Last Known Activity:
Aaron Spelling
 Born: 22-Apr-1923
Birthplace: Dallas, TX
Died: 23-Jun-2006
Location of death: Los Angeles, CA
Cause of death: Stroke
Remains: Buried, Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery, Culver City, CA
Gender: Male
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Film/TV Producer, Screenwriter
Party Affiliation: Democratic
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Beverly Hills 90210
Military service: US Army Air Force
As a young boy in a whitebread neighborhood of Dallas, Aaron Spelling was so severely taunted by his classmates for being Jewish, he was rendered psychosomatically unable to walk for more than a year. He spent that time in bed reading the novels of Mark Twain and short stories of O. Henry, and decided that he would be a writer.
Spelling majored in journalism, and served as a war correspondent for Stars and Stripes during World War II, but found writing for theater more interesting than reporting the news. He wrote plays, but they were rarely produced, and instead Spelling found work as an actor in off-Broadway plays. He made his film debut in 1953, with a crucial role in a generally forgotten noir piece, Vicki with Jeanne Crain and Richard Boone (a remake of the far superior I Wake Up Screaming with Betty Grable and Victor Mature). He still wanted to be a writer, though, and as an actor, Spelling's career had a reverse trajectory -- his roles got progressively smaller, from Three Young Texans with Mitzi Gaynor and Jeffrey Hunter to Black Widow with Ginger Rogers and Van Heflin, where Spelling was hardly more than an extra. He also appeared on episodes of Dragnet, Gunsmoke, and I Love Lucy.
He fell in love with an unknown actress named Carolyn Jones, and they married and moved to Hollywood together. Within a few years, he was selling scripts to Wagon Train and Jane Wyman Presents, and writing and producing for Zane Grey Theater. He even wrote two big-screen westerns that starred Alan Ladd, Guns of the Timberland based on a Louis L'Amour novel, and an original story by Spelling, One Foot in Hell.
Jones found stardom in The Bachelor Party, How the West Was Won, and The Addams Family, but Spelling's career began to taper off. He wrote and produced for The Dick Powell Show, but that job ended with Powell's death in 1963. Spelling reportedly grew depressed with his career and gloomy about his wife's success, and she divorced him. Friends have suggested Spelling never fully recovered, and he seemed to lose interest in writing. For the 40-plus years remaining in his long career, he had only two more credits as writer. Instead, he worked almost exclusively on the business side of filmmaking.
In the mid-to-late 1960s he produced Burke's Law, Daniel Boone, and Honey West, but his career really took off with The Mod Squad, beginning in 1968. The show's premise had three teenagers in trouble -- a car thief, a pretty runaway, and a young black man arrested at a riot -- recruited to become undercover cops. The program presented TV's first vaguely realistic counterculture characters, so of course it made them narcs and informants, but The Mod Squad appealed to both young and older audiences, drew huge ratings, and gave Spelling serious Hollywood clout. Over subsequent decades, Spelling was behind many of the highest rated, longest-running television series of his time, including S.W.A.T., Starsky and Hutch, The Rookies, Family, Charlie's Angels, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Vega$, Hart to Hart, Dynasty, T.J. Hooker, Hotel, Melrose Place, Beverly Hills 90210, 7th Heaven, and Charmed.
He also produced a few low-budget theatrical films, the better of which include Robert Altman's California Split, 'Night, Mother with Sissy Spacek and Anne Bancroft, Mr. Mom with Michael Keaton, and Soapdish with Sally Field and Kevin Kline. He also made more than 100 TV movies, including such schlock as Satan's School for Girls, The Girl Who Came Gift-Wrapped, The Wild Women of Chastity Gulch, and The Making of a Male Model, and occasionally much better works, including the thriller In Broad Daylight with Suzanne Pleshette, the John Travolta tearjerker The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, the Manhattan Project story Day One, and the AIDS drama And the Band Played On.
In 1999, Spelling was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's most prolific producer of television drama. According to Guinness' calculations, by that time Spelling had produced 3,842 hours of television -- enough to fill about 3½ years of prime time seven nights a week without any reruns. Spelling won two Emmys in his career, and of all his projects, he said he was proudest of 7th Heaven with Stephen Collins and Catherine Hicks, for its presentation of a family he describes as "not at all dysfunctional".
Spelling married his second wife Carol Jean Marer in 1968, just weeks after The Mod Squad debuted. Their children, Tori Spelling and Randy Spelling, are both actors who worked frequently in their father's projects. Spelling's Hollywood mansion was the largest single-family dwelling in California, and reportedly had 123 rooms, a gymnasium, a bowling alley, a screening room, and indoor parking for up to eight limousines.
In December 2005, Spelling sued his former nurse, Charlene Richards, claiming she had threatened to publicly accuse him of sexual harassment if he did not pay to keep her quiet. She responded by suing him the following month, claiming she had been hired to provide care for the increasingly frail Spelling, but that he had demanded more services than she had offered.
On 18 June 2006, Spelling suffered a stroke, and died five days later.
Father: David Spelling (worked at Sears-Roebuck)
Mother: Pearl Spelling (homemaker)
Brother: Samuel Spelling
Brother: Maxwell Spelling
Brother: Daniel Spelling
Sister: Rebecca Spelling ("Becky")
Wife: Carolyn Jones (actress, m. 10-Apr-1953, sep. 1963, div. 1964)
Wife: Carol Jean Marer ("Candy", Los Angeles Parks Commissioner, m. 23-Nov-1968, one daughter, one son)
Daughter: Tori Spelling (actress, b. 16-May-1973)
Son: Randall Gene Spelling ("Randy", actor, b. 9-Oct-1978)
High School: Forest Avenue High School, Dallas, TX
University: BA Journalism, Southern Methodist University (1945)
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
Gore 2000
Hillary Rodham Clinton for US Senate Committee
Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame 6667 Hollywood Blvd (television)
Stroke 18-Jun-2006
Risk Factors: Aviophobia
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Black Widow (28-Oct-1954)
Vicki (7-Sep-1953)
Author of books:
Aaron Spelling: A Prime-Time Life (1996, memoir, with Jefferson Graham)
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Source:
http://marriage.about.com/od/entertainmen1/p/spellinga.htm
Occupations:
Aaron: After high school, on 10/20/1942, Aaron enlisted in the Army Air Corps. He entertained on a troop ship and wrote for Stars and Stripes. He was wounded by a sniper and received a Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. Aaron is an award winning television series producer, movie producer, actor, writer, and director.
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Other Comments:
wikipedia:
Early life
Spelling was born in Castle Hills, Texas, to Pearl (née Wald) and David Spelling (originally Spurling), a tailor, who were Jewish emigrants from Russia and Poland, respectively.Spelling also has a brother named Daniel Spelling who lived in San Francisco, who appeared on daughter Tori Spelling's television show Tori And Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood. Daniel Spelling died in 2009. At the age of eight, Spelling lost the use of his legs psychosomatically due to trauma caused by constant bullying from his schoolmates, and was confined to bed for a year.During this time he read a vast number of books, which stimulated his imagination.
Spelling attended Forest Avenue High School. He served in the U.S. Air Force and was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster. He then attended Southern Methodist University, graduating in 1949. He married actress Carolyn Jones in 1953, and they moved to California. They divorced in 1964. With his second wife, Candy Gene (née Marer), whom he married in 1968, he had two children, Randy Spelling and Tori Spelling.
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From SMU Alumni Association:
Legendary producer Aaron Spelling, a Dallas native and Southern Methodist University graduate, received his Bachelor of Science degree in journalism from SMU in 1949. Spelling, whose career produced numerous hit television programs such as “Dynasty,” “Charlie’s Angels,” The Love Boat,” “Melrose Place,” and “Seventh Heaven,” received SMU’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1998.
Spelling grew up in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas and attended SMU on tuition benefits provided by the G.I. Bill of Rights. While he was at SMU, he was elected head cheerleader and was a member of the drama club. He and his friends often performed comedy routines at fraternity parties and campus shows, and Spelling was the first student ever to direct a senior class production at SMU. He received the prestigious Harvard Award in 1947 for best original one-act play, which he entitled “Is Everything Always Black and White?” dealing with racial prejudice. He won the award again in 1949. Numerous awards, both for his creative work and for his philanthropic endeavors, would follow.
Spelling was the first producer to be honored by the Museum of Broadcasting. During his lengthy career, he was also recognized by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, The Writers Guild of America, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Producers Guild of America and the Television Academy’s “Hall of Fame.” He received Emmy Awards for “Day One” and “And the Band Played On,” won the 1996 People’s Choice Lifetime Achievement Award, won the 1997 Soap Opera Digest “Editor’s Choice” Award, and was awarded a star on Hollywood Boulevard’s Walk of Fame, among countless other honors.
Spelling was listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the most prolific television producer of all time with more than 4,000 hours of episodic television and another nearly 300 hours of movies to his credit.
“Aaron Spelling was a legend. He was always proud of his SMU roots and took an active role while on campus as head cheerleader, a member of several clubs, and the first student ever to direct a senior class production,” said SMU President R. Gerald Turner. “He was honored with SMU’s highest and most prestigious award, the Distinguished Alumni Award, in 1998. The talent and creativity that he brought to our campus as a student was seen worldwide as he became one of the most significant forces in the entertainment industry. Our prayers and thoughts are with the entire Spelling family as SMU gives thanks for his life and honors his memory.”
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