William T. Orr
| William T. Orr | |
|---|---|
| Born |
September 27, 1917 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | December 25, 2002 (aged 85) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Resting place | Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills) |
| Occupation |
film and television producer actor |
| Years active | 1930s–1970s |
| Spouse(s) | Joy Page (1945–1970) |
| Children | Gregory Orr |
| Awards | Golden Boot Award, 2002 |
William T. Orr (September 27, 1917 – December 25, 2002) was an American television producer associated with a series of western and detective programs of the 1950s-1970s.
Orr began his career as an actor; his film credits included The Mortal Storm, The Gay Sisters, and The Big Street.
During World War II he was an officer in the Army Air Force. He was assigned to the First Motion Picture Unit.
As the first head of Warner Bros. Television department, Orr forged a fruitful alliance with ABC, which resulted in the network having a number of prime time hits, such as Maverick, 77 Sunset Strip, and F Troop. At the height of this relationship in the early 1960s, Orr had nine programs in prime time simultaneously.
Of these, though, no program was more significant than one of his earliest, Cheyenne. It was a groundbreaking series that was both the first hour-long western and the first series of any kind made by a major Hollywood film studio consisting entirely of content wholly exclusive to television.
A curator at the Paley Center for Media, previously called The Museum of Television and Radio once encapsulated Orr's importance to Warner Bros. by saying, "Television began as a step-child. But because of Orr, it became equal with film in creating revenue and jobs for the studio." One of the key reforms he made to effect this change was to move Warner's nascent television department from cramped quarters in New York City to Los Angeles studios separate from the film division.
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