Actor John Forsythe died 1 April 2010 of complications from pneumonia, which followed a year-long battle with cancer. Born John Lincoln Freund on 29 January 1918 in Penn’s Grove, New Jersey, he won two Golden Globes (1983 and 1984) for his starring role on Dynasty, and was nominated for four more (1982 and 1985-87). He was also nominated for three Emmys for the role.
Forsythe was best known as the Denver oil tycoon Blake Carrington on the night-time soap opera Dynasty (1981-89). Earlier, he had starred as playboy lawyer Bentley Gregg in Bachelor Father (1957-62). In between those two roles, he was completely unseen as the voice of Charlie Townsend in Charlie’s Angels (1976-81, he reprised the role in the 2000 and 2003 feature films Charlie’s Angels and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.
He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, but dropped out after three years. He’d had a successful summer job as a radio announcer for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and then moved to radio acting. He debuted on the New York state in Yankee Point in 1942, and in the movies in Destination Tokyo (1943). He then enlisted in the Army Air Forces, and appeared in Winged Victory (Moss Hart’s Broadway tribute to the service). After World War II, he got his acting career back in gear starting in 1948, with television guest appearances and Broadway plays (he was a founding member of the Actors Studio, but chose to emphasize his television work for the financial security).
Forsythe’s genre roles include: Scrooged (1988), Mysterious Two (1982), Cruise into Terror (1978), Shadow on the Land (1968), and three episodes of Lights Out (1951-52).
He was married to Parker McCormick from 1939 to 1943; they had one son who survives him. Then he married Julie Warren in December 1943; they were together until her death in August 1994, and had two daughters who survive him. He married his widow, Nicole Carter, in 2002. Forsythe is also survived by six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.