Nero Wolfe

Nero Wolfe is an American drama television series based on the characters in Rex Stout's series of detective stories. The series aired on NBC from January 16 to August 25, 1981. William Conrad fills the role of the detective genius Nero Wolfe, and Lee Horsley is his assistant Archie Goodwin. Produced by Paramount Television, the series updates the world of Nero Wolfe to contemporary New York City and draws few of its stories from the Stout originals. Plot Nero Wolfe (William Conrad) enjoys a life of refined self-indulgence in his comfortable Manhattan brownstone — reading, dining, spending regular hours in his rooftop plant rooms, and only reluctantly involving himself in the detection of crime. Famously sedentary, Wolfe relies on his legman Archie Goodwin (Lee Horsley) to collect the clues and the suspects in any case at hand, while he spars with his live-in chef Fritz Brenner (George Voskovec) and bickers with his resident orchid nurse Theodore Horstmann (Robert Coote, in his final role). Often assisted by freelance detective Saul Panzer (George Wyner), Wolfe and Archie customarily gather the suspects in Wolfe's office and present the solution to the exasperated Inspector Cramer (Allan Miller) of Manhattan Homicide. Production In March 1980, Nero Wolfe was one of half-a-dozen new series being considered by the team of Brandon Tartikoff and Fred Silverman at NBC, according to Peter Boyer of the Associated Press. "The idea has been tried unsuccessfully on TV before, most recently by ABC," Boyer reported. "But NBC has an angle going that will certainly make this Nero Wolfe worthy of notice — the distinct possibility that Orson Welles will play the lead role." The pilot episode was to be written by Leon Tokatyan (Lou Grant). When filming of the TV series was under way later that year, columnist Marilyn Beck wrote that Nero Wolfe had been planned as a starring vehicle for Welles until he decided that he wanted NBC to change the concept from a one-hour weekly series to a series of 90-minute specials, and that he wanted his scenes filmed at his Los Angeles home. Some 20 years later, in a story about the A&E Nero Wolfe series, the Toronto Star reported that Welles had bowed out of the NBC series because he was unable to learn the dialogue.