STILL SPELLING SUCCESS IN PRIME-TIME WORLD.Byline: Donald Newlove Hollywood Reporter Title: ``A Prime-time Life: An Autobiography'' Author: Aaron Spelling with Jefferson Graham Data: 228 pages, St. Martin St. Martin in midwinter, gave his cloak to a freezing beggar. [Christian Hagiog.: Brewer Dictionary] See : Kindness Press; $23.95 Our rating: Three stars The son of an immigrant tailor who never made more than $45 a week, prime-time king Aaron Spelling grew up in Dallas being bullied by anti-Semites for his family's poverty. Today, he has become the world's most prolific producer, having guided more than 3,000 hours of entertainment, and lives in a famous house so big he says he's still trying to find his bedroom. And, Spelling says, he gets ideas for new shows by chatting with people on tours who stop in front of his house. ``They built our house; they made our lives. I also like to discuss television with them.'' Adding together every hour of entertainment he's produced for ``Dynasty,'' ``Melrose Place,'' ``Beverly Hills, 90210,'' ``Charlie's Angels,'' ``The Love Boat,'' ``The Mod Squad'' and ``Hart to Hart Hart to Hart is an American television series starring Switch alumnus, Robert Wagner as Jonathan Hart and Stefanie Powers as his wife Jennifer, who lived in a wealthy suburb of Los Angeles. The show ran from 1979 to 1984 on the ABC Television Network. ,'' among others, you would need 125 days and nights to sit through it all. Even so, as evidenced in ``A Prime-time Life: An Autobiography,'' Spelling remains modest, claiming only an occasional modicum mod·i·cum n. pl. mod·i·cums or mod·i·ca A small, moderate, or token amount: "England still expects a modicum of eccentricity in its artists" Ian Jack. of social consciousness in his 140 made-for-TV movies and 10 theatrical releases. Perhaps his zaniest release was 1991's Sally Field/Kevin Kline comedy, ``Soapdish,'' which satirized the soaps and was inspired by behind-the-scenes shenanigans shenanigans Noun, pl Informal 1. mischief or nonsense 2. trickery or deception [origin unknown] on ``Dynasty.'' People who did small roles for him in pilots or series and went on to bigger things include Jack Nicholson, Tommy Lee Jones For the musician, see . Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an Academy Award-winning American actor and director. Biography Early life Jones was born in San Saba, Texas, the son of Clyde C. , Timothy Dalton, Louis Gossett Jr., Richard Gere, Michelle Pfeiffer and Richard Dreyfuss. Once Spelling finishes casting, he says, he works very hard with the actors on their clothes and hair. ``Maybe it's stupid, and I'm probably the only producer in Hollywood who does this, but on our shows, clothes and looks play a very important role in the show's success.'' Indeed, his shows often create fashion trends. As for hairstyles, he favors consistency. ``I've had some shows in the past where an actress will have her hair up in the first episode, down in the second, and then bangs in the third, and the poor viewer doesn't know who the hell she is.'' Spelling is a great anecdotalist, having a tale to tell about nearly every show, although he never dishes the dirt about private lives. He began as an actor, moved into writing host spots for Dick Powell's ``Zane Grey Theater,'' then into scripts. Alan Ladd hired him to produce his own script for a film, ``The Guns of the Timberland.'' He soon discovered that, as his first wife, Carolyn Jones, made clear, he should never write anything he didn't produce. Later, he produced the very violent ``S.W.A.T.'' series, his least favorite of the 50-plus series he's been associated with, followed by ``Starsky and Hutch Starsky and Hutch plainclothes L.A. detectives break cases and hearts. [TV: Terrace, II, 317] See : Crime Fighting ,'' his favorite series, which inspired buddy cop films such as ``Lethal Weapon'' and ``48HRS.'' He felt it was important to show the private sides of cops' lives. His cops had heart, with Starsky and Hutch unashamedly un·a·shamed adj. Feeling or showing no remorse, shame, or embarrassment: un  a·sham hugging each other. He's been accused of purveying only ``cotton candy for the mind'' and of being ``King of the Jiggle'' (``Charlie's Angels''). Writers about his work largely ignore ``The Boy in the Plastic Bubble'' (with John Travolta in his first TV dramatic role), ``The Best Little Girl in the World'' (which starred Jennifer Jason Leigh in a TV film about anorexia), and ``And the Band Played On And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic is a best-selling work of nonfiction written by San Francisco Chronicle journalist Randy Shilts published in 1987. ,'' which took four years to produce and told how the government mishandled the AIDS crisis. Both ``Band'' and ``Day One'' (second thoughts about dropping the atomic bomb atomic bomb or A-bomb, weapon deriving its explosive force from the release of atomic energy through the fission (splitting) of heavy nuclei (see nuclear energy). The first atomic bomb was produced at the Los Alamos, N.Mex. ) won Emmys. For all his smarts, Spelling has been unlucky with sitcoms, and most especially with 1986's ill-fated ``Life With Lucy Life with Lucy was Lucille Ball's last television series. The show ran on the ABC network in 1986, and unlike Lucy's previous smash hits on television, it was a critical and popular flop. ,'' Lucille Ball's return after a 12-year layoff. It bombed. She still did physical comedy as ever, but studio audiences feared for her and gasped as she climbed a ladder. ``When we heard that first gasp, we knew we were dead,'' he says. ``Comedy is no laughing matter No Laughing Matter is an episode of U.S. Acres from the series Garfield and Friends. It was the 74th episode produced for the series, although it is listed as the 71st episode on the Garfield and Friends DVD. It originally aired on October 21, 1989. .'' CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: Producer Aaron Spelling tells his rags-to-riches tal e of television triumph in a new autobiography. |
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