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David Soul (born David Richard Solberg; August 28, 1943 – January 4, 2024) was an American and British actor. With a career spanning five decades, he rose to prominence for portraying Detective Kenneth "Hutch" Hutchinson in the American television series Starsky & Hutch from 1975 to 1979. His other notable roles included Joshua Bolt on Here Come the Brides from 1968 to 1970 and as the lead actor in the 1979 American TV movie Salem's Lot. Soul also had moderate success as a film actor when he portrayed Officer John Davis in Magnum Force in 1973.
During his career he also found success as a singer, achieving a number one single on the US Billboard Hot 100 with "Don't Give Up on Us", which also peaked at number one in the UK and Canada. Soul achieved a further four top 10 entries and an additional number one single on the UK Singles Chart with "Silver Lady". In the 1990s he moved to the United Kingdom and found renewed success on the West End stage. He also made cameo appearances in British TV shows, including Little Britain, Holby City, and Lewis.[1][2]
Early life[edit]
Soul was born on August 28, 1943, in Chicago, Illinois, United States,[3] and was of Norwegian descent. His mother, June Joanne (Nelson), was a teacher, and his father, Dr. Richard W. Solberg, was a Lutheran minister, professor of History and Political Science, and director of Higher Education for the Lutheran Church in America (now part of the ELCA).[4][5] Both of Soul's grandfathers were evangelists.[6] Dr. Solberg was also senior representative for Lutheran World Relief during the reconstruction of Germany after World War II from 1949 until 1956. Because of this, the family moved frequently during Soul's youth and he became fluent in both German and Spanish.[4] His brother Daniel became a Lutheran Pastor.[4]
The family was living in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where Soul's father taught political science and history at Augustana College, when Soul graduated from that city's Washington High School. Soul attended Augustana College for two years before the family moved again, this time to Mexico City, where he studied for one year at the University of the Americas.[7] While in Mexico, inspired by students who taught him to play the guitar, Soul changed his direction and decided to follow his passion for music.[citation needed] His first on stage appearance upon returning from Mexico was in a club in Minneapolis, The 10 O'Clock Scholar.[citation needed]
Career[edit]
Soul began performing on stage as an actor in the mid-1960s, when he became a founding member of the Firehouse Theater in Minneapolis. He traveled with the company to New York City in 1965, appearing in Bertolt Brecht's Baal and John Arden's Serjeant Musgrave's Dance.[8][9] Soul first gained national attention as the "Covered Man" appearing on The Merv Griffin Show in 1966 and 1967, on which he sang while wearing a mask. He explained: "My name is David Soul, and I want to be known for my music."[10] The same year, he made his television debut in Flipper. [4]
In 1967, he signed a contract with Columbia Pictures and following a number of guest appearances, including the episode "The Apple" from the second season of Star Trek,[4] he landed the role of Joshua Bolt on the television program Here Come the Brides with co-stars Robert Brown, Bobby Sherman, and Bridget Hanley. The series was telecast on the ABC television network from September 25, 1968, to September 18, 1970.[11] In 1972, he co-starred as Arthur Hill's law partner on Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law. Following numerous guest-starring roles on TV, including The Streets of San Francisco, he was cast by Clint Eastwood in the film Magnum Force.[4]
His breakthrough came when he portrayed Detective Ken "Hutch" Hutchinson on Starsky & Hutch, a role he played from 1975 until 1979.[4] Soul also directed three episodes of Starsky and Hutch: "Huggy Can't Go Home" (1979), "Manchild on the Streets" (1977), and "Survival" (1977). During his career he made guest appearances on Star Trek,[4] I Dream of Jeannie,[4] McMillan & Wife,[4] Cannon,[4] Gunsmoke,[4] All in the Family, and numerous TV movies and mini-series, including Homeward Bound (1980), World War III,[4] and Rage (1980),[4] a TV movie commended on the floor of the U.S. Senate and for which he received an Emmy Award nomination. Soul also starred with James Mason in the 1979 TV miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot, which was edited and released as a theatrical feature film in some countries.[4]
During the mid-1970s, Soul returned to his singing roots. He scored one US hit with "Don't Give Up on Us" (1977) which reached No. 1 in the US and the UK. "Silver Lady" (1977) hit No. 1 in the UK. From 1976 until 1978, he had five UK top 20 singles and two top 10 UK albums. From 1976 to 1982, he toured extensively in the U.S., Europe, Far East, and South America.[12]
In the U.S., he continued to make guest appearances on various television series. He starred in the miniseries The Manions of America as Caleb Staunton in 1981. He starred in the short-lived 1983 NBC series Casablanca,[4] playing nightclub owner Rick Blaine (the role that was made famous by Humphrey Bogart in the 1942 film Casablanca), and co-starred in the NBC series The Yellow Rose during the 1983–1984 season. He also starred in the television adaptation of Ken Follett's wartime drama The Key to Rebecca (1985) directed by David Hemmings.[4] He later starred as the infamous Florida robber Michael Lee Platt in the TV movie In the Line of Duty: The F.B.I. Murders (1988),[4] which depicted the 1986 FBI Miami shootout, subsequently used as an FBI training film. Soul also directed the episode "No Exit" of the 1980s TV series Miami Vice.[4] In 1987, Soul was cast as Major Oldham in the movie The Hanoi Hilton.[4]
In the mid-1990s, Soul moved to the United Kingdom, forging a new career on the West End stage, including the role of Chandler Tate in Comic Potential and The Narrator in Blood Brothers. He also participated in the successful 1997 election campaign of his friend Martin Bell who ran as an MP for Tatton, as well as Bell's unsuccessful campaign in Brentwood in Essex in the 2001 General Election.[13]
In 2001 and 2002, he appeared in Holby City as Alan Fletcher.[14]
In 2003, he appeared (as himself) in the first series of the BBC's Little Britain.[12] In 2004, he appeared in Agatha Christie's Poirot – Death on the Nile in the role of Andrew Pennington (he had also starred in the 1989 film adaptation of Christie's Appointment with Death).[12] Soul was a guest on the BBC's Top Gear.[12] He was one of the fastest drivers to have appeared on the show, finishing the lap in 1:54:00,[15] but managed to break the car's gearbox (and subsequently a backup car's) very close to the finish.[16]
On July 12, 2004, he took over playing the role of Jerry Springer in Jerry Springer: The Opera at the Cambridge Theatre in London, televised by the BBC in 2005. He returned to the West End in 2006, playing Mack in a new production of Jerry Herman's musical Mack and Mabel at the Criterion Theatre. The production co-starred Janie Dee and was directed by John Doyle. He also appeared in the TV series Dalziel & Pascoe (Game of Soldiers). He had a brief cameo in the 2004 movie version of Starsky & Hutch, alongside original co-star Paul Michael Glaser.[12]
In August 2008, Soul appeared in the reality TV talent show-themed television series Maestro on BBC Two mentored by Natalia Luis-Bassa.[17]
He appeared with Fred Ward and Willem Dafoe in the film Farewell directed by Christian Carion, which received its U.S. release in 2010.
In June 2012, Soul made a one-week appearance with Jerry Hall at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, in a reprise of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated play by A. R. Gurney, Love Letters.[18] On July 29, 2012, he appeared in an episode of the British television detective drama series Lewis, playing a murder victim. He was also featured in the hit album by Fosseytango, singing on the track "Landlord". In 2013, Soul appeared in a cameo role in the Scottish film Filth lip-syncing his own recording of "Silver Lady". In 2014, Soul appeared in a British television commercial for National Express singing "Silver Lady" while driving a coach.[12]
Personal life[edit]
Soul was married five times and had five sons and a daughter.
He was 21 when he married his high school sweetheart, Mirriam "Mim" Solberg (née Russeth), in 1964. The couple had one child, a son. The marriage lasted under two years, ending in divorce.
Soul's second marriage was to actress Karen Carlson in 1968, after they met on the set of the television series Here Come the Brides. They had a son together, Kristjian Solberg, born April 3, 1971. The couple divorced in 1977.[19]
During the years he was filming Starsky & Hutch, Soul had an open relationship with actress Lynne Marta.[19]
On October 12, 1980, Soul married Patti Carnel Sherman, ex-wife of Bobby Sherman, teen idol and cast member of the television series Here Comes the Brides. Soul became stepfather to Carnel-Sherman's two children with Bobby Sherman. Soul was ordered to attend therapy classes for alcoholism and anger management after attacking her when she was seven months pregnant with his child.[20][2] They reunited temporarily, divorcing shortly thereafter in 1986.
In 1987, Soul married actress Julia Nickson.[12] The couple had a daughter, China Soul, who is a singer/songwriter.[21]
Nickson urged Soul to seek help for his excessive drinking, persuading him to enter a rehabilitation facility in 1989.
Soul married his fifth and last wife, Helen Snell on June 26, 2010. Snell was an English public relations officer in the British stage production of Deathtrap. They had been in a relationship since 2002 after meeting when Soul was working in that play.[22] He referred to her as his soulmate.
In 2004, Soul obtained British citizenship.[23] He credited his relationship with Helen as his reason for obtaining citizenship and stated that he knew he "wanted to spend the rest of his life there with Helen."
Soul was a three-pack-a-day cigarette smoker for fifty years. Although he had stopped smoking ten years prior to his death, he was seriously affected by COPD and had also had a lung removed due to cancer. Soul died in a London hospital, surrounded by his family, on January 4, 2024, at the age of 80.[12]
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David Soul, a Star of the Hit Cop Show ‘Starsky & Hutch,’ Dies at 80
An actor and singer, he rose to fame in the 1970s as one half of the popular television crime-fighting duo. He also notched a No. 1 hit single in the U.S.
David Soul, the doleful-eyed blond actor and singer who rose to fame portraying half of a cagey crime-fighting duo on the hit 1970s television show “Starsky & Hutch,” and who also scored a No. 1 hit single in 1977 with “Don’t Give Up on Us,” died on Thursday. He was 80.
His death was confirmed in a statement by his wife, Helen Snell, who did not specify a cause or say where he died. Mr. Soul had been living in Britain since 1995 and became a British citizen in 2004.
A Chicago-born son of a Lutheran minister, Mr. Soul had spent nearly a decade appearing on television shows like “Star Trek” and “I Dream of Jeannie,” and also had a regular role on the ABC western comedy series “Here Come the Brides,” before he won his career-defining role of Detective Ken Hutchinson, known as Hutch, also on ABC. The part would make him a regular presence in American living rooms, as well as a recognized heartthrob, from 1975 to 1979.
As Hutch, Mr. Soul played the coolheaded Midwestern sidekick to Detective Dave Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser), a savvy Brooklynite given to wearing chunky cardigan sweaters. The two tooled around the fictional Southern California burgh of Bay City in a red Ford Gran Torino emblazoned with a giant Nike-esque swoosh running down each side as they cracked open cases with the help of their streetwise informant, Huggy Bear (Antonio Fargas).
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Mr. Soul had first caught the eye of the show’s creators with an icy performance as a vigilante motorcycle cop in “Magnum Force” (1973), the first of several sequels to the hit 1971 Clint Eastwood film “Dirty Harry.” But he initially had misgivings about the Hutch character, seeing him as nothing more than “bland white bread,” as he said in the 2004 television documentary “He’s Starsky, I’m Hutch.”
“I didn’t like him,” he said. “I wanted to play Starsky.”
Even as old-school tough guys with badges, the characters stood out on the 1970s cop-show landscape by sharing an onscreen emotional intimacy that was striking for its day.
While being interviewed by the talk show host Merv Griffin, who pointed out that TV Guide had singled out “Starsky & Hutch” as television’s most violent show, Mr. Soul responded: “My opinion of the show is that it’s a love story. It’s a love story between two men who happen to be cops.”
In an interview for The New York Post’s Page Six feature in 2021, Mr. Glaser said that he and Mr. Soul had kidded about the show’s homoerotic undertones “all the time.”
With his place in the pop-culture firmament cemented, Mr. Soul was able to make good on his long-simmering ambition to be a pop star.
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In 1977, the year after releasing his debut album, he shot to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with the lachrymose ballad “Don’t Give Up on Us.” Many years later, Owen Wilson, as Hutch, parodied the song in none-too-loving fashion in the 2004 feature-film comedy version of the show, which also starred Ben Stiller as Starsky and Snoop Dogg as Huggy Bear.
Mr. Soul, who often said that music was his priority over acting, released five albums in his career and notched four Top 10 hits in Britain in the 1970s, including “Don’t Give Up on Us,” which climbed to No. 1; “Silver Lady,” which also went to No. 1, although it reached only No. 52 in the United States; and “Going In With My Eyes Open” — No. 2 in Britain and No. 54 on the American chart.
He became enough of a singing sensation that, in reviewing a 1977 concert of his at Radio City Music Hall, Robert Palmer of The New York Times described “camera-wielding teenage girls charging the stage, the flicker of hundreds of exploding flash cubes and a continual squealing.”
David Soul was born David Richard Solberg on Aug. 28, 1943, to Richard Solberg, a professor of political science and history as well as a theologian, and June (Nelson) Solberg, a teacher.
In David’s youth, the family lived in Cold War-era Berlin as well as in South Dakota. He aspired to be a diplomat or a minister before turning his sights on a show business career. In his late teens, he learned that his girlfriend, Mim, was pregnant; under parental pressure, they married.
Later, when he was 22, he found his wife with another man, a friend of his, and left her and their young son, Kristofer, to chase his dreams of stardom in New York.
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Once there, he whittled his surname down to Soul and, looking for a gimmick to boost his singing career, bought a $1 ski mask and rebranded himself as a mystery-shrouded pop crooner who never showed his face. After appearances on Merv Griffin’s show, he secured a deal with MGM Records and released a single, “The Covered Man,” in 1966.
Once he tried to make it without the mask, however, his career faltered. Broke, Mr. Soul started selling himself sexually. “I was green,” he said in the documentary. “I was a kind of ‘Midnight Cowboy’” — a reference to the Oscar-winning 1969 film starring Jon Voight as a Texas dreamer turned Times Square hustler.
Discouraged by the fizzling of his music career, Mr. Soul shifted to acting, breaking into Hollywood with an appearance on “Flipper,” the drama series centered on a pet dolphin.
Once he made it big with “Starsky & Hutch,” he said, he spiraled into alcoholism before rediscovering religion in the 1980s. He met Ms. Snell, a public relations executive, in 2002, and they married in 2010.
It was his fifth marriage. He had five sons and a daughter. Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.
After leaving the United States, Mr. Soul appeared in theater productions on London’s West End. In the mid-2000s, he landed the lead role of the outrage-courting talk show host in “Jerry Springer: The Opera.”
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Although he missed out on a financial windfall by selling his stake in “Starsky & Hutch” years ago for $100,000, according to a 2019 interview with The Sunday Times of London, he expressed few regrets.
“I’ve had it all,” he said. “I’ve been a No 1 [star] in the world for a while — not now. I’ve had No 1 records around the world — not now. I have six wonderful children. I’m married to a wonderful woman. I’m happy. I’ve explored, I’ve seen, I’ve done.”
An earlier version of t
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