Martin Starger, who as a senior govt at ABC within the Seventies helped deliver “Glad Days,” “Roots,” “Wealthy Man, Poor Man” and different reveals to the small display — and the community practically to the brink of No. 1 in prime time — earlier than turning to producing motion pictures, most notably Robert Altman’s “Nashville,” died on Could 31 at his house in Los Angeles. He was 92.
His demise was confirmed by his niece, Ilene Starger, a casting director.
Mr. Starger joined ABC within the mid-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 one in every of his protégés at ABC, described Mr. Starger in an electronic mail as “the quintessential tv govt of the 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 battle 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 packages, together with “Marcus Welby, M.D.” and “The Six Million Greenback Man,” with TV motion pictures like “The Missiles of October” (1974), which dramatized the Cuban missile disaster, and prestigious mini-series like “Roots,” based mostly 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 received 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 idea of a nine-part mini-series.
Mr. Starger’s penchant for placing brainier-than-usual packages 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 strategy to beat NBC and CBS. In 1974, he added 12 new collection to ABC’s schedule to switch unsuccessful ones.
He mentioned that within the battle to realize floor in opposition to ABC’s rivals, he had three guidelines of engagement: Every evening needed to have not less than one returning present; returning reveals needed to be robust 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 packages solely for the community.
Nonetheless, a number of the programming he left behind for his successor, Fred Silverman, was liable 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 have been on ABC, together with “Glad 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 Instances, took observe. “Paradoxically,” 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 stories 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, one in every of two sons of Isidore Starger, a manufacturing facility leather-based employee who made purses (which have been bought by, amongst others, Eleanor Roosevelt), and Rose (Stamler) Starger, who managed the family.
After graduating from the Metropolis Faculty 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 based mostly 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 businesses 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 in opposition to the background of the nation music trade. Mr. Starger and Jerry Weintraub have been the movie’s govt producers. It was nominated for 5 Oscars and received for the perfect authentic music, “I’m Straightforward.”
A collection Mr. Starger created for ABC, “Westside Medical,” a few clinic in Southern California, had a short run in 1977.
For the following 20 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 motion pictures, “Sophie’s Alternative” (1982), “Masks” (1985), “Escape From Sobibor” (1987) and “Love Letters” (1999).
Mr. Starger was the manager producer of “Pleasant Hearth,” a 1979 TV film based mostly on the true story of a pair (performed by Carol Burnett and Ned Beatty) who fought the federal government to be taught the reality concerning the killing of their son, a soldier throughout the Vietnam Struggle. It received 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 turned successful when it was revived on Broadway final 12 months; “Starlight Specific,” 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 led to divorce in 1975 after eight years. No instant members of the family survive.
Certainly one of Mr. Starger’s ardour initiatives was resuscitating “Omnibus,” the formidable tradition, leisure and knowledge 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 advised The Instances in 1980, shortly earlier than the primary episode aired, “however reasonably to have one thing of its caliber and high quality in a daily recurring spot. That’s if there’s receptivity. And I feel there shall be.”
However there was not. ABC confirmed only some episodes by means of 1981. And Mr. Starger moved on. Two of the movies he produced, “Pink Flag: The Final Sport,” a army drama, and “The Final Unicorn,” an animated fable, would quickly be launched.
