Vince Edwards

Vince Edwards
Role:	Director
BSG Universe:	Original Series and Galactica 1980
Date of Birth:	July 9, 1928
Date of Death:	March 11, 1996
Age at Death:	67
Nationality:	USA
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Vince Edwards (July 9, 1928—March 11, 1996) was an American director and actor who directed four episodes of Battlestar Galactica and Galactica 1980, the two-parters "The Living Legend" and "The Super Scouts" respectively, and is best known for starring as the title character of the medical drama series Ben Casey (1961–1966).

Career

Born Vincent Edward Zoino, Edwards trained as a competitive swimmer in high school and won an athletic scholarship to Ohio State University, where he was part of a team that won a national swimming championship; an appendicitis operation ended his hopes of competing in the Olympics and redirected him toward acting. He studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, made his Broadway debut in the chorus of High Button Shoes in 1947, and signed a contract with Paramount Pictures in 1950, debuting on film the following year in Mister Universe. Through the 1950s he took supporting and lead roles in a series of B-pictures and film noirs, including The Killing (1956) and Murder by Contract (1958).

Edwards reached the peak of his career as the title character of Ben Casey, an ABC medical drama that ran from 1961 to 1966 and made him a television star. He directed roughly 20 of the show's 154 episodes himself, his first regular directing work, and used the series' popularity to launch a recording career, releasing six albums. After Ben Casey ended, Edwards found his post-Casey career hampered by the role's typecasting, and his one further regular series, Matt Lincoln (1970–71), lasted a single season.

He continued to direct television through the 1970s, helming episodes of The Hardy Boys Mysteries, David Cassidy—Man Undercover, B.J. and the Bear, Police Story, Battlestar Galactica, and Galactica 1980. He wrote and directed the 1973 ABC television movie Maneater, and provided voice work for the animated series Punky Brewster (1985) and The Centurions (1986). In the mid-1980s he co-starred in and directed episodes of the revival series The Return of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, and in 1988 he returned to his signature role in the syndicated TV movie The Return of Ben Casey. He made his final film, The Fear, in 1995, and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer shortly after filming.

Edwards died of pancreatic cancer on March 11, 1996, at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California (Section CC, Tier 64, Grave 29).

Direction on Battlestar Galactica and Galactica 1980

Edwards directed the 1978 Season 3 opener of The Hardy Boys for Glen A. Larson, which led to his work directing the two-part "The Living Legend" on Battlestar Galactica and the two-part "The Super Scouts" on Galactica 1980. He is also credited for Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack (1979), a theatrical feature assembled from "The Living Legend" and roughly fifteen minutes of "Fire in Space" for release outside the United States.

Story editors Allan Cole and Chris Bunch later recalled friction with Edwards' directing approach during production of "The Super Scouts, Part I." When the two were sent to cut scene setups from an overlong script, Edwards objected that doing so would undermine the cast's motivation. During the school ship Delphi's bridge-explosion sequence on the same episode, Cole recalled that Edwards directed the cast to evacuate a burning set at a deliberately unhurried pace, drawing an angry reaction from Larson in the dailies, and that a falling prop beam, triggered late on cue, narrowly missed Edwards himself.

Director credits for "Battlestar Galactica"

• The Original Series
  • "The Living Legend", Part I and Part II
• Galactica 1980
  • "The Super Scouts", Part I and Part II
• Theatrical compilations
  • Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack (1979), assembled from "The Living Legend" and footage from "Fire in Space"; co-directed with Christian I. Nyby II

See also: Episodes directed by Vince Edwards

Personal life

Edwards married four times. His first marriage, to actress Kathy Kersh on June 13, 1965, ended in divorce later that year; a daughter was born of the marriage. He later married actress Linda Ann Foster in 1967—named in his UPI obituary as "actress Linda Winters"—and actress Cassandra Edwards in 1980. His fourth and final marriage, to Janet Friedman, took place in late 1994; the couple had been married a year and four months when he died.

At the time of his death he was survived by his widow, Janet Edwards, and by daughters Angela, 26, and Nicole, 27, who visited him shortly before he died. Nicole Nadolenco, his daughter by his second wife, worked for Emmy Awards producer Al Schwartz at the time and was involved in preparing a memorial tribute to her father for the 1996 Primetime Emmy Awards broadcast.

In his later years, Edwards battled a compulsive gambling addiction. Following his death, his widow Janet was completing his memoir, Easy, the Hard Way—The Reel to Real Story, which was to recount how she had once taken him to court over gambling debts during their four-year courtship and married him immediately after winning the case; literary agent Mike Hamilburg was handling the book deal, and producer Herman Rush had expressed interest in adapting it as a film.

References