Robert Crutchfield, Veteran TV Publicity Executive, Dies at 85

Robert Crutchfield, who served as a top publicity executive in television for MTM Enterprises, Lorimar and Universal, has died. He was 85.

Crutchfield died April 7 at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California, after a long illness, a family spokesperson announced.

A onetime Houston radio deejay and 20th Century Fox contract player, Crutchfield in 1974 began an eight-year stint as vp marketing and publicity for MTM Enterprises, where he handled such acclaimed series as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, WKRP in Cincinnati, The Bob Newhart Show, Lou Grant, Phyllis, Rhoda and The White Shadow.

He joined Lorimar as senior vp publicity in 1982 and orchestrated the landmark “Who Shot J.R.?” campaign for Dallas while overseeing other shows including The Waltons, Knots Landing, Eight Is Enough and Falcon Crest, which starred his longtime friend, Jane Wyman. (He also was pals with actor Ed Asner.)

Crutchfield was on the job in 1986 when the parents of Dallas star Patrick Duffy were shot and killed at their bar in Boulder, Colorado.

He left Lorimar a year later to accept the post of executive vp publicity, promotion & advertising at Universal Television. During his 10 years there, he helped launch such series as Law & Order, Quantum Leap and Northern Exposure while handling Miami Vice, Murder, She Wrote and Magnum, P.I. He retired in 1997.

Robert Owen Crutchfield dropped out of Lon Morris College in Jacksonville, Texas, in 1956 to become the youngest deejay at KXYZ-ABC Radio in Houston. Three years later, he arrived in Hollywood and signed with Fox but lost his contract amid the studio’s financial woes brought on by Cleopatra (1963).

Crutchfield took a job as an office boy at MGM’s publicity department and then graduated to publicist, working on the NBC drama Dr. Kildare and films including The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964) and several Glenn Ford movies, including The Rounders (1965).

He served a pair of two-year terms on the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences publicity committee and was a founding member of the Television Publicity Executives Committee.

In 2000, he launched Crutchfield Entertainment, a broadcast production studio in the Palm Springs area that specialized in commercials, voiceovers, training videos, documentaries and audiobooks. He also produced and starred in his own weekly podcast, As I See It, where he talked about his four decades in Hollywood.

Survivors include his husband and beloved life partner of 49 years, Terry Johnson, a former 20th Century Fox photo editor; nephews Edgar and Kevin; grand-nephew Holden; cousin Margot; and his dog, Boots.

Donations in his memory may be made to the Southern California Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation, which presented him with a distinguished service award in 1994.