Prolific American TV producer, Woody Fraser has died. He was 90.
He passed away on Saturday (Sunday in Australia), Variety has confirmed via his daughter Stacy.
The TV professional was best known for launching The Mike Douglas Show as well as the widely popular American morning news breakfast program Good Morning America.
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Fraser’s long-time collaborator and fellow producer E.V. Di Massa Jr. took to Facebook to pay tribute.
”My mentor and a true producing genius Woody Fraser passed,” Massa wrote alongside the two of them together.
“So many memories. Here we are accepting the Mike Douglas Lifetime Award at the Emmys..may God hold him until we have our next production meeting in heaven.”
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Other former colleagues of Fraser’s shared their own tributes in the comment section.
“Worked with Woody on two Nickelodeon shows back in the mid 80s and he was a joy to work for. RIP Woody!” one wrote.
”Woody was a show runner on a show at NBC I operated camera on in 1977 called America Alive. He was a legend, with a great sense of humour and fun,” another wrote.
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who worked with Fraser, also took to social media to share a tribute.
“Woody Fraser was EP of my @FoxNews TV show & a TV pioneer,” he wrote.
“He was creator of many TV shows over 7 decades. He gave Roger Ailes his 1st TV job. I loved the guy. He was my mentor in TV. He died this weekend at age of 90. He was a legend.”
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Throughout his career, Fraser became a prominent figure within the entertainment industry with a specific expertise in talk shows, news and variety programming.
His working life in Hollywood spanned over 60 years in which time he worked on several high profile projects.
Some of those include credits on The Dick Cavett Show, The Richard Simmons Show, The Family Challenge, That’s Incredible, The Home Show and more.
Fraser has amassed 35 IMDB credits throughout his career, with the majority of those roles being as an Executive Producer.
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His career in TV began over six decades ago in 1960 where he took on a role as a director for the NBC. That same year he met Mike Douglas who we would go on to produce The Mike Douglas Show with. That show became one of the most successful and longest-running talk shows in TV history.
Between 1966 and 1973, according to his online bio, “Fraser was responsible for an unprecedented 32 and a half hours of television programming every week”.
That programming included The Mike Douglas Show, The Dick Cavett Show, The Della Reese Show, The Bill Russell Show and Kid Talk which all aired simultaneously.
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It was during that period that he also created and produced The Virginia Graham Show and The Steve Allen Show.
In more recent years, he worked on TV shows McEnroe and Huckabee. He also supported his late wife Noreen Fraser’s Stand Up 2 Cancer telethons which united several American networks to raise more than $100 million for cancer research.
Fraser is survived by his eight children and three grandchildren.
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