Lisa Bernhard

And the Man Played On
How does glitzy, nepotistic producer AARON SPELLING respond to name-calling? By creating more hits

By Lisa Bernhard

Total TV
March 9, 1996

You can tell a lot about Aaron Spelling by his pinball machine. Once in his office, skip lightly over the shag carpet, bypass the exotic fish tank, and forget the wraparound terrace with the exquisite view — that glittering game next to his desk is where it's at. Spelling demonstrates by hitting the left flipper four times. “Happy Chanukah, honey!” comes the voice of his wife, Candy. “I love you, Daddy!” say daughter Tori and son Randy. The producer beams with pride. “This was a Christmas present,” he boasts (so what if he confuses religions). Put a ball in play and listen to the voices of the famous faces staring up at you: Krystle Carrington, T.J. Hooker, Tattoo. It's all here — family and career in a gift that smacks of opulence and excess. But don't think you can beat the high score: In the game of television, Spelling has racked up the most points.

Most people alive today have been seduced by the work of TV's most prolific producer. Spelling's extraordinary career has spanned more than 40 years, beginning with his days as a writer-producer at the prestigious Four Star company (The Dick Powell Show, Burke's Law), which led to a partnership with Danny Thomas (The Danny Thomas Show, The Mod Squad). In 1969, he signed an exclusive contract with ABC, for which his successive hits included The Rookies, Starsky and Hutch, Family, Charlie's Angels, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Vega$, Hart to Hart, T.J. Hooker, Hotel and Dynasty. Today's generation spans the dial: Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place (both Fox), Savannah (the WB), Malibu Shores (premiering Saturday on NBC) and Fox's upcoming Kindred: The Embraced.

What happens to a guy who remains contemporary for nearly a half century? He is ceremoniously skewered by critics for having lowbrow taste. He also becomes a whipping boy for his estimated $300 million fortune, his 56,000 square foot home (equipped with bowling alley and indoor ice-skating rink) and his fondness for employing off-spring (Tori, 22, stars on 90210, while Randy, 17, is on Malibu Shores).

Amazingly, Spelling presses on. At 68, he is vibrant, if slightly wounded. Within minutes of meeting you, he will be sure you know that he produced the Emmy-winning films And the Band Played On (about the discovery of the AIDS virus) and Day One (about the creation of the first nuclear bomb). And the heady feature film 'Night, Mother, as well as hard-hitting TV movies The Best Little Girl in the World (about anorexia) and The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, starring a young John Travolta. Then he'll remind you of the well-received lighter films — Mr. Mom and Soapdish. “I once said a stupid line,” Spelling laments. “Someone asked me a pompous question about Charlie's Angels, and I said, 'It's cotton candy for the mind.' A review for And the Band Played On said, 'It's hard to believe that cotton-candy-for-the-mind Aaron Spelling produced this show.' That's not fair.'”

He's right. Whether it's cotton candy or caviar, Spelling knows what viewers want on their plates. The easy answer is often 'sex sells,' but try telling that to ex-Spelling protégé Darren Star, whose steamy Central Park West is quickly heading south. Sometimes you just gotta step out of the ivory tower and survey the land. “I still go out when the tour buses stop in front of our house,” says Spelling. “I learn more about television by talking to [those people] than any place. We have signs in our offices: 'We don't make shows for Beverly Hills and Bel Air.'”

He just makes shows about them, which means no banalities, please. “When we first did Melrose Place,” he reveals, “we had seven of the most boring shows you've ever seen. Will Billy get a job driving a cab? Give me a break. I said, 'Why don't we stop kidding ourselves and just go for it? Let's make a total serial.' And it went through the roof.”

There's another theory at work here, too: Throw enough stuff at the networks and something is bound to stick. “I don't know how to stop,” says the notorious workaholic. “And if I stop — what do you do when you get a call from the network saying, 'This is a terrible episode?' I can't do that.”

For all his success, the super-producer claims he's never quite sure when America will embrace a Billy or Amanda, a Brenda or Brandon. “I'm a worrier,” he explains. “If Malibu goes six [episodes] and out, I'll stay home for a week. I'll have this terrible cold. Someone will ask, 'Don't you think you should see a doctor?' And Candy will say, 'He'll be okay by Monday.'”

There was, of course, the year between Dynasty's 1989 demise and 90210's birth when, for the first time in 26 years, Spelling failed to sell a show. “One side of me said, 'Your career's over,' but the other said, ' This is an intermezzo; people go through this.' It was frightening.” What appears to have upset him more, however, is the public flogging he suffered. “The cruelest day of my life was when I picked up Variety and the headline said, 'Spelling Dynasty Dead' — but 'dynasty' wasn't in quotation marks.”

Spelling's drive and insecurity are, of course, intertwined. The son of a Russian Jewish immigrant father who settled in Dallas, Spelling says he had a nervous breakdown at age eight, after being picked on for his diminutive size and “foreignness.” An eagerness to be liked, displayed through supreme friendliness and a playful sense of humor, belies his tough core. He relishes an anecdote about how producer Steven Bochco (Hill Street Blues) was the first person to shake his hand for doing And the Band Played On. He recalls how Candy arranged for Jimmy Stewart to tape a birthday message for him — and how the actor did it ten times so she could have her pick. He defends The Mod Squad for being racially progressive, Charlie's Angels for being feministic (uh, what?) and The Love Boat for giving older actors work (“It's not bad when you get Helen Hayes to do two Love Boats,” he says).

At best, he is non-confrontational, at worst a pushover. “When you give to people, you get back,” he says, “and that's my weakness. I say, 'If I'm really nice to them, they'll be nice to me.'” For Valentine's Day, the man colleagues simply call “Mister” gave his employees two pounds of chocolates with handwritten cards. Cindy, his assistant of 11 years, gushes how “he always says 'please' and 'thank-you' for every single call I place for him — and he tells me how to find each person.”

The stories of his loyalty to his actors are well known by now (once an actor himself, he appears on the occasional Dragnet rerun.) But where is the ruthlessness? Where are the enemies associated with being a Hollywood mogul? He ponders the question. “I could give you my list,” he confesses, “but then I could never eat lunch in this town again.” Slightly uneasy, he finds a way to skirt the topic. “I must not be very ruthless, 'cause I feel badly about the way Shannen [Doherty]...” was dumped from 90210, is what he means to say as his voice trails off. “And I never said anything. I've always allowed her to say it was a dual decision.” Well, until now.

So he does his shows, surrounded mostly by folks he adores and those who adore him. Since he refuses to fly (despite being a former Air Force pilot), Spelling leaves most of the dirty work to others. “If I flew, I'd be like all the other prostitutes who flock to New York during pilot season,” he quips, adding in a mock tone, “and if you can't have lunch with Don [Ohlmeyer, NBC president], you try to have lunch with Lindy [DeKoven, NBC senior vice president] or... I couldn't do that.”

Why, then, after all the hits and oodles of dough, doesn't he retire? The question does not register. “The first time I made any money, I made my father retire,” Spelling explains. “He worked all his life as a tailor at Sears, Roebuck, and he died in seven months. There's something that keeps you young and going when you're doing what we do. I'd be bored to death.”

With his autobiography, A Primetime Life, coming out in August and a TV movie planned for this fall, there'll be plenty more of Spelling to kick around. “I don't know, I guess I'll never be taken seriously,” he muses. “I always tell Candy my epitaph will be, 'He did Charlie's Angels and he's Tori Spelling's father.'” Maybe so, but his funeral will get a 48 share.