October 10, 1958 –
The private-eye series 77 Sunset Strip starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Roger Smith, and Edd Byrnes, premiered on ABC-TV on this date.
The ownership battle over the rights to this show was the reason that Roy Huggins left Warner Bros. He’d created the concept behind the series, and Stuart Bailey was his creation, but the pilot episode was released theatrically, and had not been written by Huggins at all. It was a Warner Bros. property because the actual writer had been working for hire and had no legal claim to it, and so legal ownership of the show belonged to them.
