Dick Berg, TV Producer and Screenwriter, Dies at 87
Dick Berg, a television producer best known for creating major history-based mini-series like “Wallenberg: A Hero’s Story” and the 13-hour adaptation of James A. Michener’s book “Space,” died Sept. 1 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 87.
The cause was complications after a fall, his son Scott said.
In a career spanning more than 50 years, Mr. Berg produced or wrote scripts for nearly 100 television shows, starting with hourlong original dramas and detective shows in the 1950s and ’60s. He wrote the pilot for “Johnny Staccato,” a 1959-1960 series that gathered something of a cult following, in which John Cassavetes played a jazz pianist in Greenwich Village who supplements his income by taking on detective work. Soon after, Mr. Berg moved on to produce 39 episodes of “Checkmate,” a series that chronicled the adventures of a private detective agency in San Francisco that specialized in preventing crimes rather than solving them.
From there, Mr. Berg turned toward producing original dramas for Alcoa Premiere and the Chrysler Theater, for which he hired the likes of William Inge and Rod Serling to write original teleplays. Mr. Berg’s productions advanced the careers of young directors like Sydney Pollack, Mark Rydell, Robert Ellis Miller, and Stuart Rosenberg.
For 30 years, Mr. Berg’s company, Stonehenge Productions, produced dozens of movies of the week and mini-series, many of them adapted from best-selling books. Among them were “The Martian Chronicles,” by Ray Bradbury; “The Word,” by Irving Wallace; and “A Rumor of War,” by Phil Caputo.
Mr. Berg had a banner year in 1985, when both “Space” and “Wallenberg” were broadcast...
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The cause was complications after a fall, his son Scott said.
In a career spanning more than 50 years, Mr. Berg produced or wrote scripts for nearly 100 television shows, starting with hourlong original dramas and detective shows in the 1950s and ’60s. He wrote the pilot for “Johnny Staccato,” a 1959-1960 series that gathered something of a cult following, in which John Cassavetes played a jazz pianist in Greenwich Village who supplements his income by taking on detective work. Soon after, Mr. Berg moved on to produce 39 episodes of “Checkmate,” a series that chronicled the adventures of a private detective agency in San Francisco that specialized in preventing crimes rather than solving them.
From there, Mr. Berg turned toward producing original dramas for Alcoa Premiere and the Chrysler Theater, for which he hired the likes of William Inge and Rod Serling to write original teleplays. Mr. Berg’s productions advanced the careers of young directors like Sydney Pollack, Mark Rydell, Robert Ellis Miller, and Stuart Rosenberg.
For 30 years, Mr. Berg’s company, Stonehenge Productions, produced dozens of movies of the week and mini-series, many of them adapted from best-selling books. Among them were “The Martian Chronicles,” by Ray Bradbury; “The Word,” by Irving Wallace; and “A Rumor of War,” by Phil Caputo.
Mr. Berg had a banner year in 1985, when both “Space” and “Wallenberg” were broadcast...