Roy Huggins

Infobox actor
name=Roy Huggins
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birthdate =18 July 1914
birthplace = Litelle, WA
deathdate = 3 April 2002
deathplace = Santa Monica, CA
othername = Thomas Fitzroy
John Thomas James
John Francis O'Hara
occupation = film and television producer
scriptwriter
novelist
yearsactive = 1950s-1990s
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children = Brett, Katherine, John, Thomas and James Huggins
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influenced = Steven J. Cannell
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cesarawards =
emmyawards = 1977 Outstanding Limited Series (nominated)
"Captains and the Kings"
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awards = 2002 Golden Boot Award
1994 Golden Laurel Award
Lifetime Achievement in Television
1991 Shamus Award
The Eye (Lifetime Achievement Award) [http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/huggins.html thrillingdetective.com Obituary] ]

Roy Huggins (July 18, 1914 – April 3, 2002) was a novelist and an influential writer/creator and producer of character-driven US television series, including "Maverick", "The Fugitive", and "The Rockford Files".

Education and pre-Hollywood employment

Huggins was educated at the University of California, 1935-41. After graduation, he worked as a special representative of the U.S. Civil Service, 1941-43, and later as an industrial engineer, 1943-46.

Novels and TV series

Huggins' novels include "The Double Take" (1946), "Too Late For Tears" (1947) and "Lovely Lady, Pity Me" (1949).

When Columbia Pictures purchased the rights to Huggins' novel "The Double Take" in 1949, Huggins signed a contract with the studio to adapt the script. From here he entered the movie industry, working as a contract writer at Columbia and RKO Pictures. In 1952, he wrote and directed the film "Hangman's Knot", a Randolph Scott western. Afterwards, he worked as a staff writer at Columbia until 1955.

Huggins moved to television in April 1955, when Warner Brothers hired him as a producer. He is best known as the creator of long-running shows such as "Maverick", "77 Sunset Strip" and "The Fugitive".

Huggins left Warner Brothers and in October 1960 became the vice-president in charge of television production at 20th Century-Fox.In 1963, he took a job as a vice president in the television division at Universal, where he spent the next 18 years. At Universal, he created "The Rockford Files" and produced "The Virginian (TV series)", "Alias Smith and Jones" and "Baretta", among other series.

Later, after being lured out of retirement by protege Stephen J. Cannell, he served for three years as the executive producer of "Hunter". Cannell said of Huggins' time on Hunter: "Roy was in the driver's seat where he belonged. Nobody does it better or with more style...Roy Huggins is my Godfather, my Hero and my Friend. They don't come any better." [ [http://www.caucus.org/archives/93spr_impressions.html Steven J. Cannell obituary of Roy Huggins.] ]

Huggins often wrote under the pseudonym John Thomas James, a composite of the names of his three sons from his second marriage.

A member of the Communist Party USA until the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939, Huggins appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, where he named 19 former comrades who had already been named before the Committee.

Huggins was married to artist Bonnie Porter and later to actress Adele Mara.

The "Huggins Contract"

At Warner Brothers television, Huggins was repeatedly denied credit and compensation as the creator of several television programs. Perhaps most famously, Jack Warner deliberately had the pilot to "77 Sunset Strip" screened briefly at movie theatres in the Caribbean in order to legally establish that the television series derived from a film, rather than, as was actually the case, several books and novellas Huggins had written in the 1940s. Since this was not the only occasion on which Warner had found a way to circumvent Huggins' creative rights, he left the studio soon thereafter.

Following this experience, he increasingly demanded ownership of all television concepts he authored. By the mid-1960s, he had distilled this demand into a standard part of all contracts into which he entered. quote|I was getting paid my royalty and my fee whether I did the show or not. If I conceived the show, and got it on the air, anyone could produce it and I would still get paid just as if I was doing it . . . That became known as "the Huggins Contract". Every producer in television would say 'I want the Huggins contract', and some of them got it. [http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=%22Archive+of+American+Television+Interview+with+Roy+Huggins%22&page=1&lv=1 Huggins interview at American Archive of Television.] ] |Roy Huggins|interview with the Archive of American Television, 21 July 1998

A notable early example of a show created under "the Huggins Contract" was "The Fugitive". Not only was the production carried out by Quinn Martin Productions, but he only gave limited television rights to Universal Studios. He reserved other rights, such as those he would later exercise to allow for a 1993 film.

References

External links

* [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3939862031835606094&q=%22Archive+of+American+Television+Interview+with+Stephen+J.+Cannell%22&total=9&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=6 Stephen J. Cannell's Archive of American Television explanation of Huggins' approach]
* [http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/H/htmlH/hugginsroy/hugginsroy.htm Roy Huggins Biography at The Museum of Broadcast Commications]
* [http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/huggins.html Thrilling Detective]
* [http://www.caucus.org/archives/93spr_impressions.html The Caucus for Television Producers, Writers & Directors]
*imdb name|0400403|Roy Huggins
* [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1814078786067513650&q=Roy+Huggins&total=20&start=10&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1 Roy Huggins' Interview in the Archive of American Television]