Inside life & career of Starsky and Hutch heart-throb David Soul – from sharing gin with Margaret to Little Britain
WHEN David Soul landed at Heathrow at the height of his Starsky And Hutch fame, 5,000 screaming women greeted the blond American heart-throb.
After screeching around the streets in a red Ford Gran Torino each week on the US cop show, the actor, who died aged 80 on Thursday, was internationally famous — and fancied.
David, who played Sergeant Kenneth “Hutch” Hutchinson, and his co-star Paul Michael Glaser, alias Sergeant Dave Starsky, needed several bodyguards during the show’s run from 1975 to 1979.
Actor and singer David was so popular in Britain that he had two No1 singles — Don’t Give Up On Us in 1976 and Silver Lady a year later.
But that all changed in 1983 after he was arrested for beating up his third wife, Patti Carnel Sherman.
She claimed he broke her fingers and attacked her while she was seven months pregnant.
David confessed to hitting Patti while drunk and avoided a prison sentence by attending anger management courses.
A former alcoholic, he was known for going on benders — including once sharing a couple of bottles of gin with Princess Margaret.
The five-times-married father of six finally quit drinking, settled down and began to speak out against domestic violence.
David, who became a British citizen 20 years ago, spent the past three decades appearing on the stage here and in TV programmes such as Holby City, Dalziel & Pascoe and even David Walliams and Matt Lucas’s comedy sketch show Little Britain.
Mental breakdown
But his final few years were beset by serious health problems, including lung cancer and being placed in a coma in 2017.
A glittering TV career was never part of his plan.
David said: “Little by little I got into acting.
“In a way it was a fluke — I needed the work, I had bills to pay, rent to pay, alimony and child support.”
Born David Solberg, in Chicago in 1943, he was brought up in a household which did not approve of boozing or womanising.
His father, Dr Richard Solberg, was a Lutheran minister and his mum, June, a teacher.
At the age of six the family moved to Berlin, where his dad worked with east European refugees fleeing from communism.
But at 18 he ran away from home after getting his girlfriend Miriam Russeth pregnant.
David said: “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.”
They married in 1964, when he was 20, but it ended after 18 months when he found his wife in bed with another man.
That led to a mental breakdown and David said: “I went completely mad. I had to be locked up in a psychiatric ward for my own protection.”
He married his second wife, actress Karen Carlson, in 1968.
She said their son Jon was “badly frightened” by his temper and the couple divorced in 1977.
By then David was a global sensation.
His initial break- through had been a major role in Clint Eastwood’s hit 1973 cop movie Magnum Force.
That led to David being cast as California detective Hutch in the TV drama, in which he enjoyed genuine screen chemistry with his co-star Paul.
Their buddy-buddy relationship was further strengthened by the regular appearance of streetwise informant Huggy Bear, played by Antonio Fargas.
Although the show was screened for just four years in the States, it ran to 92 episodes and was such a hit globally that in Britain the Royal Family were fans.
David recalled a royal encounter from 1977: “I got Princess Margaret really smashed one afternoon.
“We closed the set down, Paul and I took her to lunch and we emptied a couple of bottles of gin.
“She told us the Queen Mother called us ‘nice boys’. The Queen Mother loved Starsky And Hutch.”
An inability to handle his drink proved to be David’s downfall.
In 1980 he married third wife Patti, who had once dated rocker guitarist Jimi Hendrix, and they had three sons.
But after one domestic incident she told police David had sat on her while she was pregnant and had given her black eyes.
David insisted he “only” hit his wife once.
He said: “There comes a point where you can’t escape yourself.
“When I was arrested in 1983 I had to deal with it. I couldn’t avoid it any longer, because I couldn’t live with myself.”
Anger management sessions helped him to control his rage, but his marriage to Patti ended in 1986.
It was Paul Michael Glaser’s disillusionment with Starsky And Hutch which brought the show to an end in 1979 after four series.
Despite that, he and David remained good friends.
David said: “In Paul I found a friend for life.
“We don’t work together any more but I’m interested in him as a human being.”
David appeared in several films and TV shows but never repeated the success of playing Hutch.
In 1993 he divorced his fourth wife, actress Julia Nickson, after six years together.
Their daughter China Soul, now 35, followed him on to the stage and became a successful singer.
Two years after their break-up, David tired of Los Angeles and decided to move to the UK, where he had always had plenty of fans.
Here he embraced British life, becoming an Arsenal fan and meeting his fifth and final wife, Helen Snell, when she was doing the publicity for the play Deathtrap.
He said: “We didn’t hit it off initially because I don’t like PR bull***t, so I wasn’t one of her favourite clients.”
But they fell in love and in 2004 he took British citizenship so he could live here with Helen for good.
The couple, who mainly lived in North London, married in Devon in June 2010.
David had to keep working because he had sold his 7.5 per cent share of the rights to Starsky And Hutch for £80,000.
That was a paltry sum compared to what he could have earned when the cop show was turned into a movie starring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson in 2004.
David, who had a cameo role in the film, said: “I hated it.”
The critics agreed, and it was a box office flop.
In 2001 he earned some money — said to be £170,000 — in a libel case against journalist Matthew Wright after a review in which he called the play The Dead Monkey, which David was starring in, the worst he had ever seen.
It turned out Wright had not seen it and David was awarded damages.
During his time in Britain the once bad-tempered star showed a softer, more thoughtful side.
In 1997 he canvassed for BBC journalist-turned-politician Martin Bell during his successful election campaign to unseat shamed Tory MP Neil Hamilton in Tatton, Cheshire.
And in 2003 David spoke about his wife-beating regrets during a campaign to highlight the horror of domestic violence.
In the past few years his public appearances were restricted by a series of health problems.
Years of smoking three packets of cigarettes a day led to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Then in 2017 he fell into a coma following a general anaesthetic during a hip replacement operation.
He said: “I spent 72 days in intensive care, including twice being put on a ventilator and undergoing a tracheotomy.
“I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t do anything, I was in delirium.”
Thanks to life-saving treatment at the Royal Free Hospital in London he pulled through.
Announcing his death last night, his widow Helen said: “He shared many extraordinary gifts in the world as actor, singer, storyteller, creative artist and dear friend.
“His smile, laughter and passion for life will be remembered by the many whose lives he has touched.”
But the one thing that bugged him was that everyone just wanted to talk about Starsky And Hutch.
In 2011 he said: “I suppose I’ve mellowed a bit over the years.
“But I still can’t help getting a little twitch when I see myself credited with it.
“After all this time, that’s still the only thing I get in parentheses: ‘David Soul (Starsky and Hutch)’.
“Obviously there is a lot more to my life than that — I’ve done a whole lot of stuff.”
That much is certainly true.
'David defined cool'
FRIENDS and fans paid tribute to the American actor yesterday.
Ben Stiller, who starred as Starsky in the 2004 Starsky & Hutch movie, reshared a video featuring scenes from the US drama and wrote:
“Defining 70s cool. Rest in peace x”
Horror author Stephen King recalled David’s role in the TV adaptation of his book Salem’s Lot, as Ben Mears, who returns to his home town to discover it has been taken over by a vampire.
The writer added: “Sorry to hear David Soul has passed.”
Star Trek legend William Shatner sent his condolences to David’s family, recalling the actor appeared in an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series at the start of his career.
TV presenter Paddy McGuinness said he was “gutted” to hear the news of David’s death because he is a “big part of his childhood memories”.
He said he “relived” his love of Starsky And Hutch by driving a Ford Gran Torino while hosting Top Gear.
Batman films actor Colin McFarlane described David as “very warm”.
Fans also took to social media to honour the actor.
On X, formerly Twitter, one user shared a photo of David as Hutch and wrote: “Remember this image on so many posters when I was a kid. A talented actor and singer and one of the coolest people alive in the 1970s. Rest in peace David Soul.”
Another added: “David Soul of Starsky And Hutch fame has died aged 80. I particularly enjoyed watching him in Salem’s Lot, it terrifies me now as much as it did then.
“I’ve been known to belt out his classic hits Don’t Give Up On Us Baby and Silver Lady on karaoke, great actor. RIP David.”