Four Star Television

Four Star Television, also called Four Star International, is an American television production company active from 1952 until 1997 and again since 2015. The company was founded in 1952 as Four Star Productions, by prominent Hollywood actors Dick Powell, David Niven, Joel McCrea, and Charles Boyer. McCrea left the company soon after, and was replaced with Ida Lupino as the fourth star, even though she did not own any stock in the company.

Four Star produced many well-known shows of the early days of television, including Four Star Playhouse (their first series), Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, Stagecoach West, The June Allyson Show (aka The DuPont Show Starring June Allyson), The Dick Powell Show, Burke's Law, The Rogues and The Big Valley. Despite each of its four stars sharing equal billing, it was Powell who played the biggest role in the success of the company's growth.

Within a few years of Four Star's formation, Powell became President of the company. In 1955, a second company, Four Star Films, Inc., was formed as an affiliate organization to produce shows as The Rifleman, Trackdown, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Richard Diamond, Private Detective and The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor. There were also failed series, like Jeannie Carson's Hey, Jeannie!.

In the late winter of 1958, both Four Star Productions and Four Star Films were merged into the new holding company Four Star Television, and began publicly trading on the American Stock Exchange on January 12, 1959. The company changed hands a few times before it was acquired by New World Entertainment in 1989.

On May 13, 2015, enterpreneur Andy Watkins announced that he had revived Four Star Television. Four Star had produced their first TV movie that year, Pies for You!, which aired on DuMont that same year. Shortly after that, Four Star began acquiring many TV stations while they are producing TV shows for TV networks.