Fred Silverman

Fred Silverman (born September 13, 1937) is an American television executive and producer. He worked as an executive at all of the Big Three television networks, and was responsible for bringing to television such programs as the series Scooby-Doo (1969–present), All in the Family (1971–1979), The Waltons (1972–1981), and Charlie's Angels (1976–1981), as well as the miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man (1976), Roots (1977) and Shōgun (1980). For his success in programing wildly popular shows, Time magazine declared him "the man with the Golden gut" in 1977.

Biography

Early life and career

Silverman was born in New York City. He graduated from Syracuse University, where he was a member of Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, and then earned a Master's degree from the Ohio State University. He went to work for WGN-TV in Chicago, Illinois, overseeing program development and children's programming, as well as at WPIX in New York City. His masters thesis analyzed ten years of ABC programming and was so good it got him hired as an executive at CBS at the age of 25 in 1963. There, he took over responsibility for all daytime network programming and later, took charge of all of entertainment programming, day and night. Silverman married his assistant, Cathy Kihn, and they had a daughter, Melissa, and son, William.