by Herbie J Pilato
Writer/executive producer Ed Spielman is a man for all seasons…TV seasons that is, and a few for the big screen as well.
Spielman, who is also an author and journalist, is the creator of the Emmy Award winning classic TV series, Kung Fu, the first eastern-western which initially aired on ABC from 1972 to 1975, and starred David Carradine as the Asian-American Shaolin monk from the Far East who journeyed through the Old West.
The show’s original 90-minute origin (co-written with Howard Friedlander), debuting February 22, 1972 (on ABC’s popular Movie of the Week series) was “the first American Martial Arts film.” The Emmy award winning series that followed commenced the modern martial arts genre for television and motion pictures, and was honored by Entertainment Weekly magazine as “One of the 100 Best Television Shows of All Time.”