David Soul, who starred as Detective Kenneth “Hutch” Hutchinson in the TV series “Starsky & Hutch,” died Thursday, his wife told BBC. He was 80.
In addition to “Starsky & Hutch,” Soul starred in the Western series “Here Comes the Brides” and movies like “Magnum Force,” “Salem’s Lot” and more. He was also a singer and released several albums in the ‘70s and ‘80s, including the No. 1 single “Don’t Give Up on Us.”
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Born in Chicago on Aug. 28, 1943, Soul started acting on stage in the ‘60s and began pursuing his passion for music. In 1967, he sang on “The Merv Griffin Show,” receiving major attention, and landed his first TV role on “Flipper.” That led to signing a contract with Columbia Pictures and playing Joshua Bolt, a lumberjack and brother of lead character Jason Bolt (Roger Brown), on “Here Comes the Brides.” The show ran from 1968 to 1970 and made Soul a major star.
In 1971, Sould made his film debut in “Johnny Got His Gun” and then appeared opposite Clint Eastwood in “Magnum Force” (1972), one of Eastwood’s Dirty Harry movies. After more guest roles, Soul landed the biggest role of his career on “Starsky & Hutch,” alongside Paul Michael Glaser as Sergeant David Michael Starsky. The two played Southern California police detectives originally in a 1975 pilot movie then a weekly TV series that ran on ABC until 1979.
Starsky and Hutch drove around in their iconic red-and-white-striped Ford Gran Torino and had a brotherly love, us-against-the-world attitude that was different that typical cop shows. The overly affectionate buddy cops became a staple of the ‘70s and oftentimes the punchline to erotic jokes. Even Glaser later admitted that Starsky and Hutch had some “homoerotic elements.”
“I think it’s important to understand that yeah, there’s homoerotic elements,” he told Page Six in 2021. “I think the reality is David and I are for the most part — if you have to define oneself — as straight. But you have to be able to recognize there’s a part of all of us that is homoerotic.”
Amid rising concerns about TV violence, “Starsky & Hutch” toned down the blood and played up the social themes and friendship in Season 3. Ratings declined soon after, and Glaser often publicly discussed leaving the show, and it finished its run with Season 4.