 | |
| Formerly | Four Star Productions (1952–1959) |
|---|---|
| Company type | Subsidiary |
| NYSE: FSI | |
| Industry | Television production |
| Founded | 1952; 73 years ago (1952) (as Four Star Productions) January 12, 1959; 66 years ago (1959-01-12) (incorporated as Four Star Television) |
| Founders | Dick Powell David Niven Charles Boyer Ida Lupino Joel McCrea |
| Defunct | 1997 (1997) |
| Fate | Sold toCompact Video as the result of aleveraged buyout byMacAndrews & Forbes |
| Successors | TV: 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 calledFour Star International, was an Americantelevision production company. Founded in 1952 asFour Star Productions by prominentHollywood actorsDick Powell,David Niven,Charles Boyer andJoel McCrea, it was inspired byLucille Ball andDesi Arnaz foundingDesilu Productions a year earlier. McCrea left soon after its founding to continue in films, television and radio, and was replaced byIda Lupino as the fourth star—although Lupino did not own stock in the company.[1]
Four Star produced several popular programs in the early days of television, includingFour Star Playhouse (its first series),Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre,Stagecoach West,The June Allyson Show (also known asThe DuPont Show Starring June Allyson),The Dick Powell Show,Burke's Law,The Rogues andThe 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 asThe Rifleman;Trackdown;Wanted Dead or Alive;Richard Diamond, Private Detective andThe Detectives Starring Robert Taylor. There were also failed series, includingJeannie Carson'sHey, 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 theAmerican Stock Exchange on January 12, 1959. After Powell's death in 1963, Four Star was led by Thomas McDermott, followed byAaron Spelling. It was then purchased and developed for global film and television markets by David Charnay, and subsequently was sold toRon Perelman; Perelman sold it to20th Century Fox Television in 1996.[2][3][4]
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 asRKO Radio Pictures'The Conqueror (1956) withJohn Wayne, Powell saw greater opportunities offered by the then-infant medium oftelevision.
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, asLucille Ball andDesi Arnaz had done successfully with theDesilu studio.
Powell had intended for the program to feature himself,Charles Boyer,Joel McCrea andRosalind Russell; however, Russell and McCrea backed out, andDavid Niven came on board as the "third star". The fourth star would be a guest star at first.CBS liked the idea, andFour 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 ofAmos '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/directorIda Lupino was brought on board as thepro forma fourth star, though unlike Powell, Boyer, and Niven, she owned no stock in the company.
Following the cancellation ofFour Star Playhouse, two new programs came on CBS: a comedy calledHey, Jeannie! which starredJeannie Carson, and a western anthology showZane Grey Theater, more formally namedDick Powell's Zane Grey Theater. Carson's show ran for just a season, butZane Grey Theater ran for four. It hosted the pilot episodes forTrackdown starringRobert Culp (which in turn hosted a pilot forWanted: Dead or Alive withSteve McQueen),The Westerner withBrian Keith,Black Saddle withPeter Breck andRussell Johnson andThe Rifleman, starring Chuck Connors, Johnny Crawford and Paul Fix.
While not given a production byline, when Joel McCrea andWalter Mirisch developed the 1959–1960 NBC seriesWichita Town, adapted from the 1955 filmWichita in which McCrea starred as Wyatt Earp, Four Star provided the production facilities.
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 byBlake Edwards, and the character played by Powell, but Powell recast the character with the then-unknownClark Gable-lookalikeDavid Janssen. Don Taylor portrayed Richard Diamond in the pilot film.
Other crime series produced by Four Star includedTarget: The Corruptors! withStephen McNally andRobert Harland,The Detectives starringRobert Taylor,Adam West,Tige Andrews,Mark Goddard,Russell Thorson andLee Farr andBurke's Law starringGene Barry,Gary Conway, Russell Thorson and Leon Lontoc andHoney West starringAnne Francis andJohn Ericson.
Another program,The Rogues, starred Boyer and Niven withGig Young on NBC TV. This was (afterFour 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 byLarry Hagman as another cousin for two episodes when Young was too busy. The series lasted only through the 1964–65 season.
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 includingDavid 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 andSam 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.
On January 2, 1963, a day after his last appearance on his programThe Dick Powell Show aired,Dick Powell died ofstomach cancer. The stomach cancer was likely a result of having directedHoward Hughes'sThe Conqueror, amidst dust clouds of atomic test radiation in Utah. Out of a cast and crew of 220 people, 91 contracted various forms of organcancers by 1981, including starsJohn Wayne,Susan Hayward andAgnes 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 ownedValiant Records, but sold the label toWarner Bros. Records in 1966, shortly after pop groupThe Association released their first records for the label. Early copies of the albumAnd Then... Along Comes the Association show the Four Star disclaimer blacked out at the bottom of the label.
From 1967 to 1989, David Charnay was the leader of a buyout group that owned acontrolling interest in Four Star Television and subsequently renamed the companyFour 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, includingDeke Heyward,Morey Amsterdam, Dick Colbert,Tony Thomopoulos, and collaborating withAaron 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, includingThe Rifleman,Wanted: Dead or Alive,The Rogues,Zane Grey Theatre andThe Big Valley. While it did get a hit of sorts in producing a show calledThrill Seekers (a sort of proto-reality TV program, and the firstreality show in theUnited States), the studio's primary niche was in its successful syndication to global film and television audiences.[4] In 1983, Four Star acquired competing television syndicator Gold Key Entertainment.[20][21] In 1985, Four Star renewed its ties with Charnay himself.[22] During his tenure, they made a pact with Color Systems Technology to do a colorized version ofWanted Dead or Alive, which led to a lawsuit from Compact Video and Four Star against CST.[23]
By 1987, David Charnay had sold Four Star to Robert Seidenglanz's Compact Video Systems, which was then majority-owned byRonald Perelman.[24] After Compact Video shut down, its remaining assets, including Four Star, were folded into Perelman'sMacAndrews and Forbes Incorporated. In 1989, Perelman acquiredNew 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.[25] In 1993, Four Star acquired 50% ofGenesis Entertainment. As part of the acquisition, Genesis acquired television distribution rights to Four Star's 160 feature films and television series.[26][27]
Four Star International is now owned byThe Walt Disney Company, with most of its library of programs controlled by20th Television as a result of the buyout betweenRupert Murdoch andRon Perelman in 1996.[2][28][29][30][31]
With the subsequent sale of New World to 20th Century Fox (now owned byThe Walt Disney Company) in 1997, the Four Star catalogue is now owned byDisney Platform Distribution, with a few exceptions:
