Martin Starger, who as a senior govt at ABC within the Nineteen Seventies helped deliver “Blissful Days,” “Roots,” “Wealthy Man, Poor Man” and different reveals to the small display screen — and the community practically to the brink of No. 1 in prime time — earlier than turning to producing films, most notably Robert Altman’s “Nashville,” died on Could 31 at his dwelling in Los Angeles. He was 92.
His dying was confirmed by his niece, Ilene Starger, a casting director.
Mr. Starger joined ABC within the mid-Nineteen Sixties and rose to positions of accelerating significance, culminating in his promotion to president of ABC Leisure in 1972.
The leisure mogul Barry Diller, who was considered one of his protégés at ABC, described Mr. Starger in an e mail as “the quintessential tv govt of the Nineteen Seventies.” He was, Mr. Diller mentioned, the “essence of N.Y. smarts: suave, subtle and humorous. He was culturally forward of his viewers however was pragmatic in his programming selections, however ever striving for higher.”
Mr. Starger’s time at ABC was characterised by the community’s lengthy wrestle to interrupt out of final place in prime time, behind CBS and NBC, in what was then a three-network universe.
Mr. Starger and different executives balanced middlebrow applications, together with “Marcus Welby, M.D.” and “The Six Million Greenback Man,” with TV films like “The Missiles of October” (1974), which dramatized the Cuban missile disaster, and prestigious mini-series like “Roots,” primarily based on Alex Haley’s e book about his household historical past.
“Roots” — which ran for eight consecutive nights in 1977, though it didn’t air till after Mr. Starger had left ABC — was a colossal rankings smash and gained 9 Emmys. It was a part of Mr. Starger’s technique to adapt best-selling books like Leon Uris’s novel “QB VII” (1974), which was developed right into a two-night, six-hour occasion, and Irwin Shaw’s novel “Wealthy Man, Poor Man” (1976), the premise of a nine-part mini-series.
Mr. Starger’s penchant for placing brainier-than-usual applications on ABC’s schedule prompted John Carmody, a tv reporter for The Washington Publish, to explain Mr. Starger in 1973 as “the mental of the three community programming chiefs.”
In the end, Mr. Starger needed to discover a technique to beat NBC and CBS. In 1974, he added 12 new collection to ABC’s schedule to interchange unsuccessful ones.
He mentioned that within the battle to realize floor towards ABC’s rivals, he had three guidelines of engagement: Every evening needed to have at the least one returning present; returning reveals needed to be sturdy sufficient to assist new ones; and the community needed to counterprogram CBS and NBC with interesting options.
The plan didn’t work. ABC completed far behind its rivals.
After three years because the president of ABC Leisure, Mr. Starger left in 1975 to start out his personal manufacturing firm, with a deal to create applications solely for the community.
Nonetheless, among the programming he left behind for his successor, Fred Silverman, was accountable for ABC’s rise to the highest spot in prime time for the 1976-77 season. Seven of the ten top-rated reveals that season had been on ABC, together with “Blissful Days,” “The Six Million Greenback Man” and “Baretta,” holdovers from Mr. Starger’s time there.
John J. O’Connor, a TV critic for The New York Occasions, took be aware. “Satirically,” he wrote in 1977, “the muse for ABC’s present programming sample had been laid by Martin Starger, who was dismissed shortly earlier than the rankings started to climb.” (Some studies mentioned he was pushed out, others that he resigned to tackle a brand new problem.)
Martin Starger was born on Could 8, 1932, within the Bronx. His father, Isidore, was a manufacturing facility leather-based employee who made purses (which had been bought by, amongst others, Eleanor Roosevelt). His mom, Rose (Stamler) Starger, managed the family.
After graduating from the Metropolis School of New York in 1953 with a bachelor’s diploma in movement image methods, Mr. Starger was drafted into the Military. He served for 2 years within the movement image division of the Sign Corps; for a few of that point he was primarily based in Honolulu, the place he wrote, directed and edited movies.
After his discharge, he joined the promoting company Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn (now often known as BBDO) as an assistant projectionist, at a time when companies produced tv reveals. He was later an account govt and vice chairman.
He was recruited to ABC and held vice-presidential positions on the community earlier than turning into the president of ABC Leisure.
When he left ABC, he had a serious mission in hand. Whereas on the community, he had agreed to have ABC finance “Nashville” (1975), Robert Altman’s multilayered drama set towards the background of the nation music business. Mr. Starger and Jerry Weintraub had been the movie’s govt producers. It was nominated for 5 Oscars and gained for the very best unique track, “I’m Straightforward.”
A collection Mr. Starger created for ABC, “Westside Medical,” a few clinic in Southern California, had a quick run in 1977.
For the subsequent twenty years, Mr. Starger produced theatrical and tv movies, some in partnership with the British leisure mogul Lew Grade and a few for his personal firm, Marstar Productions. The quite a few movies on which he was a producer or govt producer included two Muppet films, “Sophie’s Alternative” (1982), “Masks” (1985), “Escape From Sobibor” (1987) and “Love Letters” (1999).
Mr. Starger was the manager producer of “Pleasant Fireplace,” a 1979 TV film primarily based on the true story of a pair (performed by Carol Burnett and Ned Beatty) who fought the federal government to study the reality concerning the killing of their son, a soldier in the course of the Vietnam Warfare. It gained the Emmy Award for excellent drama or comedy particular, which Mr. Starger shared along with his co-producers Fay Kanin, who additionally wrote the script, and Philip Barry Jr.
He additionally produced a number of Broadway reveals, together with three within the Eighties: “Merrily We Roll Alongside,” Stephen Sondheim’s cult flop, which closed after 16 performances in 1981 however grew to become a success when it was revived on Broadway final yr; “Starlight Categorical,” Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical about steam engines, with actors acting on curler skates; and the comedy “Lend Me a Tenor.”
Mr. Starger’s marriage to Judith Newburg resulted in divorce in 1975 after eight years. No fast relations survive.
One in all Mr. Starger’s ardour tasks was resuscitating “Omnibus,” the formidable tradition, leisure and data collection hosted by Alistair Cooke, which premiered on CBS in 1952 and lasted 9 years. Mr. Starger mentioned that “Omnibus” impressed him to work within the tv enterprise, and that the reminiscence of it led him to amass the rights to revive it on ABC.
“My feeling is that we ought to not do an occasional ‘Omnibus’ particular,’” he informed The Occasions in 1980, shortly earlier than the primary episode aired, “however reasonably to have one thing of its caliber and high quality in an everyday recurring spot. That’s if there’s receptivity. And I believe there will probably be.”
However there was not. ABC confirmed only some episodes by 1981. And Mr. Starger moved on. Two of the movies he produced, “Purple Flag: The Final Sport,” a army drama, and “The Final Unicorn,” an animated fable, would quickly be launched.
