Dynasty, Starsky and Hutch, Hart to Hart, Charlie’s Angels, Beverley Hills 90210, Fantasy Island, erm… Matt Houston. All TV icons, and today the television industry mourns the loss of one of the greats, Aaron Spelling, the producer mogul who died yesterday, having brought these and many other TV shows to the screens
Even if you didn’t know his name, chances are the Spelling stamp is on one of your much favoured childhood favourites, whether it be the roaring excesses of uber-cops Starsky and Hutch, the graceful charms of those three little girls Charlie’s Angels, or the opulent sleuthing of Hart to Hart (Jennifer Hart who was, by the way, “gorgeous!”).
In a career that stretched way back to the mid-1950s, Spelling had something of a delicious Midas touch, casting beautiful people to populate his shows, exemplified in the anti-Dallas, Dynasty, and teen soap Beverley Hills 90210, controversially featuring his daughter Tori that had the masses screaming nepotism. Guilty pleasures is a phrase that could be assigned to a great deal of Spelling’s output, and even fare like Sunset Beach seemed deliberately pitched to be garbage of the highest order, but easily the most watchable commodity Five had in its arsenal before the arrival of CSI. Even as recently as 2006, I’ll happily admit to sneaking a look at Charmed on a Saturday night over a tub of Ben and Jerry’s before heading to the pub.
But it’s in the cosy hinterland of the mid-seventies and early eighties that Spelling’s work will spark the most nostalgic pub conversation fodder. Not all Spelling shows crossed the Atlantic, but he did have a talent for midwifing product that travelled well. Starsky and Hutch was essential dressing-gown-on-the-sofa viewing for any red-blooded eight-year-old on a Saturday night in 1977, and TJ Hooker put Captain Kirk in a cop uniform. Best thing ever! Even Hart to Hart had a part to play on those post bath Sunday evenings, bringing those queasy butterflies that there was school to go to the following morning, but it wasn’t here until the closing titles finished and bed beckoned.
Generations of TV viewers have a lot to thank Aaron Spelling for, but the likes of Joan Collins, William Shatner and John Forsythe owe him a greater debt – a sizeable pension in syndication repeat fees…
