Harve Bennett
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Harve Bennett (born Harve Bennett Fischman on August 17, 1930 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American television and film producer and screenwriter.[1]
Early years
As a young boy, Bennett was one of the kids on the radio program Quiz Kids, which introduced him to show business.[2] By the time Bennett had reached college age, the radio business—aside from music radio—was in decline, and he turned to the world of film. He entered the University of California, Los Angeles and graduated from their famous film school.[2] Following his graduation from college, Bennett began his career as a production executive. He first worked at CBS in New York City and later moved to the programming department of ABC, becoming Vice President of Daytime Programming.[2] At ABC he rose to become Vice-President of Programming for a time.
Move to production
Following his work with ABC, Bennett moved over to production. His first project was to develop a television show with producer Aaron Spelling called The Mod Squad, which Bennett produced from 1968 until 1973.[3]
Following The Mod Squad, Bennett joined Universal Studios where he produced a variety of television series and miniseries. The best known of these series are probably The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman.[4] Other series and mini-series he produced at Universal include Rich Man, Poor Man, The Invisible Man (1975 series), and Gemini Man.[2][4]
Bennett then moved to Screen Gems where he continued as a television producer. He projects at Screen Gems included the series Salvage 1 and the mini-series The Jesse Owens Story and A Woman Called Golda, which was Ingrid Bergman's final role and which co-starred Leonard Nimoy.[3]
Star Trek
While working at Screen Gems, Bennett was also brought to Paramount Pictures to work in their television division producing TV shows. Only a few weeks into his contract, he was called to a meeting with then top executives of Paramount Barry Diller and Michael Eisner, along with Charles Bluhdorn who was then head of Paramount's parent Gulf+Western. Bluhdorn, dissatisfied with the results of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, was looking for someone new to take over the next film in the series.
According to Bennett, Bluhdorn asked him what he thought of the first Star Trek film and, after Bennett said he found it boring, Bluhdorn asked him if he could make a better picture and if he could do it for less than $45 million (the eventual budget of the first film).[5] When Bennett said that he could, Bluhdorn said "do it" and he was hired.
To prepare for the job of producing a Star Trek film, Bennett first screened all 79 episodes of the original Star Trek series in a projection room at Paramount. He was particularly drawn to the "Space Seed" episode which featured Ricardo Montalban as the genetically enhanced supervillain Khan Noonien Singh. At the conclusion of the episode, Khan and his followers are exiled to an uninhabited planet, and Kirk and Spock wonder what will become of them. This gave Bennett the 'hook' he was looking for, and led him to develop a sequel to the episode.
Bennett's idea formed the beginnings of what would become Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Bennett himself developed the original story premise, and then worked with screenwriter Jack B. Sowards on the early drafts of the screenplay. Nicholas Meyer was later introduced to Bennett and completed the final drafts of the script, in addition to directing the film with Bennett as executive producer and Robert Sallin as producer.[2] Star Trek II proved to be an enormous success, both in terms of the box office receipts and fan response.
Following the success of Star Trek II, Bennett served as producer on the next three Star Trek films: Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home—which stands to this day as one of the most successful of the Star Trek films—and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.[2][6] In addition to serving as producer, Bennett also wrote Star Trek III, co-wrote the story and screenplay for Star Trek IV, and co-wrote the story for Star Trek V.[2][6] Bennett also made cameo appearances in Star Trek III (as the voice of the flight recorder) and Star Trek V, (as a Starfleet Chief of Staff Admiral who gives Captain Kirk his orders).[7]
Following Star Trek V, Bennett developed an idea for a sixth Star Trek film that would take a different approach from the previous films.[2] Titled "The Academy Years", it would have focused on the characters of Kirk and Spock when they were much younger and cadets at Starfleet Academy. It would have delved into the early relationships between these characters, and shown how they developed such a close friendship over the years. While William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy would have had cameos at the beginning and end of the film to "bookend" the story in flashback form, new actors would have portrayed most of the roles in the film, including the young Kirk and Spock.
Although Paramount was initially enthusiastic about the idea, they were ultimately leery of producing a Star Trek film without the established actors that fans had come to know and love. Also, Martin Davis who at the time was the head of Gulf & Western, wanted a film featuring the original cast to mark Star Trek's 25th anniversary in 1991. Paramount offered Bennett the opportunity to produce this film with the original cast, even offering to produce his academy film afterward, but Bennett declined, citing multiple reasons including a lack of story ideas for the requested film and the rushed time frame in which the film would have to be completed in order to coincide with Star Trek's 25th anniversary.[2]
This marked the end of Bennett's association with the Star Trek franchise, and shortly thereafter he left Paramount.[2]
Later works
Since producing the Star Trek films, Bennett wrote the TV movie Crash Landing: The Rescue of Flight 232 (1992).[5] He co-created and produced the science-fiction television series Time Trax (1993–1995), and produced the animated miniseries Invasion America (1998), for which Nimoy was a voice actor.[5]
Bennett is now "semi-retired."
References
- ^ R.S. (June 11, 1984). "Star Trek III: The search for Spock. Directed by Leonard Nimoy Screenplay by Harve Bennett". time.com. Time Magazine. Retrieved 20 January 2010.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Green, Michelle Erica (February 28, 2006). "The Trek Nation - Harve Bennett". The Trek Nation. UGO Entertainment. Archived from the original on February 7, 2010. Retrieved February 7, 2010.
- ^ a b "Harve Bennett Biography". FilmReference.com. NetIndustries, LLC. Retrieved February 7, 2010.
- ^ a b Adalian, Josef (April 28 – May 4, 2003). "50 ABC". Variety: A5.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date format (link) - ^ a b c "Harve Bennett" (PDF). VeteransParkConservancy.org. September 12, 2007. Retrieved February 8, 2010.
- ^ a b McKay, John (October 13, 2003). "With Captain Kirk directing, Star Trek V arrives as DVD special edition". The Canadian Press.
- ^ The Star Trek V character's title can be seen in the credits.