Burke's Law: the detective show that became Aaron Spelling's first TV hit

Aaron Spelling and Gene Barry: the duo reponsible for the success of Burke's Law
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The following is part of the Aaron (Spellingverse) Blogathon, sponsored by Realweegiemidget Reviews. Be sure to check here for more great entries in the series, running August 19-21.

I've written about Burke's Law before—you can catch up here if you're not familiar with it—but until Gill invited me to participate in this year's Aaron Spelling Blogathon, I'd never really thought about the program in conjunction with him.

The TL;DR is that Burke's Law, which debuted on ABC in the fall of 1963, stars Gene Barry as Amos Burke, a suave, urbane millionaire crimefighter who lives in a mansion, rides in a chauffer-driven Rolls, and always seems to have a beautiful woman resting her hands on his tuxedo-clad arm. Unlike those other wealthy crimefighters, though—Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark or Lord Peter Wimsey, for example—Burke does this for a living, as captain of the Homicide Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. Aided by his able assistants, Detective Sergeant Les Hart (Regis Toomey) and Detective Tim Tilson (Gary Conway), and with the lovely Sergeant Gloria Ames (Eileen O'Neill) always ready to provide a helping hand back in the office, Burke deals with a slew of eccentric suspects each week, sorting through leads and red herrings until he runs across that one clue that tips him off to the killer's identity.

With his inherited wealth (which has increased through his own shrewd investments), he obviously doesn't need to risk his life each week tracking down murderers, so why is he a cop? A witness asks that very question in the first episode of Burke's Law, to which a detective counters, "Why are you a construction worker?" "It's what I do best," the witness replies, and the detective says, "That's why he's a cop."  

All well and good, you may be thinking, but where does Aaron Spelling enter the picture? This isn't a Gene Barry Blogathon, after all. 

You've got a point there.

Spelling was, in fact, the producer of Burke's Law, and the man who, next to Barry, was probably the most responsible for the show's success. Barry had been looking for a comedy for his next project, he told an interviewer in a 1963 TV Guide profile. "I searched for the twinkle, the lift of an eyebrow [that] could change the tone of a serious sentence," he said. "I read Burke’s Law. I envisioned the twinkle in it." Spelling, in the same interview, describes Barry as a man "at home in [a tuxedo], secure in it." In other words, the perfect actor to play a millionaire police captain.

Burke's Law would be Spelling's first successful television project to that point, the first hit of a career that would span 40 years, and it displays many of the trademarks that would come to define an Aaron Spelling production, starting with the guest cast. One of the challenges inherent in crafting a successful mystery is keeping the audience guessing as to who the killer is. Often, since it's such a juicy part, the role goes to the most prominent guest star in the cast; identify that actor, and you've got your murderer. 

Spelling's answer to this was to populate each episode with as many as six or eight recognizable guest stars, from Hollywood veterans like Broderick Crawford, Mary Astor, and Ida Lupino to up-and-comers like Tina Louise and Barbara Eden, to fish-out-of-water appearances by the likes of Don Rickles, Paul Lynde, and the Smothers Brothers. You couldn't depend on the recognizable name being the guilty party; you recognized them all! (Does that remind anyone of, say, The Love Boat or Fantasy Island?) One reason Spelling was so successful in obtaining name guest stars was that they seldom appeared in more than a scene or two at the most; it was an easy payday for them. The female guest stars could also be counted on to display their most attractive . . .well, assets. As actress Corinne Calvet suggestively intimates to Burke in one episode, "I have life insurance, but I’m not as fully covered as I should be."

Like those shows, Burke's Law was a mix of comedy and drama; although the very premise suggests a show that doesn't take itself too seriously (and shouldn't be taken too seriously by viewers either), the mysteries themselves were generally played in a straightforward way, and, like the crew of the Pacific Princess, Burke and his detectives were always treated with respect, never as joke characters.

Each episode of Burke's Law followed a familiar and dependable formula (another Spelling trademark), beginning with the discovery of the dead body, followed by a call to Burke, invariably interrupting one of his romantic assignations, and leading to the opening credits, in which a breathy female voice coos "It's Burke's Law!" while Amos is driven to the scene of the crime by his loyal chauffer/valet, Henry (Leon Lontoc). During the course of the investigation, Burke, Les, and Tim are confronted with multiple suspects, all of whom display characteristics that fall somewhere between eccentric and sociopathic. Those of us actually trying to solve the crime are pulled in two or three different directions, as first one suspect, then another, comes to the fore. Finally, the lightbulb goes on over Burke's head, as a seemingly insignificant clue leads to the breakthrough that, in turn, leads Amos to the guilty party. With the case wrapped up, Amos is now free to resume his pursuit of yet another delictable beauty.

Obviously, all this suggests Burke's Law isn't going to be one of those dark, heavy dramas so typical of today's police procedurals. And yet there's one episode that stands out, precisely because it goes against the grain of the well-established formula, and it's worth singling it out for a moment.

"Who Killed My Girl?" is the 29th episode of the first season, and from the start it differs in that it is both more serious and more personal than usual. You see, this week's victim, beautiful heiress Diana Mercer (Barbara Michaels) was not only known to Burke—she was "his girl," beautiful, sophisticated, fun, with wealth of her own—the one woman who stood a chance to be "Mrs. Amos Burke" if Amos had been the marrying kind. He isn't, of course; although it's a cliche, he really is married to his job. Any time a female friend even suggests the possibility of marriage, Burke starts looking for the exits. 

But Diana was different; she had a hold on him like no other woman. He finally broke it off, knowing that it wouldn't work out, despite her protestations. That was in the past, but recently she'd reentered his life, asking if they could get together for old times' sake. It's obvious something's bothering her, but she won't tell him what it is. Unable to do anything for her, the evening ends. The next thing we know, there's a phone call. This time it catches Amos, not in the arms of another beautiful woman, but in bed, asleep. And the news from Tim is crushing: Diana is dead.

The easy way out for an episode like this would be to make Burke the prime suspect. He was, after all, the last person known to have seen her alive, witnesses saw him leaving her place. I call this kind of a plot "false jeopardy," because we know from the outset that Amos isn't the killer; putting him under some kind of suspicion is simply adding an unnecessary complication. And it's to the show's credit (the episode was penned by TV stalwart Tony Barrett) that it doesn't go there. 

It does, however, give us a side of Amos Burke that we haven't seen before. He's haunted by the possibility that he's somehow responsible for Diana's death, flipping through old pictures and buried memories, unable to shake the thought from his mind. If only he'd been able to get her to tell him what was wrong—even worse, if only he'd married her back in the day—then she'd still be alive. 

Out of that grows a determination, almost a personal vendetta, to track down Diana's killer. Tim, Les, and Gloria worry that he's too emotionally wrapped up in the case, too close to it to see what might be important. He refuses all offers of help, though. This is his case, and he's going to see it through to the end. His first surprise comes when he runs across Diana's little black book—he had no idea. And as he goes through the names, he discovers a darker side to her, one that he didn't know existed. Is it possible that he never really knew her at all, or were these secrets somehow a result of their breakup? It isn't until Burke is attacked in his home that he realizes he must be getting close to uncovering the killer. At this point, he finally acknowledges the need for help from his colleagues. 

Befitting an episode that's more serious than usual, Gene Barry demonstrates that there's more to Burke than a tuxedo; he can be tough, even ruthless, when the situation calls for it; the rest of the regular cast displays a similar sensitivity. As usual, there's a boatload of guest stars, including Richard Carlson, Jane Greer, Ruta Lee, Stephen McNally, Gene Raymond, Don Taylor. I'm not going to spoil the ending for you here; if you want to find out how the story ends, you can stream the series at Amazon Prime, or email me, and I'll tell you whodunnit. (That's a cruel thing to do, isn't it?) 

But the point here is that, in some way, the mystery isn't really what this episode is about. As things wrap up, with the killer in custody, Amos is left alone in his home, sitting at his desk, lost once again with his memories, as Henry brings him dinner. But then Les, Tim, and Gloria "just happen" to drop by, each one of them bringing an armload of food, enough for a party. Without forgetting the past completely, Amos realizes that it's time for him to return to the present, and to the friends who care about him. It's a putatively happy ending, but one gets the feeling that there's still a shadow there, one from which Amos Burke will never be entirely clear.

(L-R) Regis Toomey, Gary Conway,
and Gene Barry

Burke's Law ran for two moderately successful seasons, 1963-64 and 1964-65. For the 1965-66 season, ABC, over the vehement objections of Spelling and Barry, announced a change in format. Attempting to capitalize on the spy craze engendered by the James Bond movies and the Man from U.N.C.L.E. television series, the show's title was changed to Amos Burke, Secret Agent. Burke, no longer with the LAPD, was now an operative for an American spy organization, traveling the world to fight nefarious international plots against freedom. (He did get to keep his Rolls, although now he had to drive it himself.) The rest of the cast was jettisoned; the only regular in the new version was Carl Benton Reid as "The Man," Burke's spymaster, in charge of sending him on various assignments. The lightness of the original was toned down somewhat; tellingly, most of Burke's female operatives are killed in this version.

Amos Burke, Secret Agent was not a hit with viewers or critics, and only 17 episodes were aired before the show was cancelled in January, 1966. That wasn't the end of the line for Amos Burke, though, for apparently he grew tired of the secret agent business and returned to the LAPD. At least, that's where we was working when Burke's Law was revived for the 1994-95 season. Spelling Productions was once again driving the series, and Gene Barry was back, dapper as ever, as now-Deputy Chief Amos Burke. His new sidekick was his son Peter, himself a detective with LAPD, played by Peter Barton (during the intervening years Burke had married and was now a widower), and Henry was back behind the wheel of the Rolls (albeit with a different actor). The trademark humor, occasionally verging on camp, had returned, as did the big-name guest star lineup. It was a middling success, running for 24 episodes over two seasons. One of the highlights of the revived series was an appearance by Anne Francis, whose character, private detective Honey West, had first appeared in a 1965 episode of Burke's Law before being spun off into her own series, which ran for one season*. In the Burke revival, her character was called "Honey Best" for copyright reasons, but those in the know knew who she really was.

*Fun fact: Aaron Spelling's original first choice to play Honey West was Honor Blackman, who'd previously starred in The Avengers and the Bond film Goldfinger. Blackman turned Spelling down; I wonder if Honey West would have been more successful with her in the role?

Burke's Law was a delightful show, great fun to watch, with Barry masterful in the role, and the byplay between Burke, Les, and Tim was one of the highlights of the series. The first season of the show was released on DVD way back in 2008, but neither the second and third seasons have seen the light of day, relegated to reruns on MeTV. It's a pity, because it's deprived so many people from discovering the pleasures of Aaron Spelling's first hit. And who knows where this blogosphere would be today if we hadn't had Burke's Law? TV 

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