David Soul Of ‘Starsky And Hutch’ Dies At 80

LONDON (AP) — Actor-singer David Soul, a Nineteen Seventies heartthrob who co-starred because the blond half of the crime-fighting duo “Starsky & Hutch” and topped the music charts with the ballad “Don’t Give Up on Us,” has died on the age of 80.

His spouse, Helen Snell, mentioned Friday that “David Soul – beloved husband, father, grandfather and brother – died yesterday after a valiant battle for life in the loving company of family.”

“He shared many extraordinary gifts in the world as actor, singer, storyteller, creative artist and dear friend,” Snell mentioned in a press release. “His smile, laughter and passion for life will be remembered by the many whose lives he has touched.”

Born David Solberg, Soul was a Chicago native whose appearing profession dated again to the Nineteen Sixties, when he joined the avant-garde Firehouse Theater in Minnesota. He continued to look on stage and display screen properly into the twentieth century, however he was finest recognized for his work within the Nineteen Seventies.

Soul portrayed detective Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson alongside dark-haired Paul Michael Glaser as detective David Starsky in “Starsky & Hutch, which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1979 and grew so popular it spawned a line of children’s toys.

He also had success as a singer, starting in 1976 with “Don’t Give Up on Us” and following with such hits as “Going in With My Eyes Open” and “Silver Lady.”

Soul first gained nationwide fame within the Nineteen Sixties showing on “The Merv Griffin Show” as “The Covered Man,” a singer disguised in a stocking cap who shouted out lyrics comparable to “That is why I hide my face, because a man has to be free.”

His different TV credit included early appearances on “Star Trek,” “All in the Family” and “”I Dream of Jeannie,” the miniseries “Salem’s Lot” and a short-lived model of the movie traditional “Casablanca,” wherein Soul took on Humphrey Bogart’s position as nightclub proprietor Rick Blaine.

Soul’s motion pictures included “Magnum Force,” “The Hanoi Hilton” and a cameo with Glaser within the 2004 big-screen remake of “Starsky & Hutch,” starring Ben Stiller as Starsky and Owen Wilson as Hutch.

By the Nineties, Soul had moved to Britain, the place he carried out a number of stage roles. In 2001, he received a libel case in opposition to a journalist who referred to as “The Dead Monkey,” a play that Soul was in, the worst manufacturing he had ever seen – with out having seen it. He additionally performed the titular talk-show host in “Jerry Springer – The Opera” in London’s West End.