The Townsend Detective Agency is no more.
The Insider Website notes that debonair John Forsythe, the star of Dynasty in the 1980s and the voice of Charlie in the quintessential mid-1970s TV series Charlie’s Angels (both on ABC) passed away yesterday at age 92:
Forsythe died of complications from pneumonia in Santa Ynez, Calif. on Thursday.”…He died as he lived his life… with dignity and grace, after a year-long struggle with cancer,” his family tells “The Insider.”
The family says there will be no public service for the late star, and they request that those wishing to honor his memory make donations to the American Cancer Society in lieu of flowers.
Forsythe won two Golden Globes portraying patriarch Blake Carrington on “Dynasty.” He also voiced the mysterious Charles Townsend (who memorably made his presence felt via speaker phone) on “Charlie’s Angels.”
In addition to the numerous acting credits he amassed over his career — which spanned over six decades — Forsythe was a spokesperson and sponsor of the World Wildlife Fund. He also supported the American Cancer Society and the United Nations Association.
While everyone watched Charlie’s Angels for its latter half of its titular aesthetics, Forsythe’s role is, in many respects, what really made the series work, as I wrote back in 2006, when Aaron Spelling died:
As Todd Gitlin astutely observed in his 1983 book, Inside Prime Time, beginning with The Mod Squad, Spelling hit upon his primary formula: a group of young, photogenic leads, and somewhere in the background, a father figure who both provided the older generation with a reason to watch the show, and comforted them that the leads wouldn’t go too far off the beaten bath of societal norms. (Remember, we’re talking 1970s network television here, which was rather tame when compared to your average HBO series of today).Spelling took that formula to its absolute peak with Charlie’s Angels, which built on The Mod Squad’s trio of hip young leads, but replaced the sixties-era psychedelic drop-outs with three drop-dead gorgeous women fighting crime not in bell-bottoms and headbands, but very 1970s-style Nolan Miller-designed outfits. The Angels actually had two father figures to keep them out of trouble–the eunuch-like David Doyle on-camera, and above him on the crime fighting food chain, the perfect boss, voiced by the suave John Forsythe, but literally just off-screen. Thus, as Gitlin noted, every man watching the show could pretend that he was Charlie, and “the girls” worked for him.
As a television formula, it worked absolutely brilliantly, and the show was a huge ratings smash.
According to the Internet Movie Database, Forsythe broke into Hollywood as an extra in 1943; among the films he made that year was Destination Tokyo alongside Cary Grant. Forsythe’s last film was (appropriately enough) 2003’s Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. A sixty year career in Hollywood is a remarkable run; becoming a pop icon via your voice alone is even more memorable.
‘Bye Charlie.
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