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Obituary: Celebrated television executive Fred Silverman, 82, known as "The Man With the Golden Gut" for his seeming knack for knowing if a television show would be a hit or a miss, has died.
He worked for all three of the major networks, but he is perhaps best known for his time at CBS.
Born on September 13, 1937, in New York City, Silverman’s master’s thesis at Ohio State University examined ABC’s television programming. He started his career at WGN-TV in Chicago — where he created such programs as Zim-Bomba, Bozo’s Circus and Family Classics — and WPIX in New York City. The young Silverman so impressed the top executives at CBS that he was named head of CBS daytime programming at 25._____
He rose to VP Programming at CBS and was responsible for a new wave of hit comedy, drama and variety series including The Mary Tyler Moore Show, M*A*S*H, The Waltons, Good Times, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, Kojak, Cannon, The Jeffersons, and the animated — and later iconic — Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
Fotis Dulos put his family through hell, but he decided to save taxpayers a bunch of money by killing himself. He died, never recovering from his suicide attempt via carbon monoxide poisoning.
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Another obit: Noted racecar driver John Andretti, 56, died after a battle against cancer.
Andretti was almost predestined for the cockpit of a racing machine, born while his father still was competing in various racing circuits. But the fact that those close to him — from family to racing peers and charity associates — agreed that his most impactful achievements came off the racetrack paints the picture of the person Andretti was outside of a race car.
For a winner both in IndyCar and NASCAR during a career that spanned 24 years, that means something.
"He had a racing last name, but the reason he was so popular in this area was because people knew him, saw him around, knew he grew up here," said IMS president Doug Boles. "He was a great race-car driver, but he was our great race-car driver."
Andretti died of colon cancer. He was the same age as my oldest brother, Jim, was when he died of the same disease in 1989.
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