Honey West

(This post is part of the Aaron Spellingverse blogathon hosted by Reelweegiemidget)

The way Aaron Spelling told it, he commissioned an artist to come up with a few concepts for an idea Spelling had about a TV show featuring a femme fatale private investigator. When ABC showed interest, he bought the rights to G.G. Fickling’s series of Honey West novels.

Honey and Bruce

G.G. Fickling was a husband and wife writing team, Gloria and Skip Fickling, whose Honey West paperback potboilers were published between 1957 and 1971. Honey, the authors said, was a “beautiful, brainy and a very much determined, sensual female.”

What Spelling seemed to have in mind was for Honey West was an American version of The Avengers; his first choice for the lead was Honor Blackman, who played Cathy Gale in The Avengers and was fresh off the blockbuster Goldfinger film.

The role went instead to Blackman lookalike Anne Francis, whose most prolific film work included Forbidden Planet (1956), Bad Day at Black Rock and Blackboard Jungle (both 1955) before she moved on to a long string of television guest shots.

Honey was introduced in a back-door pilot episode of Burke’s Law in April 1965. She wore slinky evening wear, drove a Jaguar convertible and is referred to twice as a “private eyeful.” Clearly Burke’s equal, they circled each other warily before teaming to solve a murder. Five months later, Honey West was on ABC’s fall schedule.

Smart, confident and sexy, Honey inherited her father’s private eye business and with partner Sam Bolt (played by John Ericson; he and Honey had a wisecracking, do-they-or-don’t-they relationship), they often rely on high-tech (for 1965) gimmickry: a microphone disguised as a martini olive on a toothpick, lipstick radio transmitter, two-way communication devices wired into sunglasses. A disguised TV repair truck serves as a roving surveillance nerve center (an idea borrowed from notorious real-life L.A. private investigator Fred Otash).

Also on the scene was Honey’s pet ocelot Bruce, whose “playful” behavior got a little rough at times. If Honey or Sam needed the occasional tetanus shot, they also spent a lot of time in concussion protocol. No episode was complete without one – or both – of them getting clunked on the back of the head with a pistol butt, despite Honey’s proficiency in judo and karate (which Francis studied prior to shooting).

Sharp and chic, the show started strongly, as Honey and Sam bust a cocaine ring, take on industrial spies, gem smugglers and arsonists, and match wits with Don Draper-style smoothies like Ray Danton and Lloyd Bochner. Every episode seemingly guaranteed a slugfest in the final minutes and a reason for Honey to wear her form-fitting black jumpsuit.

But with the debut of Batman in January 1966, the plots grew sillier and camp: robots, a Robin Hood imposter, “kooky” pop artists, Honey’s evil double (Anne Francis in a dark wig, of course). A random POW! superimposed over a fight scene clearly signaled the show’s death knell.

Francis soldiered on, winning a Golden Globe and being nominated for an Emmy. TV Guide reported that she was pulling in a $5000 weekly salary and owned 20 percent of the show.

Despite all the trappings we’ve come to expect in an Aaron Spelling production: attractive leads, glamour and adventure, Honey was a one-season wonder, a victim of scheduling (going up against Gomer Pyle) and the less-expensive availability of, ironically, the syndicated The Avengers.

Coming full circle, Anne Francis’ last appearance as Honey was in the 1994-95 revival of Burke’s Law, this time as Honey “Best.”

Honey West crashed the all-male adventure series party, paving the way for Charlie’s Angels. While Aaron Spelling’s success suggests that he was never in need of an elevator pitch, he likely had the perfect four-word proposal for his series about the crime-fighting adventures of three women working at a private detective agency in Los Angeles: Honey West times three.