From cheerleader to king of prime-time tv

Aaron Spelling, the biggest big-shot in the history of television, was born in Dallas to poor immigrant parents on Apr. 22, 1923. An Ellis Island clerk changed his father’s name from Spurling to Spelling the day the Polish Jew entered the country. The new arrival found a Russian-born mate with the same ethnic roots and moved halfway across the continent to Texas. Aaron grew up in a small frame house down the street from Fair Park that was not built for a family of six. Reflecting on the poverty of his upbringing, he revealed in a 1996 interview, “I still have nightmares about being in a $6,000 home in Dallas, Texas. “Wall-to-wall people (and) one bathroom. I was the one to go to the local bakery a block away on Saturday to get the day-old stuff.” The skinny kid hated school, where bigger boys took pleasure in picking on him. Trauma from the verbal and physical abuse caused him to lose the use of his legs at age eight and to spend a whole year in bed. Spelling ultimately went back to class and, like Stanley Marcus of Neiman Marcus fame before him, graduated fro  Forest Avenue high school. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1942 and spent most of World War II putting on plays for the troops. The Texan did not, however, miss out on combat altogether. A sniper shot him in a hand, which never healed completely. For the wound he was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. The young veteran returned to Dallas and attended his hometown college, Southern Methodist University, on the G.I. Bill. Journalism was his major, but the drama department took up most of his free time as he learned to act and to write plays. And just for the fun of it, he led cheers for the SMU football team and Heisman Trophy winner Doak Walker. The first thing Spelling did after obtaining his diploma in 1949 was to depart Dallas for the bright lights of Broadway. But his high hopes of making it as a wetbehind- the-ears playwright were quickly brought down to earth. Instead of diminishing his ambition, the disappointment only changed his career plan. Confident in his acting ability, he headed for the opposite coast hungry for any role Hollywood casting directors would offer. Lacking the looks of the stereotypical leading man, Spelling had to settle for quirky and villainous bit parts. He found plenty of work, appearing in 40 television shows and a dozen movies, but in 1953 decided his future was behind the camera not in front of it. That was also the year Spelling married an actress from Amarillo by the name of Carolyn Jones. The beautiful brunette could pick and choose her parts, and the one she accepted in “The Bachelor Party” landed her a 1957 Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Meanwhile, Spelling was starting to get the hang of script writing thanks to his friend and mentor Dick Powell, who hired him to crank out small-screen stories for “Zane Grey Theater.” This break blossomed into an even bigger opportunity in 1959, when Powell promoted him to producer. “Burke’s Law” starring Gene Barry as a millionaire crime-fighter was Spelling’s ice-breaker in 1963, and he followed the Golden Globe winner in 1965 with the equally popular “Honey West.” The Spellings’ marriage had ended in divorce the previous year. Carolyn went on to her most memorable performance as “Morticia” in the tv comedy “The Addams Family” before dying from cancer in 1983. Following the death of Dick Powell, Spelling formed a production company with entertainer Danny Thomas. The highlight of their four-year collaboration was “The Mod Squad” nominated six years running for the topdrama Emmy. Spelling hit his stride in the Seventies with “The Rookies,” “Starsky and Hutch,” “S.W.A.T.,” “Charlie’s Angels,” “The Love Boat,” “Fantasy Island,” “Vega$” and “Hart to Hart.” Under exclusive contract to ABC, the producer with the magic touch was responsible for a third of the network’s prime-time programming by the end of the decade. Speaking of detractors that dismissed his successful shows as “mindless candy,” Spelling once said, “The knocks by the critics bother you. But you have a choice of proving yourself to 300 critics or 30 million fans.” Spelling’s after-dark soap opera “Dynasty” defined tv-watching in the Eighties. At the end of its nine-season run, the ABC executives showed their appreciation for all he had done by refusing to renew his contract. But he bounced right back with hit programs for the new Fox network. Before his death in 2006 from complications following a stroke, Aaron Spelling could be seen waving to busloads of tourists from the driveway of his 56,500-squarefoot California mansion. Sure, it was ostentatious and over the top, but it was a way for the skinny insecure kid from Fair Park to prove to the world how far he had come. Order Bartee’s books “Murder Most Texan” and “Texas Depression-Era Desperadoes” from the “General Store” at barteehaile.com or by mailing a check for $26.65 for each copy to Bartee Haile, P.O. Box 152, Friendswood, TX 77549.