Full Name Barry Cohen Years active 1957 - 1985 | Name Barry Crane Role Television producer | |
 | ||
Born November 10, 1927 ( 1927-11-10 ) Detroit, Michigan, USA Occupation Television director
Television producer Died July 5, 1985, Los Angeles, California, United States Movies The Hound of the Baskervilles Similar People Oswald Jacoby, Alan Sontag, Bruce Geller | ||
Barry Crane, born Barry Cohen, (November 10, 1927 – July 5, 1985) was a prolific television producer and director, and a bridge player who "won more titles than anyone else in the history of the game". According to the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL), he was "widely recognized as the top matchpoint player of all time"—the tournament format commonly played in private clubs.
Contents
Barry Cohen was born 1927 in Detroit, Michigan, and later sometimes credited under his birth name. In the mid-1950s he moved to Hollywood and changed his name for professional reasons. He produced The Magician, and was an associate producer on several episodes of Mission: Impossible. He was credited with directing numerous episodes of such series as Trapper John, M.D., The Incredible Hulk, Hawaii Five-O, CHiPs, Dallas, Wonder Woman, Mission: Impossible, and Mannix.
Crane, who won 15 North American championships, was a Grand Life Master in the ACBL and traveled extensively to play in matchpoint pairs tournaments. In World Bridge Federation (WBF) competition he and Kerri Shuman won the fourth quadrennial World Mixed Pairs Championship in 1978. In North America he also played in teams-of-four tournaments (where the strategy is subtly different from matchpoint play) and won numerous regional titles. His teams reached the Vanderbilt final in 1951 and 1985, his first and last high finishes in North America-level events.
During his lifetime, Crane accumulated 35,135.80 masterpoints (awarded by the ACBL for success in tournament play), more than any other player. Second-placed Paul Soloway was approximately 11,000 behind at Crane's death in 1985 and passed him only in 1991. In honor and as a memorial to Crane, the ACBL renamed the award given to the player who accumulates the most masterpoints in a single year to the Barry Crane Trophy, and the list of high masterpoint attainers to the Barry Crane Top 500. Crane was elected to the ACBL Hall of Fame in 1995.
Crane was murdered on Friday, July 5, 1985, a homicide which has not been solved. His body was "found bludgeoned shortly before 3 P.M. in the garage of his luxury town home in Studio City", apparently dragged to the garage from his apartment, according to the police. That week he was playing daily in the annual Pasadena regional knockout teams tournament; his team won the Saturday final with Kerri Shuman, one of Crane's favorite partners, as his replacement.