John Lincoln Forsythe (né Freund; January 29, 1918 – April 1, 2010) was an American stage, film/television actor, producer, narrator, and drama teacher whose career spanned six decades. He also appeared as a guest on several talk and variety shows and as a panelist on numerous game shows.
In 1943, he signed up with Warner Bros. as a minor contract player, but he starred in The Captive City (1952) and co-starred opposite Loretta Young in It Happens Every Thursday (1953), Edmund Gwenn and Shirley MacLaine in The Trouble with Harry (1955), and Olivia de Havilland in The Ambassador's Daughter (1956).
He also enjoyed a long successful television career, starring in three television series in three genres: as the single playboy father Bentley Gregg in the sitcom Bachelor Father (1957–1962); as the unseen millionaire Charles Townsend in the crime drama Charlie's Angels (1976–1981)—a role he reprised in the 2000 and 2003 film adaptations; and as patriarch Blake Carrington in the prime time soap opera Dynasty (1981–1989). He hosted the series World of Survival (1971–1977), and was the host of the 38th Miss Universe Pageant, broadcast on CBS in 1989.
Forsythe was born John (or Jacob) Lincoln Freund, on January 29, 1918, in Penns Grove, New Jersey, the eldest of three children of Blanche Forsythe (née Blohm) and Samuel Jeremiah Freund, a stockbroker. Blanche was born in Georgia to David Hyat Blohm (Yiddish: דוד הייאַט בלום; Russian: Дэвид Хаят Блом), a Russian Jewish immigrant, and Mary Materson (Yiddish: מרים מאטערסאָן), who was born in Maryland to Jewish emigrants from Prussia. Forysthe's father was born in New York to Polish Jewish immigrants. Forsythe was raised in the Jewish faith.
He was raised in Brooklyn, New York, where his father worked as a Wall Street businessman during the Great Depression of the 1930s. He graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn at the age of 16, and began attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1936, at the age of 18, he took a job as the public address announcer for Brooklyn Dodgers games at Ebbets Field, confirming a childhood love of baseball. He was a lifelong active Democrat.
Despite showing initial reluctance, Forsythe began an acting career at the suggestion of his father. As a bit player for Warner Brothers, Forsythe successfully appeared in several small parts.
As a result, he was given a small role in Destination Tokyo (1943). Leaving his movie career for service in the United States Army Air Forces in World War II, he appeared in the USAAF-produced play Winged Victory, then worked with injured soldiers who had developed speech problems.
In 1947, Forsythe joined the initial class of the Actors Studio, where he met Marlon Brando and Julie Harris, among others. During this time he appeared on Broadway in Mister Roberts and The Teahouse of the August Moon. In 1949, he had a non-regular but recurring role as Tom, a fellow homicide detective, on the radio crime drama program Broadway Is My Beat, which was originally broadcast from New York (before moving to Hollywood with a new cast later that year).
In 1955, Alfred Hitchcock cast him in the movie The Trouble with Harry, with Shirley MacLaine in her first movie appearance, for which she won a Golden Globe. In 1969, Forsythe appeared in another Hitchcock film, Topaz.
Throughout the 1950s, Forsythe successfully appeared in the new medium and worked regularly on all the networks, especially as a guest star. He appeared in the "Premonition" episode of the popular anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents, opposite Cloris Leachman.
Forsythe was cast in a 1957 episode, "Decision at Wilson's Creek", on the CBS anthology series Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre. He played Confederate Lieutenant David Marr who suddenly resigns to return to his wife, only to find that he is scorned by townspeople.
In 1957, he took a leading role in the situation comedy Bachelor Father for CBS as Bentley Gregg, a playboy lawyer who has to become a father to his niece Kelly (played by Noreen Corcoran), upon the death of her parents. The show was an immediate ratings hit and moved to NBC the following season and to ABC in the fall of 1961. During the 1961–1962 season, Bachelor Father was cancelled because of declining ratings.
During the 1960s, Forsythe returned to acting in movies including Kitten with a Whip (1964), Madame X (1966) and In Cold Blood (1967). In 1964 he starred in See How They Run which is notable for being the first film made for television.
He attempted two new television programs: The John Forsythe Show (originally titled The Mister and the Misses) on NBC with Guy Marks, Elsa Lanchester, Ann B. Davis, Peggy Lipton, and Forsythe's two young daughters, Page and Brooke (1965–1966), and To Rome with Love on CBS (1969–1971) with co-star Walter Brennan. Between 1971 and 1977, Forsythe served as narrator on the syndicated nature series, World of Survival (1971–1977). He was also the announcer for Michelob beer commercials during the 1970s and 1980s, notably during the "Weekends were made for Michelob" era.
Forsythe began a 13-year association with Aaron Spelling in 1976, cast in the role of mysterious unseen millionaire private investigator Charles Townsend in the crime drama Charlie's Angels (1976–1981). The show starred Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith and Farrah Fawcett, making stars of all three but especially Fawcett. Forsythe introduces the series' concept during its opening credits:
Once upon a time, three little girls went to the police academy, where they were each assigned very hazardous duties. But I took them away from all that, and now they work for me. My name is Charlie.
Forsythe became the highest-paid actor on television on a per-hour basis: while the show's on-camera stars often worked 15-hour days five days a week, with a couple of hours just for hair and makeup, Forsythe's lines for an entire episode would be recorded in a sound studio in a matter of minutes, after which he would have lunch in the network's commissary and then leave for the track. During this period, Forsythe invested much money in Thoroughbred racing, a personal hobby. Gaining respect with the celebrity Thoroughbred circuit, he served on the board of directors at the Hollywood Park Racetrack starting in 1972, and was on the committee for more than 25 years.
Following heart problems, Forsythe underwent quadruple coronary artery bypass surgery in 1979. This was so successful that he not only returned to work on Charlie's Angels, he also appeared in the two-time Academy Award-nominated motion picture ...And Justice for All later that year as Judge Henry T. Fleming, the film's main antagonist, a corrupt judge who despises Al Pacino's lawyer character.