'Star Trek' Producer Harve Bennett Dies
By Dave McNary
Harve Bennett, who produced four Star Trek movies and the TV series Mod Squad, The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, died Wednesday in Medford, Ore. He was 84.
Bennett’s passing came less than a week after the Feb. 27 death of Star Trek star Leonard Nimoy.
Bennett, a native of Chicago, broke into show business as a young boy on the radio program Quiz Kids. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles film school and began his career as a production executive at CBS in New York City and later at ABC.
Bennett joined Aaron Spelling in developing and producing The Mod Squad, then moved to Universal, where he produced The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman and Gemini Man. He then worked at Columbia Pictures Television on Salvage 1, The Jesse Owens Story and A Woman Called Golda.
He was then recruited by Charles Bluhdorn, head of Paramount parent Gulf+Western, to produce a second Star Trek movie and developed Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, based on the TV episode “Space Seed” which featured Ricardo Montalban as the villain Khan Noonien Singh.
Bennett also produced the next three Star Trek films: The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home and The Final Frontier.
He also produced Crash Landing: The Rescue of Flight 232 and the series Time Trax and Invasion America.
Related: William Shatner Remembers Leonard Nimoy’s ‘Compassion and Dedication’ on Twitter
