Veteran TV writer-director-producer Bruce Paltrow, 58, responsible for two of
the most acclaimed TV dramas of the 1970s and 1980s, died Thursday in Rome,
where he was reportedly helping his daughter, actress Gwyneth Paltrow, celebrate
her 30th birthday.
Paltrow was suffering from throat cancer, but according to one wire report, he
died after a heart attack and from complications connected to pneumonia.
In 1978 for CBS he debuted The White Shadow, about a former National Basketball Association player
coaching at an inner-city high school. Later, he was the executive producer of
NBC's St. Elsewhere, about doctors in a rundown Boston hospital. Over its
six-year run ending in 1988, the show won 13 Emmy Awards and was nominated for 63. It
also won a Peabody Award in 1984.
Actress Blythe Danner, to whom he was married 32 years, is now starring in
CBS medical drama Presidio Med and was said to be en route to Italy
Thursday.
