Charles W. Fries - Screen Gems

Screen Gems

Fries parted ways with Ziv and was appointed Vice President In Charge of Production for Screen Gems, the Columbia Pictures television arm, in 1960. He was involved in the production of such series as Naked City, Route 66, Bewitched, Father Knows Best, and I Dream of Jeannie, during which he became lifelong friends with that sitcom's lead actress Barbara Eden. Years later, I Dream of Jeannie actor Larry Hagman confided to Fries that during production of the series, Hagman despised the bosses at Columbia and Screen Gems with such fervor that he once hired an airplane to fly over the studio so he could urinate out the window onto the buildings.

While working at Screen Gems, Fries took a meeting at the famed Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel with Harold Cohen, a former lawyer at several Hollywood talent agencies who was currently between jobs and looking to begin a new career as a producer. Fries arrived for an 8:00 a.m. breakfast meeting to find that Cohen's tablecloth was already soiled. When Fries asked what had happened, Cohen admitted that he'd already had a meeting with someone at 7:30. "I had some coffee with him and I'm gonna have my grapefruit now," Cohen said. After the meeting, Fries was getting up to leave when somebody else showed up at Cohen's table for an 8:45 meeting. Fries realized that, in Hollywood, if you're out-of-work and looking for a new job, a resourceful way to do business is to run your day between a couple of different restaurants. This particular meeting between Fries and Cohen would ultimately result in Screen Gems' placing the variety show The Johnny Cash Show on the air. It ran for two seasons.