The LuLac Edition #3880, September 20th, 2018

JOHN FORSYTHE @ 100  

As part of our centennial birthday seroes, today we review John Forsythe who was born 100 years ago He was a TV mainstay for years and had an admirable and successful career.
John Forsythe was an American stage, film/television actor, producer, narrator, drama teacher and philanthropist whose career spanned six decades. He also appeared as a guest on several talk and variety shows and as a panelist on numerous game shows.
His 60-year acting career began in films in 1943. He signed up with Warner Bros. at age 25 as a minor contract player, but he later starred in films like The Captive City (1952). He co-starred opposite Loretta Young in It Happens Every Thursday (1953), Edmund Gwenn and Shirley MacLaine in The Trouble With Harry (1955), and Olivia De Havilland in The Ambassador's Daughter (1956).
He also enjoyed a successful television career, starring in three television series, spanning four decades and three genres: as the single playboy father Bentley Gregg in the sitcom Bachelor Father (1957–62), as the unseen millionaire Charles Townsend in the crime drama Charlie's Angels (1976–81), a role he would reprise in the film adaptations, and as patriarch Blake Carrington in Dynasty (1981–89). He hosted World of Survival (1971–77).
Forsyth began his career as a Public Addrss Announcer for The Dodgers.
Despite showing initial reluctance, Forsythe began an acting career at the suggestion of his father. As a bit player for Warner Brothers, Forsythe successfully appeared in several small parts.
As a result, he was given a small role in Destination Tokyo (1943). Leaving his movie career for service in the United States Army Air Corps in World War II, he appeared in the U.S. Army Air Corps play and film Winged Victory, then worked with injured soldiers who had developed speech problems
Throughout the 1950s, Forsythe successfully appeared in the new medium and worked regularly on all the networks, especially as a guest star. For example, during this period, he appeared on the popular anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents in an episode titled "Premonition" opposite Cloris Leachman. He starred in an episode of the CBS Western anthology series Zane Grey Theatre titled Decision at Wilson's Creek, which premiered May 17, 1957.
In 1957, he took a leading role in the situation comedy Bachelor Father for CBS as Bentley Gregg, a playboy lawyer who has to become a father to his niece Kelly (played by Noreen Corcoran), upon the death of her biological parents.

The show was an immediate ratings hit and moved to NBC the following season and to ABC in the fall of 1961. On various episodes Forsythe worked with such up-and-coming actresses as Mary Tyler Moore, Barbara Eden, Donna Douglas, Sally Kellerman, Sue Ane Langdon, and a teenage Linda Evans. During the 1961 season, Bachelor Father was cancelled that season due to declining ratings.
In the early 1960s, Forsythe returned to acting in movies including Kitten with a Whip (1964), Madame X (1966) and In Cold Blood (1967). In 1964 he starred in See How They Run which is notable for being the first film made for television.
He attempted two new television programs: The John Forsythe Show on NBC with Guy Marks, Elsa Lanchester, Ann B. Davis, Peggy Lipton, and Forsythe's two young daughters, Page and Brooke (1965–1966), and To Rome with Love on CBS (1969–1971) with co-star Walter Brennan. Between 1971 and 1977, Forsythe served as narrator on the syndicated nature series, The World of Survival. He was also the announcer for Michelob beer commercials from the 1970s through about 1985, notably during the "Weekends were made for Michelob" era.
Forsythe began a 13-year association with Aaron Spelling in 1976, cast in the role of mysterious unseen millionaire private investigator Charles Townsend in the crime drama Charlie's Angels (1976–1981). The show starred Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith and Farrah Fawcett, making stars of all three but catapulting Fawcett to iconic status. Forsythe introduces the series' concept during its opening credits:
Once upon a time, three little girls went to the police academy, where they were each assigned very hazardous duties. But I took them away from all that, and now they work for me. My name is Charlie.
Forsythe became the highest-paid actor on television on a per-hour basis: while the show's on-camera stars often worked 15-hour days five days a week, with a couple of hours just for hair and makeup, Forsythe's lines for an entire episode would be recorded in a sound studio in a matter of minutes, after which he would have lunch in the network's commissary and then leave for the track. During this period, Forsythe invested much money in thoroughbred racing, a personal hobby. Gaining respect with the celebrity thoroughbred circuit, he served on the Board of Directors at the Hollywood Park Racetrack starting in 1972, and was on the committee for more than 25 years.
Following heart problems, Forsythe underwent quadruple coronary artery bypass surgery in 1979. This was so successful that he not only returned to work on Charlie's Angels, he also appeared in the two-time Academy Award-nominated motion picture ...And Justice for All later that year as Judge Henry T. Fleming, the film's main antagonist, a corrupt judge who despises Al Pacino's lawyer character
In 1981, nearing the end of Charlie's Angels, Forsythe was selected as a last-minute replacement for George Peppard in the role of conniving patriarch Blake Carrington in Dynasty. Another Spelling production, Dynasty was ABC's answer to the highly successful CBS series Dallas. Between 1985-87, Forsythe also appeared as Blake Carrington in the short-lived spinoff series The Colbys.
The series reunited Forsythe with one-time Bachelor Father guest star Linda Evans, who would play Blake's wife, Krystle. During the run of the series, Forsythe, Evans and co-star Joan Collins, who played Blake's ex-wife Alexis, promoted the Dynasty line of fragrances. Dynasty came to an end in 1989, after a total of nine seasons. Forsythe was the only actor to appear in all 220 episodes.

Forsythe was nominated for Emmy Awards three times between 1982 and 1984 for "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series" but did not win. He was also nominated six times for Golden Globe Awards, winning twice. He was nominated five times for the Soap Opera Digest Awards, also winning twice.
Forsythe took his time at Dynasty with gratitude but a grain of salt. When cast members squabbled over perceived slights, he was reported to say to an on looker, “Look at these guys, don’t they know I worked with Pacino?”
Forsythe's wife of 51 years, Julie Warren died at age 74 from cancer in the hospital after Forsythe made the decision to disconnect her life-support system. She had been in a coma following severe breathing difficulties.
In July 2002, Forsythe married businesswoman Nicole Carter at Ballard Country Church; they remained married until his death. Nicole Carter Forsythe died five weeks after her husband.
Forsythe was 92 when he died. 
(Wikipedia, TV Guide, LuLac)