Daily Mail: As David Soul racked up five marriages, his fame became a burden

Story from Daily Mail:

Rarely has a screen heartthrob agonised over his fame as much as David Soul. For years he refused to even talk about Starsky & Hutch, the wildly popular detective series that made him the golden idol of 1970s Saturday night TV.

He wanted to be a serious stage actor, complaining that he'd been kept a 'hostage' for years by his role as relaxed, intellectual cop Ken 'Hutch' Hutchinson.

However, when Warner Brothers announced its 2004 film version starring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, he was livid that he and co-star Paul Michael Glaser hadn't been approached, although they eventually got guest star roles.

Soul, who has died aged 80, had been trying for years to get the studio interested in a sequel based on a rather worthy-sounding script he'd written in which one of the duo became an anti-capitalist demonstrator.

'I'm passionate about communicating with people,' he told Terry Wogan in 1991, in an interview in which the actor preferred to talk about the work of the Family Welfare Association than Tinseltown gossip.

Though, as he admitted to Wogan, his own family — five wives and six children — had their own welfare issues, considering his problems with alcohol and a violent temper that once landed him in court for hitting one of his wives.

The actor was so keen to distance himself from Hollywood that he moved to the UK in the mid-1990s and became a British citizen in 2004. Yesterday his widow Helen said he had died on Thursday 'after a valiant battle for life in the loving company of family. His smile, laughter and passion for life will be remembered by the many whose lives he has touched.'

TV viewers of a certain age, especially women, will certainly remember that smile which together with his twinkling blue eyes, and his brooding co-star Glaser, earned posters of the pair pride of place on the walls of a generation of teenage girls.

The series ran on BBC1 from 1975 to 1979 and won its stars iconic status. Soul, in particular, was accorded Beatle-like adulation. He was also a musician and singer, and during his first concert after becoming famous in New York in 1977, a reviewer described the 'camera-wielding teenage girls charging the stage' and 'the flicker of hundreds of exploding flashcubes and a continual squealing'.

His arrival at Heathrow for a London concert shortly afterwards produced similar scenes of fan frenzy as 5,000 of them stormed the airport to greet him.

It wasn't difficult to see the appeal of either the star or the show, particularly in bleak 1970s Britain. Set in a fictional California city and featuring two smouldering cops hurtling around in a red and white striped Ford Gran Torino, it had a glamour lacking in home-grown rivals such as Softly, Softly or The Sweeney.

Many actors would have been delighted by the acclaim, but not the serious-minded Soul, who insisted he fell into acting and had never had celebrity as a goal.

As he exploited his fame to boost his career as a musician, he notched up a string of hits, including Don't Give Up On Us and Silver Lady.

His Hollywood career post-Hutch was, however, less of a triumph. After attaching himself to a string of dud ventures, he moved to the UK in the 1990s to start a new — and successful — career on the West End stage in shows including Blood Brothers.

He didn't forget the small screen entirely. His occasional TV appearances in shows ranged from Holby City to an adaptation of Agatha Christie's Death On The Nile.

However, perhaps Soul's most surprising UK performance was campaigning for his friend and former BBC journalist Martin Bell in the 1997 General Election to beat disgraced Tory Neil Hamilton and become MP for Tatton.

But then, Soul had always been an idealist. Born David Solberg in Chicago in 1943, he was the oldest of five children and the product of a strict Christian upbringing largely in the American Midwest. His father was not only an academic but a Lutheran minister.

Prayers were said before and after all meals, he was regularly beaten with a wooden clothes hanger and every time young David went out, his mother would warn him: 'Make sure you are a good Christian boy. And if you can't be Christian, at least be good.'

He didn't manage it. At 18, he fled to Minneapolis, leaving girlfriend Mim expecting his baby. 'The ignominy was terrible,' he told the Mail in 1997. 'I knew there was no alternative but to marry her, but I couldn't tell my parents because their strong moral code meant they would have come down on me with the wrath of God.'

After a shotgun wedding when Soul was just 21, the marriage lasted only 18 months, coming to an end when he found her in bed with another man. He embarked on a series of relationships, most destroyed by his volcanic temper.

His second marriage, to actress Karen Carlson, lasted for nine years from 1968. She later said their son Jon was 'badly frightened' by his father.

By then, he had given up on ambitions of following his father into academia or joining the Peace Corps, the U.S. government agency that trains volunteers to work in international aid.

He performed with a touring theatre company and, shortening his name to Soul and moving to New York, also became a singer, getting regular work on TV shows. Hiding his good looks behind a mask during performances, he would say only: 'My name is David Soul and I want to be known for my music.'

In 1960s New York he became embroiled with The Factory, Andy Warhol's hip and druggy salon of musicians, porn stars and drag queens. 'I was meat for the grinder in that place,' he later admitted.

One of his first screen roles was in a 1967 episode of Star Trek, and Clint Eastwood later cast him as a corrupt cop in his 1973 film drama Magnum Force.

The role caught the eye of producer Aaron Spelling who chose him two years later to play Hutch. His career soared into the stratosphere and his love life reflected his heartthrob status.

During the Starsky & Hutch years, he and his girlfriend, actress Lynne Marta, had an 'open relationship' in which they lived together but found lovers wherever they wanted.

He built a mansion in Bel-Air on the proceeds of the series, but Soul admitted the show left him unfulfilled artistically while he found his hyper-stardom difficult. It surely contributed to his worsening alcoholism.

In 1980, he married third wife Patti Carnel, a former girlfriend of Jimi Hendrix. Their six-year marriage produced three children but ended very badly. She accused Soul of sitting on her stomach when she was seven months pregnant, blackening her eyes and breaking her fingers.

Soul insisted he hit her only once, but added: 'And I know that was too many times.'

After she accused him of hitting her in the face he was charged with assault and battery in 1982. Two years later, the charges were dropped after he completed a domestic violence treatment programme.

He later told a BBC programme about his violence: 'There is no excuse. The hardest part is to look at oneself and to those you love and that you have hurt. We live with the guilt and shame.'

However, his father, he once told the Mail, had 'brought me up never to talk about my feelings'. He married fourth wife, actress Julia Nickson, in 1987 though — in grand Soul tradition — they divorced after six years. In 1992, he met Alexa Hamilton, an actress and singer 20 years his junior and they moved together to the UK. They lived in London and she described their relationship as 'turbulent'.

Soul never returned to live in the U.S. — once explaining London's appeal: 'I enjoy reading a newspaper and walking on the street, which are things you don't do in America, because you watch television and drive a car.'

He married his last wife, Briton Helen Snell, in 2010. They started dating in 2002 after meeting when he was in the West End production of the play Deathtrap and she was doing the public relations.

Soul said he always got on well with his wives, but — tragically —only after they got divorced.

His alter ego Hutch, who was also divorced, was usually too busy chasing bad guys to get involved with women.