Herman Rush, who produced a number of tv reveals and was the previous president of Columbia Photos Tv, has died. He was 94.
Rush died on Dec. 12 of pure causes in Los Angeles, his daughter Mandie informed The Hollywood Reporter.
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1929, Rush grew up in a show-business household, together with his uncle Manie Sacks being Frank Sinatra’s first supervisor.
In 1951, Rush started his profession in tv, working first as a salesman for Official Movie earlier than shifting as much as a number of completely different management positions. He later bought Flamingo Movies, a tv syndication agency, in 1957 and turned it into a serious impartial syndication firm.
All through the ’60s and early ’70s, he was with Inventive Administration Associates because the president of the tv division. He additionally labored for CMA’s predecessor group, Basic Artists Company, now often known as Worldwide Inventive Administration, and performed an enormous function within the company’s entry into tv packaging. Among the reveals he was chargeable for inserting on networks included The Perry Como Present, The Jackie Gleason Present, The Kraft Music Corridor and The Hollywood Palace.
Rush additionally represented producer Irwin Allen throughout his time making TV hits equivalent to Voyage to the Backside of the Sea, Misplaced In Area, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants.
Within the late ’60s, Rush acquired properties from British leisure titan Lord Lew Grade. Certainly one of them was the favored sitcom Until Demise Us Do Half, which was later shopped to Norman Lear, who turned it into All within the Household. Rush additionally repackaged and produced plenty of BBC comedy TV collection for American audiences, together with For the Love of Ada (A Contact of Grace) and Love Thy Neighbor.
From 1971 to 1976, Rush served as an impartial TV packager and producer and produced a number of TV motion pictures and comedy collection at ABC. Throughout that point, he additionally govt produced the ABC Bicentennial Particular, The American Spirit and Demise Stalk, in affiliation with David Wolper Productions.
He was appointed president of Marble Arch Tv, the American subsidiary of Lord Lew Grades’ Related Communications Restricted, in 1979, however the next yr was named president of Columbia Photos Tv Group.
Whereas at Columbia Photos, he helped reestablish it as one of many main producers and distributors of TV applications, in addition to supervised the manufacturing of plenty of motion pictures and mini-series. Rush put greater than a dozen collection on the air, together with Ripley’s Imagine It or Not, Mike Hammer and Designing Ladies. Rush was additionally at Columbia when it was bought by The Coca-Cola Firm in 1982. (It was later merged with Tri-Star Photos in 1987 to kind Columbia Photos Leisure, Inc. earlier than Sony Photos acquired it in 1989.)
Rush produced a number of different TV initiatives all through his profession, equivalent to The American Purple Cross Emergency Check, A Customers Information to Planet Earth: The American Surroundings Check and The Montel Williams Present.
He additionally created Katz/Rush Leisure with Raymond Katz, which produced The New Unique Novice Hour, The Susan Powter Present, Miss America: Behind The Crown and Nite Cap.
For his influence on the TV trade, Rush was honored by the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters and The Caucus for Writers, Producers and Administrators. He additionally served on the board of the Ojai Movie Competition.
Rush is survived by his two youngsters, Mandie and Jim, with whom he shares together with his spouse of 72 years, Joan Rush, who died in October.
