1952 (as Four Star Productions) Incorporated as Four Star Television on Jan. 12, 1959.
Founders
Dick Powell David Niven Charles Boyer Ida Lupino Joel McCrea
Defunct
1997, after purchase to New World Television
Fate
Sold to Compact Video as the result of a Leveraged buyout by MacAndrews & Forbes
Successors
TV: Four Star International Library: 20th Television
Headquarters
Beverly Hills, California Costa Mesa, California
Key people
David Charnay (president) Dick Powell (president) David Niven (president) Ida Lupino (president) Charles Boyer (president)
Products
Television
Four Star Television, also called Four Star International, was an American television production company. Founded in 1952 as Four Star Productions by prominent Hollywood actors Dick Powell, David Niven, Charles Boyer, Ida Lupino and Joel McCrea, it was inspired by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz founding Desilu Productions a year earlier. McCrea left soon after its founding to continue in films, television and radio, and was replaced by Ida Lupino as the fourth star—although Lupino did not own stock in the company.[1]
Four Star produced several popular programs in the early days of television, including Four Star Playhouse (its first series), Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, Stagecoach West, The June Allyson Show (also known as The DuPont Show Starring June Allyson), The Dick Powell Show, Burke's Law, The Rogues and The Big Valley. Despite its stars sharing equal billing, Powell played the biggest role in the company's early success and growth.
Powell became President of Four Star within a few years of its formation and, in 1955, Four Star Films, Inc. was formed as an affiliate which produced such hit shows as The Rifleman; Trackdown; Wanted: Dead or Alive; Richard Diamond, Private Detective and The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor. There were also failed series, like Jeannie Carson's Hey, Jeannie!
In late 1958, Four Star Productions and Four Star Films were merged into a new holding company called Four Star Television, and began publicly trading on the American Stock Exchange on January 12, 1959. After Powell's death in 1963, Four Star was led by Thomas McDermott, followed by Aaron Spelling. It was then purchased and developed for global film and television markets by David Charnay, and subsequently was sold to Ron Perelman; Perelman sold it to 20th Century Fox Television in 1996.[2][3][4]
^"Joel McCrea Biography and History". Turner Classic Movies. October 20, 1990. Retrieved November 19, 2017.
^"Perelman's Not Out of the Game Just Yet". Los Angeles Times. July 18, 1996. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
^"Four Star International". Bloomberg. 1989-04-13. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
^"David Charnay, former Four Star Chief". Variety. 2002-10-07. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
and 25 Related for: Four Star Television information
FourStarTelevision, also called FourStar International, was an American television production company. Founded in 1952 as FourStar Productions by prominent...
Ventures. FourStarTelevision, also called FourStar International, is an American television production company. Founded in 1952 as FourStar Productions...
Star Gold Network is a group of Indian Hindi-language pay television movie channels, operated by Disney Star a subsidiary of Disney India which premiere...
Maharashtra, Disney Star runs more than 70 television channels in eight languages, reaching out to 9 out of 10 cable and satellite television homes in India...
TeamFourStar is a YouTube channel and production company. It is most notable for the creation of the web series Dragon Ball Z Abridged, a parody of the...
Troi on the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and fourStar Trek feature films, as well as other appearances in the Star Trek franchise...
Channel FourTelevision Corporation is a British state-owned media company which runs 12 television channels and a streaming service. Unlike the BBC,...
distributed in the 1960s by Warner Bros. Records (and briefly by FourStarTelevision). The label was sold to Warner Bros. in 1967. Valiant Records was...
who produced several television series for FourStarTelevision and ABC from the 1960s into the 1990s. The series was nominated four consecutive times for...
ABC/Warner Bros. Television series Maverick as well as Victoria Barkley's (Barbara Stanwyck) hot-tempered middle son Nick in the 1960s ABC/FourStar Western The...
The StarTelevision Network (commonly branded as Starcast initially, then STN, prior to launch, then Star from its launch up to the network's shutdown)...
is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel FourTelevision Corporation. It is publicly owned but, unlike...
April 8, 1963, as a production of FourStarTelevision. It was one of the first primetime series on US television to show a single parent raising a child...
Lucasfilm Animation commenced production of a 3D animated Star Wars television series called Star Wars: The Clone Wars, with key production team members...
Star Trek is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and became...
Bezzerides and Louis F. Edelman, and produced by Levy-Gardner-Laven for FourStarTelevision. The series begins about 6 years after the death of the family patriarch...
after just three weeks in Hollywood, he landed a role in the CBS FourStarTelevision series Johnny Ringo, having played the character of Cully, the deputy...
20th Television Animation (formerly known as Fox Television Animation or 20th Century Fox Television Animation) is an American animation studio that creates...
Disney Television Studios is the television studios arm of the Disney Entertainment division of The Walt Disney Company established on May 15, 2019 to...
Fargo. Other television appearances were on Hey, Jeannie!, The Loretta Young Show, Schlitz Playhouse, Screen Directors Playhouse, FourStar Playhouse, Matinee...
White, and animated television characters including the Simpsons and the Rugrats. Jim Henson is one of four puppeteers to have a star, but also has a further...
Star Trek is an American science fiction media franchise that started with a television series (simply called Star Trek but now referred to as Star Trek:...