Producer Harve Bennett (Star Trek movies, Six Million Dollar Man), R.I.P.

Dr. Chris Evil · 26 Jul 2006

Harve Bennett Dies: Producer Of ‘Star Trek’ Movies & TV Classics Was 84
by Patrick Hipes
and Anthony D'Alessandro
March 5, 2015
3:58pm

Harve Bennett, the producer who helped guide four of Paramount’s Star Trek movies in the 1980s and produced TV series Mod Squad, The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, died Wednesday in Oregon. He was 84 and becomes the latest key figure lost from the seminal Star Trek franchise following Leonard Nimoy’s death February 27.

After executive stints at ABC and CBS and co-creating Mod Squad, Bennett had a hand in creating or producing some of the most iconic sci-fi series on TV including serving as exec producer on both The Six Million Dollar Man (he voiced the opening credits, according to Bennett in a 2008 Archive of American Television interview) and The Bionic Woman.

Bennett then moved to Columbia Pictures Television as a TV producer where his shows included Salvage 1, and for Paramount the miniseries The Jesse Owens Story and A Woman Called Golda — which was Ingrid Bergman’s final role and which co-starred Nimoy. Such creds led Bennett to the Star Trek movie franchise, eventually teaming with director Nicholas Meyer on the second movie in the series, Star Trek: The Wrath Of Khan — which featured the death of Nimoy’s character Spock — after cramming for the writing gig by watching every episode of the TV series. The pic’s success sealed the franchise’s place and led to Bennett producing Star Treks III, IV and V.

“He was a remarkable man and he was unpretentious and self-effacing. I don’t think there would be a Star Trek franchise without him. He rescued it. He’s endangered of being lost in the shuffle, but he’s the guy who figured it out,” said Meyer, who worked with Bennett on Wrath Of Khan and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

“He watched all 79 of those original episodes and he was the one who plucked out Khan,” added Meyer. The fact that actor Ricardo Montalban, who originated the role of Khan, was in the spotlight at the time with ABC’s Fantasy Island also further fueled the return of the character to the Star Trek canon.

The 1986 The Voyage Home became the first Star Trek film to surpass the century mark at the domestic box office with $109.7M. The film centered around the Star Trek crew time-traveling to 20th century America to retrieve humpback whales which could communicate with an alien probe. The film resonated with its environmentalism themes. Bennett and Nimoy, who served as director and co-screenwriter on the film, hatched the story. Meyer and Peter Krikes also worked on the script.

The Chicago-born Bennett appeared frequently as a child on the radio game show Quiz Kids, and after graduating from UCLA’s film school he served in the Army in the Korean War. After he got out he became one of CBS’ youngest executives. Eventually moving to ABC, he shifted into programming, becoming VP Daytime Programming and eventually VP Programming under Leonard Goldberg.

Linda · **Posted:** Fri Mar 06, 2015 9:29 pm

Brotoro · 12 Apr 2008

R.I.P. Harv

Kid Nemo · 05 Apr 2011

Jeff · 05 Oct 2006

A good steward for the Trek franchise during his time spent working on it. RIP

(T)Eddy · **Joined:** 02 Jul 2009 **Posts:** 11767

Some of the Star Trek films were clunkers, but others I am quite fond of, and one---Wrath of Khan----is a classic. Not just a Star Trek classic or a science fiction classic, but a classic film in and of itself. It came out the same year as better sci-fi films E.T. and Blade Runner, so you won't read my predictable rant about how this film was denied an Oscar. But in 2082 when only people who want to watch Oscar Best Picture winners are renting Gandhi, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan will be watched, loved, and appreciated by audiences.

And Harve Bennett was responsible for this film getting made. For that, I will be forever grateful to him.

That meddlin kid · 26 Mar 2007

(T)Eddy wrote:

Some of the Star Trek films were clunkers, but others I am quite fond of, and one---Wrath of Khan----is a classic. Not just a Star Trek classic or a science fiction classic, but a classic film in and of itself. It came out the same year as better sci-fi films E.T. and Blade Runner, so you won't read my predictable rant about how this film was denied an Oscar. But in 2082 when only people who want to watch Oscar Best Picture winners are renting Gandhi, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan will be watched, loved, and appreciated by audiences.

And Harve Bennett was responsible for this film getting made. For that, I will be forever grateful to him.

It really is a good film. I did not know that Harve Bennett was instrumental in producing the "Star Trek" features. I'm familiar with him mainly from his audio commentaries on episodes of "Six Million Dollar Man" and "Bionic Woman" that I saw a while back. He seemed like he would have been a good guy to get to know.

Producer Harve Bennett (Star Trek movies, Six Million Dollar Man), R.I.P.

Who is WANline