Four Star Television, also called Four Star International, was an American television production company. Founded in 1952 as Four Star Productions by prominent Hollywood actors Dick Powell, David Niven, Charles Boyer and Joel McCrea, it was inspired by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz founding Desilu Productions a year earlier. McCrea left soon after its founding to continue in films, television and radio, and was replaced by Ida Lupino as the fourth star—although Lupino did not own stock in the company.[1]
In late 1958, Four Star Productions and Four Star Films were merged into a new holding company called Four Star Television, and began publicly trading on the American Stock Exchange on January 12, 1959. After Powell's death in 1963, Four Star was led by Thomas McDermott, followed by Aaron Spelling. It was then purchased and developed for global film and television markets by David Charnay, and subsequently was sold to Ron Perelman; Perelman sold it to 20th Century Fox Television in 1996.[2][3][4]
History
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' The Conqueror (1956) with John Wayne, Powell saw greater opportunities offered by the then-infant medium of television.
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.
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.
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.
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]
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][14][15][16][17][18][19]
Four Star amassed a sizable inventory of programs for syndication, including The Rifleman, Wanted: Dead or Alive, The Rogues, Zane Grey Theatre and The Big Valley. While it did get a hit of sorts in producing a show called Thrill Seekers (a sort of proto-reality TV program, and the first reality show in the United States), the studio's primary niche was in its successful syndication to global film and television audiences.[4] In 1985, Four Star renewed its ties with Charnay himself.[20] During his tenure, they made a pact with Color Systems Technology to do a colorized version of Wanted Dead or Alive, which led to a lawsuit from Compact Video and Four Star against CST.[21]
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.[22] 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.[23] 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.[24][25]
Wanted Dead or Alive, which was also co-produced with CBS, 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 library. (MGM inherited Heatter-Quigley, following MGM's purchase of Orion Pictures, whose predecessor Filmways had bought Heatter-Quigley in the late 1960s.)
