Richard Irving (Director)

Richard Irving (born February 13, 1917 in New York City , † December 23, 1990 in San Diego , California , United States ) was an American television film and television series director and producer with previous activity as a theater and film actor . Irving is best remembered for staging the first Columbo crime thriller Murder by Prescription .

Richard Irving (1949)

Live and act

Irving began his career as a dialogue trainer for the film production company RKO , appeared in several plays on Broadway in New York in 1941/42 ( Boudoir , They Should Have Stood in Bed and the music revue This Is the Army ) and then stood still during the Second World War , in the film version of This Is the Army for the first time in front of the camera. After 1945 he was regularly filled with, in some cases, tiny supporting roles, but soon after he had directed several short feature films between 1949 and 1951, he switched to television, which was still in development.

Here he produced or staged a myriad of individual episodes of various popular series from the 1950s to 1980s, including Stars Over Hollywood, Campbell Playhouse, Soldiers of Fortune, State Trooper, Mike Hammer, The Name of the Game and most recently Quincy . Since the beginning of the 1960s, his enormous output has also included individual films, including the crime film Murder According to a Prescription , which was made in 1967 and with which he added the until then only moderately well-known actor Peter Falk in his later star role as Ltnt. (In Germany: Inspector) Columbo World fame helped. Murder according to a recipe - co-star Gene Barry also got the lead role in Irving's next television production, which was filmed on location in Europe and cast internationally (including Senta Berger and Werner Peters from Germany), the agent and crime story Istanbul Express .

In 1973 Irving directed the movie The Six Million Dollar Man for ABC , the pilot of the popular science fiction series of the same name starring Lee Majors . All three of these films were made by Universal Studios ' television subsidiary , Universal Television, a company that Richard Irving served as Vice President until 1979. Irving also helped set up Revue Productions, a subsidiary of MCA Universal TV. Richard Irving ended his long directing career in 1985 with an episode of the Airwolf series . Immediately beforehand he had produced a two-part television portrait about Raoul Wallenberg , the Swedish savior of the Budapest Jews in 1944/45, entitled Raoul Wallenberg - Eine Heldengeschichte .

Awards, family matters

Richard Irving received a total of four Primetime Emmy nominations between 1969 and 1986 . The father of a daughter and a son died immediately before Christmas 1990 as a result of heart surgery in a hospital in San Diego, Southern California. His niece is the actress Amy Irving , Steven Spielberg's ex-wife .

Filmography (selection)

as an actor (movies):

• 1943: This Is the Army
• 1946: The Miracle of Manhattan (Miracle on 34th Street)
• 1947: Violence
• 1948: Escape With No Way Out (Raw Deal)
• 1948: Rebellion in the Gray House (Canon City)
• 1949: Too Late for Tears
• 1949: Scene of the Crime
• 1949: Kesselschlacht (Battleground)
• 1949: Borderline
• 1950: Bunco Squad
• 1950: Flying Disc Man From Mars
• 1951: The trail leads to the harbor (The Mob)
• 1951: Gangsters among themselves (Behave Yourself!)
• 1952: Woman in the Dark

as a television director:

• 1949: Dog of the Wild (short film director)
• 1950: Pal, Canine Detective (short film director)
• 1950: Pal, Fugitive Dog (short film director)
• 1951: Stars Over Hollywood (series)
• 1951–1952: Hollywood Opening Night (series)
• 1952: Campbell Playhouse (series)
• 1952–1953: Chevron Theater (series)
• 1952–1953: Biff Baker, USA (series)
• 1953–1955: The Pepsi-Cola Playhouse (series)
• 1954–1956: Studio 57 (series)
• 1955–1957: Soldiers of Fortune (series)
• 1958: Mike Hammer (series)
• 1956–1959: State Trooper (series)
• 1960: The Tall Man (series)
• 1960: Coronado 9 (series)
• 1967: Prescription: Murder (Prescription: Murder)
• 1968: Istanbul Express (Istanbul Express)
• 1970: breakout
• 1970: Columbo: Ransom for a Dead Man (second Columbo film)
• 1971: cutter
• 1973: The Six Million Dollar Man
• 1975: The Art of Crime
• 1977: Exo-Man
• 1983: Johnny Blue
• 1984: The Jesse Owens Story

as a television producer or production manager:

• 1951: The Adventures of Kit Carson (series)
• 1957–1959: State Trooper (series)
• 1965–1967: Laredo (series)
• 1967: Prescription: Murder (Prescription: Murder)
• 1968: Istanbul Express (Istanbul Express)
• 1970: breakout
• 1970: Columbo: Ransom for a Dead Man
• 1971: Just One Game (A Little Game)
• 1971: cutter
• 1971: Adventures of Nick Carter
• 1972: The Hound of the Baskervilles
• 1973: The Six Million Dollar Man
• 1973: Trapped - Attack of the Killer Dogs (Trapped)
• 1974: At Your Own Risk (Newman's Law)
• 1974: Sidecar Racers
• 1975: The Art of Crime
• 1976: As long as love lives (Dark Victory)
• 1977: Exo-Man
• 1977–1978: Quincy (series)
• 1980: Masada (multi-part)
• 1983: Johnny Blue
• 1984: The Last Days of Pompeii ( The Last Days of Pompeii , miniseries)
• 1985: Raoul Wallenberg - Eine Heldengeschichte (Wallenberg: A Hero's Story)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Richard Irving in the Internet Broadway Database

Web links

Commons : Richard Irving  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Obituary in The New York Times
• Richard Irving in the Internet Movie Database (English)