Harvey Frand

Harvey Frand
Role:	Producer; Supervising Producer
BSG Universe:	Re-imagined Series
Date of Birth:	October 3, 1940
Date of Death:	July 23, 2009
Age at Death:	68
Nationality:	USA
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IMDb profile

Harvey Frand (October 3, 1940 – July 23, 2009) was an American television producer who served on the Re-imagined Series from the 2003 miniseries through The Plan, receiving a producer credit for the first seasons and a supervising producer credit beginning with Season 3.

Career

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Frand studied political science at the University of Pittsburgh, where he earned a master's degree. While at university he worked with Students for Kennedy. After graduating, he began his career at NBC News.

He subsequently became an executive at Warner Bros., overseeing production on Harry O, the 1973 detective series starring David Janssen. When dispatched to San Diego to check on the production, he found himself working directly alongside the cast and crew in the absence of an on-site producer — an experience that, by his own account, determined his subsequent career path. Alongside his television work, he co-produced the 1974–75 Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth, starring Christopher Walken and Irene Worth; Worth won the Tony Award for Best Actress for her performance.

Frand's first onscreen producer credit came in 1979 on California Fever, a CBS teen drama produced by Warner Bros. Television. He followed this with The Devlin Connection (1982), an NBC detective drama starring Rock Hudson. He then produced 34 episodes of the 1985–89 revival of The Twilight Zone, the CBS fantasy drama Beauty and the Beast — for which he received a Primetime Emmy nomination — and the ABC Western drama The Young Riders. Over the course of his career he produced more than 20 television pilots and movies of the week.

In 1991 he produced the television film Into the Badlands and in 1994 the science fiction television film New Eden. He then joined the TNT Western series The Lazarus Man (1996), starring Robert Urich, as a producer. The show — produced by Ogiens/Kane Co. with Castle Rock Entertainment and Turner Program Services — was shot on location at Bonanza Creek Ranch south of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Frand told a reporter at the time that the production team was reading extensively about Western history, stating: "We're trying to depict historic events as accurately as possible."

Frand subsequently produced the NBC action-mystery drama The Pretender (1996–97), followed by the ABC science fiction drama Strange World (1999), the Disney Channel film Up, Up, and Away! (2000), Painkiller Jane (2005), and the 2007 reimagining of Bionic Woman.

Battlestar Galactica

Frand joined the Re-imagined Series in 2003 as a producer on the miniseries. He continued in that role alongside executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick through the series proper, receiving a supervising producer credit from Season 3 forward.

According to Bradley Thompson, Frand's function was primarily administrative: confirming that episodes could be realized within available time and budget, weighing in on scripts to determine whether they were producible as written, and working with writers to find practical solutions when they were not. Thompson described Frand's working relationship with the writing staff in a tribute posted to Deadline Hollywood following his death:

His was the first office I'd visit when arriving in Vancouver to produce an episode, and I could always count on a succinct no-bullshit assessment of what we'd be facing in trying to get our teleplay into something we could afford to shoot. In addition to finding a way to put every dime on the screen, he was an exceptional judge of material. He knew what we needed to tell our stories and never compromised on that. But he would constantly challenge us to find creative ways to make the piece work within the constraints of physical and financial reality. And if he felt we needed that something extra… say a nuclear explosion or two… to make the story play, he'd go to the mat to make it happen. When the flak came in — from the studio, from the network, from the actors, from production, he was the serene eye in the center of the storm. He knew exactly what was important, and what we could ignore. He always had our backs.

Mary McDonnell (Laura Roslin) also commented on Frand's working approach:

Harvey had a remarkable gift as a producer. He always made the person who was voicing needs and concerns know that he was truly listening despite the fact that you knew he was juggling hundreds of others simultaneously.

NBC Universal executive Todd Sharp characterized Frand's role in terms the production team recognized:

Harvey was the Wizard of Oz, the man behind the curtain, the train engineer, the orchestra conductor, the school guidance counselor. He was adored by executive producers and production assistants, studio and network, cast and crew.

Ron French, who co-produced BSG alongside Frand, wrote in the same Deadline Hollywood tribute thread:

How many times I would want to react, challenge, jump up and down, but instead we'd stop and listen to the one "adult" amongst us. I'll miss Harvey for his constant thoughtful advice, his crude humorous outbursts that would break up any production meeting and for taking those Studio calls so that I didn't have to.

Frand appeared in at least two of David Eick's video blogs, including "Episode 205 - Day 2" and a segment filmed during production of "Sacrifice".

In 2008, Frand shared the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class—Short-Format Live-Action Entertainment Programs with Moore and Eick for the webisode series "Razor Flashbacks." A second Emmy nomination in the same category followed for the 2008–09 webisode series "The Face of the Enemy."

For his work on the series, Frand shared the 2005 Peabody Award and received AFI Award recognition.

Frand died on July 23, 2009, following a brief hospitalization for respiratory problems in Los Angeles, several months before his final production, The Plan, aired on Syfy on October 27, 2009.

Personal life

Frand's domestic partner of 32 years was producer Bill Bowersock, with whom he had lived since 1977. Because their partnership was not recognized under federal or state law as a marriage, Bowersock was ineligible for Social Security survivor benefits following Frand's death and was ultimately forced to vacate the home they had shared together. A documentary short, Thank You For Your Call, subsequently used Bowersock's experience to highlight the legal disparities then facing same-sex couples in the United States.

Donations in Frand's memory were directed to the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles' Alive Music Project.

References