Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Book review - "Roy Huggins: Creator of Maverick, 77 Sunset Strip, the Fugitive and the Rockford Files" by Paul Green (2014)

Huggins is a legendary figure of US television - creator of Cheyenne, 77 Sunset Strip, The Fugitive, The Rockford Files, Run for Your Life. He did not have a lot to do with the actual running of some of these shows but he was part of reviving Hunter, worked on the second part of Rod Taylor's series Hong Kong, worked on Alias Smith and Jones, did a bunch of TV movies and mini series.

Huggins was an interesting character - he was a communist who avoided blacklisting by naming names, his first wife was so similar to him that they got divorced and both remarried people who serviced their dreams, he liked skin diving, he could be prickly (not hard at a time when TV was dominated by idiots), he often clashed with his stars but they needed him, he was a tough task master but good stuff resulted, he worked at Columbia in the 50s making B movies and they liked him, he was the father in law of Frank Price.

The book benefits from access to Huggins' unpublished memoirs and extensive interviews with people close to him like Price. I did feel some of the quotes could have been edited more.

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