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Story of Aaron Spelling's Love of Television

Hollywood Reporter tells the story -- In his prime, Aaron Spelling defined the concept of the television superproducer. In his life, Spelling's rags-to-riches success story was the embodiment of the American dream.

The prolific writer-producer, whose roots in television stretched from 1950s Westerns to the upcoming season with "7th Heaven," died at his Holmby Hills mansion near Beverly Hills of complications from a stroke he suffered. He was 83.

Of his extraordinary run with more than 50 television series and 140 television movies, friends and colleagues often said that what was most striking about Spelling was his insatiable appetite for more. Long after he earned his entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for logging the most television producing credits, he never stopped getting excited when he sold a pilot to a network, found a good script from a young writer or discovered a future star in a cattle-call casting session. Into his final months, the impish, pipe-smoking producer still loved the game.

"He just loves television, and he loves what he does. He never looks down on the medium or the people who watch it," Leonard Goldberg, a longtime Spelling friend and former producing partner, said of Spelling in 2003. "Aaron will call me up and say, 'I just got a development deal at NBC,' and you'd think he needed it to pay his rent."

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