Star Chief". Variety. 2002-10-07. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
- ^ 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.
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(help) - ^ Candy Spelling (November 7, 2013). "A Prime-Time Life on Display". Huffington Post. Retrieved November 14, 2017.
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(help) - ^ "Aaron Spelling Obituary". The Daily Telegraph. June 26, 2006. Retrieved November 14, 2017.
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(help) - ^ "David Charnay, 90, TV Production Chief". The New York Times. 2002-10-09. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-10-04.
- ^ "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.
- ^ "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.
- ^ "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.
- ^ "When Aaron Spelling Ruled Television: An Oral History of Entertainment's Prolific, Populist Producer". The Hollywood Reporter. 2015-09-18. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
- ^ Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century Journalists. Routledge. 1986. p. 342. ISBN 9781317403258.
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ignored (help) - ^ Obituaries in the Performing Arts, 2002: Film, Television, Radio, Theatre. McFarland Publishing. 2002. p. 135. ISBN 0786414642.
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ignored (help) - ^ "Morey Amsterdam, Actor, Comedian, Writer". L.A. Times. 1996-10-28. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
- ^ "Obituary: Morey Amsterdam". The Independent. 1996-11-04. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
- ^ "TV pioneer Dick Colbert dies". The Hollywood Reporter. 2009-08-25. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
- ^ "Archives, 1977, Broadway". New York Times. 1977-01-28. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
- ^ "Tony Thomopoulos, Producer". IMDb. 2017-11-18. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
- ^ CROUCH, GREGORY (1987-12-22). "Reasons Emerge for the Liquidation of Compact Video". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2016-10-04.
- ^ "LA Times"Four Star Acquires 50% of Genesis Entertainment articles.latimes.com, Retrieved on 12 June 2016
- ^ https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/513CKT1MCTL.jpg
- ^ http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-92526318.html
- ^ "OBIT/Hollywood Producer and Novelist David B. Charnay Dies at Age 90". Business Wire. October 7, 2002.
- ^ McLellan, Dennis (October 6, 2002). "David Charnay, 90; Journalist, Publicist and TV Syndicator". The Los Angeles Times.
External links
- Television production companies of the United States
- Defunct film and television production companies of the United States
- Entertainment companies based in California
- Media companies established in 1952
- Media companies disestablished in 1997
- 1952 establishments in California
- 1997 disestablishments in California
- Defunct companies based in the Greater Los Angeles Area
- 21st Century Fox subsidiaries
- Film production companies of the United States