Beverly Hills 90210

AARON SPELLING
April 22, 1923 - June 23, 2006

A czar of the small screen, producer Aaron Spelling held a Guinness World Record as the most prolific TV producer anywhere when he passed away last June. His legacy of nearly 200 filmed series is studded with familiar guilty pleasures... more and pop cultural benchmarks: "Beverly Hills 90210," "Charlie's Angels," "Dynasty," "The Mod Squad," "Starsky & Hutch," "The Love Boat," "Fantasy Island," "Melrose Place," "T. J. Hooker" and "Twin Peaks." All were all products of the Spelling assembly line, suggesting his skill at riding prime time updrafts across four decades of network programming. The Dallas native worked his way up through the ranks on '50s movie and TV sets while married to actress Carolyn Jones (TV's original Morticia on "The Addams Family"), divorcing in 1965. He subsequently married Carol Jean "Candy" Maerer, and had daughter Victoria (Tori) and son Randall (Randy), both of whom would become actors. Spelling's splashy, big budget production style was mirrored off the lot, with Spelling and wife Candy famously upsetting Beverly Hills neighbors with the scale and indulgence of the 55,000 square foot mansion they built in the late 1980s.

(Image: Paul Smith/Featureflash/Retna Ltd.)