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John Erman, an Emmy-winning director-producer who helmed multiple episodes of such classic TV series as Star Trek, M*A*S*H and Peyton Place along with Part 2 of Roots and much of its sequel miniseries Roots: The Next Generations, has died. He was 85.

His friend, Charles Silver of SMS Talent, told Deadline that Erman died June 25 in New York City after a brief illness.

Born on August 3, 1935, in Chicago, Erman began his show business career as an actor, including an unbilled role in 1955’s Blackboard Jungle before working extensively as a casting director. His first job in that role was with Jim Lister at Republic Studios in New York, and Erman would go on to work with numerous Hollywood legends in this capacity, from Marlon Brando, Henry Fonda and Olivia de Havilland to Woody Allen, Angela Lansbury and Ann-Margret — with whom he’d have a long-running working relationship.

He got his first shot...

Kim Tyler, a child actor of the 1960s best known for playing the eldest son in the 1965-67 NBC family sitcom Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, died of cancer Feb. 10 at his Hollywood Heights home. He was 66.

Tyler’s death was announced this week by his family.

Although his first TV credit was in a 1956 episode of The 20th Century Fox Hour, Tyler was most prolific through the ’60s, with with guest appearances on sitcoms including Hazel, The Addams Family, My Favorite Martian, My Three Sons and, in a recurring role, The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet. He played a pal of Ron Howard’s Opie in a 1962 episode of The Andy Griffith Show.

In 1965, Tyler, then 11, was cast as a series regular in the TV adaptation of Jean Kerr’s 1957 novel Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, playing Kyle Nash, the eldest brother to twins Trevor and Tracey (Jeff and...

Kim Tyler, who portrayed the oldest of the four rowdy sons in the Nash family at the center of the 1965-67 NBC comedy Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, has died. He was 66.

Tyler died Feb. 10 at his home in Hollywood Heights after a long battle with cancer, his family announced.

Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, based on Jean Kerr’s best-selling 1957 book and coming on the heels of a 1960 MGM film that starred Doris Day and David Niven, featured Patricia Crowley as a freelance newspaper columnist and Mark Miller as her husband, a college professor.

They are ...

Kim Tyler, who portrayed the oldest of the four rowdy sons in the Nash family at the center of the 1965-67 NBC comedy Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, has died. He was 66.

Tyler died Feb. 10 at his home in Hollywood Heights after a long battle with cancer, his family announced.

Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, based on Jean Kerr’s best-selling 1957 book and coming on the heels of a 1960 MGM film that starred Doris Day and David Niven, featured Patricia Crowley as a freelance newspaper columnist and Mark Miller as her husband, a college professor.

They are ...

Steven Spielberg’s next film, spy thriller Bridge Of Spies, teams him up again with with his old Saving Private Ryan and The Terminal cohort Tom Hanks for what’s shaping up to be a heart-stopping Cold War thriller. It has a new poster that recalls the Saul Bass-inspired opening credits of another Hanks/Spielberg movie, Catch Me If You Can, and more recently that stylish falling man Mad Men aesthetic. It’s also got a big photo of Tom Hanks on it, which we’re always in favour of.May 1, 1960. While American moviegoers were watching David Niven and Doris Day hamming it up Please Don't Eat the Daisies, Us pilot Gary Powers’s U2 spy plane was plunging through Russian airspace after a Soviet Sam missile put pay to his covert mission. Next to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the incident's fallout brought America and the Soviet Union as...

A marketing survey has revealed that Warner Brothers is considering starting their own online movie streaming service that would compete directly with companies like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu Plus.

Warner Brothers is considering launching an online streaming service to compete with providers like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus. Called Warner Archive Streaming, the service would primarily offer classic movies, cartoons, and TV shows from its extensive catalog, rather than new releases. If successful, the service could catapult Warner Brothers as a major player in the booming online video streaming business.

Details of the plan emerged after Warner recently asked their consumers to participate in an online survey about the service. According to a source with intimate knowledge of the survey, Warner measured interest in a streaming service that would offer many of its older titles not readily available on DVD or Blu-ray. Warner currently has a program called Warner Archive,...

Los Angeles — Doris Day, America's pert, honey-voiced sweetheart of the 1950s and 1960s, beguiled audiences with her on-screen romances opposite top Hollywood leading men Cary Grant, Rock Hudson and Jack Lemmon.

She adored and misses them all, says the 88-year-old Day. But her deepest yearning is reserved for her late son Terry Melcher, a record producer whose touch and voice are part of Day's first album in nearly two decades.

"Oh, I wish he could be here and be a part of it. I would just love that. But it didn't work out that way," Day said, her voice subdued. It's a voice rarely heard since she withdrew from Hollywood in the early 1980s to the haven she made for herself in the Northern California town of Carmel, where Clint Eastwood was once mayor.

"My Heart," set for a Dec. 2 U.S. release, has induced Day to edge back to public attention.

Regina Gruss, a longtime studio and independent publicist and former member of the board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, died Aug. 1 at her home in Los Angeles from complications of Alzheimer's disease. She was 84.

Gruss began her movie career in 1957 at MGM as the unit publicist on Doris Day's "Please Don't Eat the Daisies," remaining at that studio for 8 1/2 years. She moved to Fox, where her credits included "Valley of the Dolls" (1967) and "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" (1969), then joined the Allen/Ingersoll Public Relations Co.

As an independent publicist in the '70s, the Chicago native worked on a number of big films including such Ray Stark productions as "Funny Lady" (1975), "The Sunshine Boys" (1975), "The Goodbye Girl" (1977) and "California Suite" (1978). She also handled unit publicity chores on Robert Altman's "California Split" (1974).

In 1979, Gruss was named vp for advertising and publicity for Marble Arch Prods.