RIP E. Duke Vincent

 

E. Duke Vincent, Producer With Aaron Spelling on ‘Dynasty,’ ‘Charmed’ and More, Dies at 91

The two-time Emmy winner also had a hand in such projects as ‘Gomer Pyle: USMC,’ ‘And the Band Played On,’ ‘Beverly Hills, 90210’ and ‘Melrose Place.’

The Hollywood Reporter

By Mike Barnes

February 27, 2024

 

E. Duke Vincent, the writer and two-time Emmy-winning producer who partnered with Aaron Spelling on such hugely popular shows as Dynasty, Beverly Hills, 90210, Charmed, 7th Heaven and Melrose Place, has died. He was 91.

Vincent died on Feb. 10 in his home in Montecito, California, his wife, actress Pamela Hensley, announced.

He and Spelling produced more than 40 series together, also including Hotel, Vegas, Matt Houston, Madman of the People and The Colbys; seven miniseries, among them Jackie Collins’ Hollywood Wives in 1985 and James Michener’s Texas in 1994; and more than three dozen telefilms.

Vincent won his Emmys for executive producing Day One, a 1989 CBS movie about the Manhattan Project that starred David Strathairn as J. Robert Oppenheimer, and the 1994 HBO movie And the Band Played On, centering on the AIDS epidemic.

An only child, Edward Ventimiglia was born on April 30, 1932, in Jersey City, New Jersey. His father, Egizio, was a pilot with the French Air Force during World War II.

Vincent graduated from Bloomfield High School and Seton Hall University, then joined The Blue Angels, the U.S. Navy’s aerobatic flight demonstration squadron, in 1960. He flew aerial photo sequences for the 1960-61 syndicated series The Blue Angels, piquing his interest in television.

After resigning from the Navy in 1962, Vincent co-wrote and produced a documentary called Man in Space and wrote spec scripts for The Dick Van Dyke Show before landing on the follow-up series produced by Carl Reiner and Sheldon Leonard, the 1967-68 CBS sitcom Good Morning World.

Later, he became a writer and a producer on series including Gomer Pyle: USMC, The Jim Nabors Hour, The Doris Day Show and Arnie.

Vincent met Spelling in 1977, and they began a partnership a year later that would last nearly three decades until Spelling’s death in 2006. He retired as executive producer and vice chairman of Spelling Television.

He also wrote the novels Mafia Summer, Black Widow, The Strip and The Camelot Conspiracy.

Hensley appeared on several TV shows before she and Vincent married in 1982, when she began a run as lawyer C.J. Parsons on Matt Houston.

VINCENT, E. Duke (Edmund Michael Ventimiglia)

Born: 4/30/1932, Jersey City, New Jersey, U.S.A.

Died: 2/10/2024, Montecito, California, U.S.A.

 

E. Duke Vincent’s westerns – producer:

Kate Bliss and the Ticker Tape Kid (TV) - 1978

Wild and Wooly (TV) – 1978

Love’s Savage Fury (TV) - 1979

The Wild Women of Chasty Gulch (TV) – 1982

Texas – 1994 (TV)