Farewell to one of the myths of 70's TV. David Soul, pseudonym of David Richard Solberg, has died. He was an American actor and singer-songwriter made famous by the very popular TV series - as they were then called - of the police series 'Starsky & Hutch', in partnership with Paul Michael Glaser. The artist, originally from Chicago, was 80 years old and was ill. The news was given by his fifth wife, the English Helen Snell, a public relations expert with whom he had long since moved to Great Britain. "David Soul, beloved husband, father, grandfather and brother, died yesterday after bravely fighting alongside his beloved family", reads a note taken up by the UK media.
The career
In the series that brought him success between 1975 and 1979 - first in the USA, then in Europe (including Italy) - Soul played the role of Kenneth 'Hutch' Hutchinson: the blonde of the two in the inseparable pair of nonconformist detectives completed by Glaser in the role of the darker, curly and more restless David Starsky. A cheeky, shabby and almost hippie style duo tasked with hunting down crime - even resorting to unorthodox methods at the cost of creating headaches for their superiors - roaring aboard the sports car recklessly driven by Starsky: a flaming red Ford Gran Torino (code-named Zebra 3) made unmistakable by the conspicuous white side stripes. This was a decisive experience in Soul's career (crowned later in the form of a stretched revival by the cinematic Starsky & Hutch interpreted in 2004 by Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson), but far from exclusive, as Snell pointed out. Recalling her husband as a man capable of "sharing many extraordinary talents with the world, as an actor, singer, storyteller, creative artist and precious friend". In the subsequent British years of his life, David - who in 2004 would have obtained UK citizenship - also acted in British series such as Here Come The Brides, Magnum Force or The Yellow Rose. And he hosted TV shows.
Private life
His existential parable - adventurous and not without dark moments - cannot however be exhausted on the small screen. Even before reaching television fame, Soul had indeed tried his hand from a young age as a folk musician and guitarist, even performing on the sidelines of concerts by names of the caliber of Frank Zappa, the Byrds, the Lovin' Spoonful. A passion cultivated from his teenage years, lived in contact with underground and radical left-wing environments in Mexico where his father was a professor at a college for young diplomats. And continued on his return to the USA, both in Minneapolis and on the national scene, to be then resumed, after the triumphs of Starsky & Hutch, in a soft rock key with the release of four successful albums, crowded concerts especially of girls, divism and singles capable of reaching number 1 on the British hit parade like the ballads Silver Lady and Don't Give Up On Us. To interrupt everything - against the backdrop of turbulent sentimental relationships, alcohol abuse and serial failed marriages - would then have come in the '80s the arrest for domestic violence against his then-wife Patti Carnel Sherman, attacked in the seventh month of pregnancy. A dark episode later destined to inspire David to public repentance, accompanied by forms of social commitment among prisoners and against abuse of women within the home. After serving prison and a period of rehabilitation, Soul would however return to the scene only in the second half of the '90s: with a final album and various performances that among other things resulted in an English tour that became the occasion to meet Helen, the last woman of his life.
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