Dick Powell
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 as RKO Radio Pictures' with John Wayne, Powell saw greater opportunities offered by the then-infant medium of television.
Four Star Playhouse
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, as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz had done successfully with the Desilu studio.
Powell had intended for the program to feature himself, Charles Boyer, Joel McCrea and Rosalind Russell; however, Russell and McCrea backed out, and David Niven came on board as the "third star". The fourth star would be a guest star at first. CBS liked the idea, and Four 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 of Amos '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/director Ida Lupino was brought on board as the pro forma fourth star, though unlike Powell, Boyer, and Niven, she owned no stock in the company.
Westerns
Following the cancellation of Four Star Playhouse, two new programs came on CBS: a comedy called Hey, Jeannie! which starred Jeannie Carson, and a western anthology show Zane Grey Theater, more formally named Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater. Carson's show ran for just a season, but Zane Grey Theater ran for four. It hosted the pilot episodes for Trackdown starring Robert Culp (which in turn hosted a pilot for Wanted: Dead or Alive with Steve McQueen), The Westerner with Brian Keith, Black Saddle with Peter Breck and Russell Johnson and The Rifleman, starring Chuck Connors, Johnny Crawford and Paul Fix.
While not given a production byline, when Joel McCrea and Walter Mirisch developed the 1959–1960 NBC series Wichita Town, adapted from the 1955 film Wichita in which McCrea starred as Wyatt Earp, Four Star provided the production facilities.
Richard Diamond, Private Detective
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 by Blake Edwards, and the character played by Powell, but Powell recast the character with the then-unknown Clark Gable-lookalike David Janssen. Don Taylor portrayed Richard Diamond in the pilot film.
Other crime series produced by Four Star included Target: The Corruptors! with Stephen McNally and Robert Harland, The Detectives starring Robert Taylor, Adam West, Tige Andrews, Mark Goddard, Russell Thorson and Lee Farr and Burke's Law starring Gene Barry, Gary Conway, Russell Thorson and Leon Lontoc and Honey West starring Anne Francis and John Ericson.
The Rogues
Another program, The Rogues, starred Boyer and Niven with Gig Young on NBC TV. This was (after Four 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 by Larry Hagman as another cousin for two episodes when Young was too busy. The series lasted only through the 1964–65 season.
A powerhouse Hollywood launching pad
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 including David 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 and Sam 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.
Dick Powell's death, Aaron Spelling's exit
On January 2, 1963, a day after his last appearance on his program The Dick Powell Show aired, Dick Powell died of stomach cancer. The stomach cancer was likely a result of having directed Howard Hughes's The Conqueror, amidst dust clouds of atomic test radiation in Utah. Out of a cast and crew of 220 people, 91 contracted various forms of organ cancers by 1981, including stars John Wayne, Susan Hayward and Agnes 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]
David Charnay's acquisition
From 1967 to 1989, David Charnay was the leader of a buyout group that owned a controlling interest in Four Star Television and subsequently renamed the company Four 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, including Deke Heyward, Morey Amsterdam, Dick Colbert, Tony Thomopoulos, and collaborating with Aaron 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]
Final acquisitions: Compact Video, Ronald Perelman and Rupert Murdoch
By 1987, David Charnay had sold Four Star to Robert Seidenglanz's Compact Video Systems, which was then majority-owned by Ronald Perelman.[24] After Compact Video shut down, its remaining assets, including Four Star, were folded into Perelman's MacAndrews and Forbes Incorporated. In 1989, Perelman acquired New 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% of Genesis 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 by
Subsequent program ownership
With the subsequent sale of New World to 20th Century Fox (now owned by The Walt Disney Company) in 1997, the Four Star catalogue is now owned by Disney Platform Distribution, with a few exceptions:
- The Rifleman, which is now owned by its original co-production company Levy-Gardner-Laven Productions, and whose TV distribution rights are handled by the Peter Rodgers Organization
- Trackdown, which was co-produced with CBS, is now owned and distributed by CBS Media Ventures.
- Wanted Dead or Alive, which was also co-produced with CBS, was sold to Paravision International in October 1988, and now has its worldwide distribution rights handled by StudioCanal. U S. Video distribution rights were handled by New Line Home Video (season 1), BCI Eclipse (season 2) and Mill Creek Entertainment (current reissues).
- The syndicated game show PDQ, which was co-produced with Heatter-Quigley Productions and distributed by Four Star, is now owned and distributed by MGM Television, through its ownership of the Heatter-Quigley
