Television Veteran David Gerber Marches On With ‘Lost Battalion’

Douglas MacArthur famously said, “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.” Clearly, MacArthur wasn’t thinking of producer David Gerber, who keeps soldiering on--and shows no inclination to fade away--well past the age of retirement, long after his regiment has been driven into retreat.

Gerber’s name may not mean much to the average television viewer, until you begin rattling off the TV productions with which he has been associated as a producer and executive--a list that includes “thirtysomething”; the groundbreaking drama “Police Story” and its spinoff, “Police Woman”; and the Peabody Award-winning historical miniseries “George Washington.”

A World War II veteran nearly as colorful as any character he has dramatized, Gerber declines to divulge his age beyond acknowledging that an autobiographical prime-time drama could be titled “seventysomething.” His latest production, “The Lost Battalion,” premiering Sunday on the A&E; network, is the true story of U.S. soldiers trapped behind enemy lines during World War I. The unit suffered horrendous casualties--at one point being shelled by friendly fire--but helped deal a decisive blow against the German army. Gerber actually sold the story twice to the same executive, A&E;’s Allen Sabinson, who first optioned the rights as an executive at TNT, then bought them again upon resurfacing at A&E.;

Those who have worked with Gerber marvel at his unflagging enthusiasm and absence of cynicism in the face of a television tide that has largely rendered independent producers and anyone older than 50 the stuff of history books themselves.

A more intriguing legacy, however, may be the mentoring role he played to current industry leaders, including News Corp. President Peter Chernin and Pax TV President Jeff Sagansky, who served as development executives for Gerber during the late 1970s and early ‘80s. In similar fashion, a Who’s Who of writers, producers and directors passed through Gerber’s employ, such as “Ali” director Michael Mann, whom Gerber gave his first opportunity to direct on “Police Woman” in 1974.

“He’s still one of the biggest influences in my life in this business,” Sagansky said, who characterized working for Gerber as “the greatest education you could get.”

Chernin, who oversees the far-flung Fox empire, concurred. “It was probably the closest thing to an old-fashioned apprenticeship that’s existed in this town in an awfully long time,” he said.

Gerber continues to ply his producing trade under the auspices of Fox Television Studios, meaning he ultimately works for Chernin, who noted that Gerber calls regularly to complain about the level of attention his projects are receiving.

Perhaps foremost, listening to Gerber and those whom he tutored paints a picture of something more subtle that has been lost--an era of civility when the bottom line had a little flexibility built into it, and TV executives might help a struggling producer whose show had been canceled, for example, by getting another project moving forward.

“Nobody has the luxury or the time today to be sensitive,” Gerber said. “It’s a shame.... The emotion is being squeezed out [of the business]. That’s the sad part.”

Although the years they spent under Gerber really weren’t so long ago, Chernin and Sagansky speak almost wistfully about a period that seems Jurassic given the wrenching changes the industry has undergone--a time when television was less corporate and more personal.

Sounding a bit like Scrooge contemplating the lot of poor Bob Cratchit, Chernin conceded there is scant room today for the sort of considerations Gerber cited. “It’s unfortunately a very different business, and a business that is probably less human than it used to be,” he said. “I’m not sure there are very many opportunities to get the kind of apprenticeship that I had.”

Thinking back to that time, the memories range from their working quarters (Sagansky: “Gerber had a palatial office, of course. Peter and I shared an office the size of a men’s room”) to the manner in which Gerber cultivated young executives--planting the seeds, Chernin mused, for the day when they would have the authority to buy his projects, “like ‘The Manchurian Candidate.’”

“When he would go to the networks, he would spend an extra 20 to 30 minutes walking the halls talking to everybody, every junior executive.... He knew every secretary’s name,” Chernin said. “It was a remarkable lesson in salesmanship.”

Gerber acknowledges that he always introduced himself to pages and assistants when he visited the networks, telling associates, “I don’t know him, but he could be the next [network] president.”

Gerber acquired his appreciation of film growing up in the unlikely confines of Brooklyn, where he would sneak in to see movies--including art-house films of little interest to his friends.

Despite his success, certain trappings of his youth never left him, among them a rapid-fire manner of speech (friends have dubbed it “Gerber-ese”) that involves periodically mangling the English language and mixing up names.

For his part, Sagansky recalls being referred to as “Steve” for months, to the point where he began to wonder if Gerber had unwittingly hired the wrong person. Similarly, when Gerber ran MGM Television in 1980s, publicists prepared detailed press releases for reporters assigned to interview Gerber, politely telling them that attempts to decipher their own notes and tape recorders would amount to a mission impossible.

“I knew it was time to leave when I could understand him perfectly,” Sagansky quipped.

The quirks aside, associates say Gerber also harbors a passion for history and putting it on film, along with an inherent sense of what will make a scene more emotional and resonant. And while he probably graduated from the adults 18-to-49 demographic the networks obsess over during the Nixon administration, his eye for drama and desire to tell stories has remained undimmed.

Much has changed, of course, from the day when David Gerber productions filled the airwaves; still, if there is a tendency among peers to lament television’s present state of affairs, Gerber for the most part prefers focusing on his next project to tilting at windmills. As for what motivates him to keep pressing onward, his explanation could be applied just as easily to Gerber himself.

“In our business, you meet interesting people,” he said. “They’re crazy and exciting and every other thing.... [But] if you like being with them, it’s a great life.”

“The Lost Battalion” premieres Sunday night at 9 on A&E.; The network has rated it TV-PG-V (may be unsuitable for young children with a special advisory for violence).

Brian Lowry’s column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached via e-mail at brian.lowry@latimes .com.