Noone has made more of the small screen than Aaron Spelling, the most prolific producer in the history of television. He has dominated the television industry in such a marvelous way that a single producer in today’s splintered 400-show landscape could possibly achieve. He boasted more than 200 series and TV movies and programs that defined the medium and garnered Emmys for acting, costumes selection, and production.
Career success
Through his production company Spelling Television, Spelling holds the record as the most prolific television producer in US television history, with 218 producer and executive producer credits.
Forbes ranked him the 11th top-earning deceased celebrity in 2009. He changed the face of pop culture in the ‘60s and ‘70s with counterculture cops on The Mod Squad, female private eyes on Charlie’s Angels, and such escapist fare as The Love Boat.
In the ‘80s, he brought soap melodrama to nighttime with Dynasty and produced one-third of primetime on ABC (nicknamed “Aaron’s Broadcasting Company”). At the height of his career, he wielded more influence than any TV producer before or since. After ABC canceled all of his shows in the late ‘80s, the populist maestro persevered, reinventing his now-publicly traded Aaron Spelling Productions with Fox’s Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place and The WB’s Charmed and 7th Heaven, which was still on the air when Spelling died in 2006 at age 83, leaving an estimated $500 million estate and a vast TV library now owned by CBS TV Studios.
Holmby Hills Property
A super-luxury Californian estate – known as The Manor – has hit the market for an impressive £165 million (£121m) just three years after it sold for just shy of $120 million (£89m). Located in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles is a megamansion that is both stunning and outrageous, a property so lavish that it inspires either envy or disdain (or both) from those who aren’t in the stratospheric tax bracket one must be in to own the place.
Spelling Manor in Los Angeles is one of the largest homes in the world. At 56,500 square feet, it is slightly larger than the White House, and more than 21 times the size of the average American house.
The French chateau-style home has a bowling alley, a wine cellar and tasting room, and a beauty salon with massage and tanning rooms. Once listed for $160 million, it was one of the most expensive homes in the entire country and was later sold for an astronomical amount.
A sprawling estate that sits on 5 acres of land and has a whopping 123 rooms (including 27 bathrooms and 14 bedrooms), the chateau-like property was a hot topic among locals for years after it was built in 1988.
Petra Ecclestone, daughter of Formula One racing baron Bernie Ecclestone, paid an astounding $85 million in cash to buy the property from Candy Spelling.
She then hired designer Gavin Brodin to update the rather matronly interiors in a massive renovation project that was to be completed in less than three months. The project was so grand some outlets report that there were up to 500 workers on the property at a time and that the total costs amounted to more than $20 million.
