Fred Silverman Dies: Legendary TV Executive & Producer Was 82
Last edited Thu Jan 30, 2020, 07:33 PM - Edit history (2)
Source: Deadline
Fred Silverman, the legendary television producer and executive behind such groundbreaking shows as All in the Family, Soap and Hill Street Blues, and the only executive to creatively run CBS, ABC and NBC, died Thursday at his home in Pacific Palisades. He was 82.
Silverman's knack for identifying hit shows in the making and programming them into memorable primetime nights led Time magazine to crown him "The Man with the Golden Gut" in 1977.
"There are a lot of things that I can point to that I think are proud achievements," Silverman said in a 2001 interview with the TV Academy Foundation. "Most importantly, I had the opportunity to kind of stretch the medium a little bit, to do some things that had never been done before."
Read more: https://deadline.com/2020/01/fred-silverman-dies-legendary-tv-executive-producer-was-82-1202847035/
He rose to VP Programming at CBS and was responsible for a new wave of hit comedy, drama and variety series including The Mary Tyler Moore Show, M*A*S*H, The Waltons, Good Times, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, Kojak, Cannon, The Jeffersons, and the animated -- and later iconic -- Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
I'd almost forgotten that Silverman was the reason Al Franken left SNL in 1980:
On Weekend Update near the end of Season 5, Franken delivered a commentary called "A Limo for a Lame-O". He mocked controversial NBC president Fred Silverman as "a total unequivocal failure" and displayed a chart showing the poor ratings of NBC programs. As a result of this sketch, Silverman declined Lorne Michaels's recommendation that Franken succeed him as the producer, and Franken left the show when Michaels did, at the end of the 1979-80 season. Franken returned to the show in 1985 as a writer and occasional performer.
...so there's that, too?
= new reply since forum marked as read
Many thanks and RIP
rip...
