Herman Rush, Hollywood executive and TV producer, passes away at 94

 Herman Rush, Hollywood executive and TV producer, passes away at 94 News Entarinment

As the former president of Columbia Pictures Television, Rush played a key role in the company's resurgence as a leading television production and distribution company.

Herman Rush, a former president of Columbia Pictures Television and producer of multiple television programs, passed away. He was ninety-four years old.

Rush's daughter Mandie told The Hollywood Reporter that her father passed away in Los Angeles on December 12 from natural causes.

Rush was raised in a family involved in show business; his uncle Manie Sacks was Frank Sinatra's first manager. 1929 saw the birth of Rush in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Rush started his career in television in 1951, first working for Official Film as a salesman before rising to a number of different leadership roles. Later, in 1957, he bought Flamingo Films, a television syndication company, and transformed it into a significant independent syndication business.

He served as the president of Creative Management Associates' television division for the majority of the 1960s and the first part of the 1970s. Additionally, he was employed by General Artists Corporation, which is currently known as International Creative Management, the predecessor organization of CMA, and he was instrumental in the agency's foray into television packaging. He was in charge of getting several shows on networks, such as The Hollywood Palace, The Jackie Gleason Show, The Kraft Music Hall, and The Perry Como Show.

During the period when he was creating TV hits like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel, and Land of the Giants, Rush additionally served as producer Irwin Allen's representative.

Rush purchased properties from British entertainment mogul Lord Lew Grade in the late 1960s. Popular sitcom Till Death Us Do Part was one of them; it was later sold to Norman Lear, who transformed it into All in the Family. In addition, Rush produced and repackaged several British comedy TV shows for American viewers, such as Love Thy Neighbor and For the Love of Ada (A Touch of Grace).

Rush produced a number of TV comedies and films while working as an independent TV packager and producer for ABC from 1971 to 1976. Along with David Wolper Productions, he executive produced The American Spirit and Death Stalk, an ABC Bicentennial Special, during that time.

The following year, he was named president of Columbia Pictures Television Group, having previously served as president of Marble Arch Television, the American arm of Lord Lew Grades’ Associated Communications Limited, since 1979.

During his tenure at Columbia Pictures, he oversaw the production of several films and miniseries and contributed to the company's resurgence as a leading producer and distributor of television shows. Mike Hammer, Designing Women, and Ripley's Believe It or Not are just a few of the over a dozen shows that Rush launched. Rush was employed at Columbia when The Coca-Cola Company acquired it in 1982. (It was eventually acquired by Sony Pictures in 1989 after merging with Tri-Star Pictures in 1987 to form Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc.

Throughout his career, Rush produced a number of other TV shows, including The Montel Williams Show, A Users Guide to Planet Earth: The American Environment Test, and The American Red Cross Emergency Test.

Along with Raymond Katz, he founded Katz/Rush Entertainment, which gave birth to such shows as Nite Cap, Miss America: Behind the Crown, The Susan Powter Show, and The New Original Amateur Hour.

Rush received recognition from The Caucus for Writers, Producers, and Directors as well as the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters for his contributions to the television industry. He was on the Ojai Film Festival board as well.

In addition to his two children, Jim and Mandie, who he shared with his late wife of seventy-two years, Joan Rush, she passed away in October.