Post by rayshae3 on Dec 15, 2014 17:55:29 GMT -5
A recent death on 11/14/2014: When reading about Glen Larson’s recent passing, I wondered where his name is so familiar from. Well, he was a member of The Four Preps that had a few big hits in the 50s, notably a #2 (for 3 weeks) in pre-Hot 100 Billboard charts, called “26 Miles (Santa Catalina)”. He as the base-singer in this group and together with the group’s lead vocalist (Bruce Belland), co-wrote many of the group’s successful hits, not only “26 Miles”, but also “Big Man” and “Down by the Station”.
Of course, I didn’t remember him from the 50s, it was before my time. But what I recognized his name from was of the time that, as a TV watcher in pre-cable world of a handful of over-the-air channels in my younger years, his credits being writer and producer of such iconic series “The Fugitive”, “It Takes a Thief” and into the 70s (“McCloud”, “Alias Smith and Jones”, “The Six Million Dollar Man”, etc.) were all over the TV screen. Furthermore, his 80s big series included 'The Fall Guy', 'Magnum, P.I.', and 'The Knight Rider'.
During his tenure on TV, he was not very much liked, mostly for his seemingly copying and un-original ideas. Harlan Ellison, the notable Sci-Fi writer called him Glen Larceny, and James Garner once even punched him on the set of “The Rockford File’ (according to Garner’s autobiography ‘The Garner Files: A Memoir’, published in 2011). Other obvious examples, “Alias Smith and Jones” ideas being taken from “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, “The Six Million Dollar Man” from the novel ‘Cyborg’, even naming the original 1978 series ‘Galactica’, ‘BattleSTAR Galactica” to cash in on the success of STAR wars.
Of course he continued his original love of music translating it over a number of theme music for his TV series, like the same Battlestar Galactica, its score bringing him a Grammy nomination.
But brushing his critics aside now, here’s him returning to his love of music, in a 2004 TV reunion of The Four Preps’ via the following YouTube clip. R.I.P.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=peoTc8xdfxk
Of course, I didn’t remember him from the 50s, it was before my time. But what I recognized his name from was of the time that, as a TV watcher in pre-cable world of a handful of over-the-air channels in my younger years, his credits being writer and producer of such iconic series “The Fugitive”, “It Takes a Thief” and into the 70s (“McCloud”, “Alias Smith and Jones”, “The Six Million Dollar Man”, etc.) were all over the TV screen. Furthermore, his 80s big series included 'The Fall Guy', 'Magnum, P.I.', and 'The Knight Rider'.
During his tenure on TV, he was not very much liked, mostly for his seemingly copying and un-original ideas. Harlan Ellison, the notable Sci-Fi writer called him Glen Larceny, and James Garner once even punched him on the set of “The Rockford File’ (according to Garner’s autobiography ‘The Garner Files: A Memoir’, published in 2011). Other obvious examples, “Alias Smith and Jones” ideas being taken from “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, “The Six Million Dollar Man” from the novel ‘Cyborg’, even naming the original 1978 series ‘Galactica’, ‘BattleSTAR Galactica” to cash in on the success of STAR wars.
Of course he continued his original love of music translating it over a number of theme music for his TV series, like the same Battlestar Galactica, its score bringing him a Grammy nomination.
But brushing his critics aside now, here’s him returning to his love of music, in a 2004 TV reunion of The Four Preps’ via the following YouTube clip. R.I.P.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=peoTc8xdfxk
