{"id":80,"date":"2010-10-04T11:05:17","date_gmt":"2010-10-04T11:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/10\/stephen-j-cannell-1941-2010.html"},"modified":"2010-10-04T11:05:17","modified_gmt":"2010-10-04T11:05:17","slug":"stephen-j-cannell-1941-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/10\/stephen-j-cannell-1941-2010.html","title":{"rendered":"Stephen J. Cannell, 1941-2010"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Stephen_J._Cannell\">Stephen J. Cannell<\/a>, the prolific TV writer\/producer turned successful mystery novelist, died last week at age 69 from complications of melanoma. (Read the New York Times obituary <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/10\/02\/arts\/television\/02cannell.html\">here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>By all accounts, he was a happy man both personally and professionally &#8212; the fruits of a life well lived. <\/p>\n<p>He married his high school sweetheart &#8212; who survives him, along with three of their four children (a fourth died in a tragic accident as a teenager). <\/p>\n<p>On the professional side, he overcame dyslexia to become one of the most successful and influential writers of one-hour dramas in TV history. <\/p>\n<p>He was probably also one of the main reasons I grew up to love the form so much. I admired (still do) his ability create characters that had an edge without being &#8220;edgy.&#8221; There was a kindness that ran through his shows that the medium could use more of today.&nbsp; &nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>His early credits included scripts for such iconic crime dramas as <i>Adam-12<\/i>, <i>Ironside<\/i> and the classic <i>Columbo<\/i> but it was when he truly took the creative reins as a producer of the shows he worked on (eventually forming his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=eEPf9BIf_hM\">own company<\/a>) that his talent for creating truly human heroes in the context of mystery\/adventure series really shined.<\/p>\n<p> My personal favorites include <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_B-NPsgY9nI&amp;feature=related\">The Rockford Files<\/a><\/i> (1974-1980), <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jtJ2oxbIsOs&amp;feature=related\">The Greatest American Hero <\/a>(1981-1983), <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=IyZ2dLpvsMU\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jtJ2oxbIsOs&amp;feature=related\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=IyZ2dLpvsMU\">Hardcastle and McCormick<\/a><\/i> (1983-1986)&nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_MVonyVSQoM\"><i>The A-Team<\/i><\/a> (1983-1986) and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=nNHAdMEOGBw\">The Commish<\/a> (1991-1096). The links to clips from those shows provide a testament to his great ability to create truly entertaining shows featuring likable characters with heart.<\/p>\n<p>Great memories. Thanks, Stephen.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stephen J. Cannell, the prolific TV writer\/producer turned successful mystery novelist, died last week at age 69 from complications of melanoma. (Read the New York Times obituary here.) By all accounts, he was a happy man both personally and professionally &#8212; the fruits of a life well lived. He married his high school sweetheart &#8212;&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-television"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Stephen J. Cannell, 1941-2010 - Catholics Media and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/10\/stephen-j-cannell-1941-2010.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Stephen J. 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He married his high school sweetheart &#8212;&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/10\/stephen-j-cannell-1941-2010.html","og_site_name":"Catholics Media and Culture","article_published_time":"2010-10-04T11:05:17+00:00","author":"John W. Kennedy","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/10\/stephen-j-cannell-1941-2010.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/10\/stephen-j-cannell-1941-2010.html","name":"Stephen J. 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Cannell, 1941-2010"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/","name":"Catholics Media and Culture","description":"Catholic Church News and More","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/e5d5ef9caeb6b01bcbf08ca6de6591c2","name":"John W. Kennedy","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d80\/d801bc09698c0995d9ae402b4b55ab61x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d80\/d801bc09698c0995d9ae402b4b55ab61x96.jpg","caption":"John W. Kennedy"},"description":"John W. Kennedy is the founder and Dir. of Development of The Creative Universe Entertainment\u2122, a media consultation and development company focusing on the creation, development and support of high-quality mainstream entertainment that upholds positive timeless values, including trust in God. Current projects include \"Bryant Park\" (an uplifting romantic-comedy) and \"Photo Finish\" (an award-winning sci-fi TV pilot). He has written over 100 children's novels based on episodes of the Cartoon Network series \"Ben 10\", \"Ben 10: Alien Force\", \"Ben 10: Ultimate Alien\", \"Ben 10: Omniverse\" and \"Generator Rex\" among others. He also writes Beliefnet\u2019s \"Faith, Media &amp; Culture\" blog. Previously, he has produced successful news and talk programming for CNN, Fox News, Pax TV and SiriusXM. Specialties: Script Writing, Movie\/TV Novelizations &amp; Adaptations, TV Content Creation and Development, Creative Consultation, Producing and Booking News and Talk shows. He can be reached for writing, producing and consulting services at 516-640-1182.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/author\/jkennedy"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}