Dale McRaven, the television writer and creator of Perfect Strangers and Mork & Mindy, died on September 5. He was 83.
McRaven was at his home in Porter Ranch, California when he died. Throughout his career, he received major accolades like nominations from the Writers Guild of America Awards and the Emmys for his work on Mork & Mindy, which he co-created with Joe Glauberg and late director Garry Marshall. The ABC sitcom that starred Robin Williams and Pam Dawber lasted for four seasons.
Perfect Strangers with Bronson Pinchot and Mark Linn-Baker was also created by McRaven. The ABC sitcom ran for 8 seasons with 150 episodes produced.
His first show in show business was in 1963 when he was hired by Marshall to be part of the writers for The Joey Bishop Show. McRaven would also go on to write for The Dick Van Dyke Show after he was found by Sheldon Leonard at Desilu Studios who told him and Carl Kleinschmidt because he was about to “change their lives.”
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It was with The Dick Van Dyke Show where the writers won the Writer’s Guild Award for their first script, which got them to write 8 more scripts during the final season of the show. McRaven and Kleinschmidt would go on to work together on scripts for The Odd Couple, Gomer Pyle, Bill Dana and Hey Landlord.
McRaven is credited as being a Star Maker discovering Robyn Williams, Pam Dawber, Mark Hamil, Garey Busey, Bronson Pinchot, Mark Lin-Baker, David Cassidy, Susan Dey, Danny Bonaduce, among others.
Other shows that McRaven produced include The Partridge Family, Texas Wheelers (1974), The Betty White Show (1978) and Angie (1979).