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By Ken Tucker
Ken Tucker
Ken Tucker
Ken Tucker is critic-at-large for EW

''Tour buses stop by my house a lot,'' Aaron Spelling told EW in 1998, ''and I go out and talk to [people on them], and ask them, 'What do you like to watch?' You can learn a lot; those are the fans, they not only built my house, they built my career, and they're the ones that you need when you're doing television.'' Spelling, who died June 23 at age 83 due to complications from a stroke, did television as well as anyone who's ever worked in the medium.

Ambling out to talk to the ordinary folks gawking at the 123-room mansion Spelling shared with his wife of 38 years, Candy, was entirely in keeping with this gnomic gnome, this perpetual paradox. Spelling was a man of the people (can you get any people-ier than The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, and Charlie's Angels?) who was also a gazillionaire, and a daddy (to Tori and Randy Spelling, both of whom appeared in Pop's shows) whose house came complete with its own bowling alley (again, amid the riches, a plebeian touch). Born a shy son of Jewish immigrants who spent most of his eighth year of life confined to his bed — the result of a nervous breakdown due to anti-Semitic taunting at school — Spelling nonetheless won a Purple Heart for taking a sniper's bullet in World War II. He was, by the account of many who worked for him, solicitous and gentlemanly.

''Once you've worked for Aaron, you're spoiled for the rest of your life,'' says former Angel Jaclyn Smith. ''He loved actors. He didn't sit in an ivory tower and send messages down to them, he really talked to them.... If you needed him, you got him on the phone. There was no 'I'll get back to you.''' Adds Daphne Zuniga of Melrose Place: ''Yes, he was probably a fierce businessman. But I did feel that there was a real person there who cared about your well-being on your show.'' Even actors who clashed with Spelling, such as Melrose's Grant Show, respected him: ''Aaron and I didn't always have the best of relationships. I was the young hothead and he was the old, wise general. Aaron prided himself on being 'Uncle A.' You don't always like your relatives, but you always love them.''


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