Talk Show Host Murdered by Father of Cheers' Star

[FredLeonard]

Denver progressive talk show host Alan Berg, already is the subject of the book "Talked to Death" and two movies (one of them based on a hit Broadway play). This weekend, NPR interviewed his brother, David, about Alan's murder. David Berg recounts that Alan was killed by Charles Harrelson, father of Cheers' Woody Harrelson and that hit-man Charles Harrelson and his private detective brother Claude then tried to shake-down David Berg, who was trying to learn what had happened to his missing brother.

Family Tragedy With A Hollywood Connection In 'Run, Brother, Run'

Lawyer David Berg's new memoir reveals the story of his most dramatic case. Run, Brother, Run is about the 1968 murder of Berg's brother, Alan, allegedly by Charles Harrelson — the father of actor Woody Harrelson — who was ultimately acquitted.

www.npr.org/2013/06/15/189202715/family-tragedy-with-a-hollywood-connection-in-run-brother-run

One of the films based on Berg's murder has additional Cheers connections. It starred Tom Berenger, who marries Rebecca in the Cheers finale, and John Mahoney, who played a hack ad jingle writer on Cheers and then Frasier's father.

 

[ProducerGuy]

I hear Woody's dad was upset Berg was on a station with a weak signal.

 

[michael hagerty]

Denver progressive talk show host Alan Berg, already is the subject of the book "Talked to Death" and two movies (one of them based on a hit Broadway play). This weekend, NPR interviewed his brother, David, about Alan's murder. David Berg recounts that Alan was killed by Charles Harrelson, father of Cheers' Woody Harrelson and that hit-man Charles Harrelson and his private detective brother Claude then tried to shake-down David Berg, who was trying to learn what had happened to his missing brother.

Family Tragedy With A Hollywood Connection In 'Run, Brother, Run'

Lawyer David Berg's new memoir reveals the story of his most dramatic case. Run, Brother, Run is about the 1968 murder of Berg's brother, Alan, allegedly by Charles Harrelson — the father of actor Woody Harrelson — who was ultimately acquitted.

www.npr.org/2013/06/15/189202715/family-tragedy-with-a-hollywood-connection-in-run-brother-run

One of the films based on Berg's murder has additional Cheers connections. It starred Tom Berenger, who marries Rebecca in the Cheers finale, and John Mahoney, who played a hack ad jingle writer on Cheers and then Frasier's father.

Wrong Alan Berg.

The Alan Berg Charles Harrelson was accused (and acquitted) of killing was an executive of a Houston carpet company. That was 1968.

Alan Berg the talk show host was killed in June of 1984. Harrelson had been in custody for the murder of U.S. District Judge John H. Wood for almost four years at that point.

NPR got the story right. If you read the article that the link Fred posted points to, you'll see that there's no mention of the talk show Alan Berg, and several references to this Alan Berg's line of work and year of death.

 

[ProducerGuy]

Well, that sort of kills my whole joke, doesn't it?

 

[stevensonair]

It was tasteless of you to say in the first place.

 

[ProducerGuy]

It was tasteless of you to say in the first place.

Yes. It was. It was a tasteless joke. That's how those kind of jokes work.

 

[umfan]

Yeah, but had the facts been presented correctly in the first place, this should not have been posted to begin with, at least not in this thread as it has nothing to do with Talk Radio.

 

[michael hagerty]

Yeah, but had the facts been presented correctly in the first place, this should not have been posted to begin with, at least not in this thread as it has nothing to do with Talk Radio.

Which the original poster could have known by reading 60 seconds into the article he linked to.

I'd probably have let that slide without comment, but Fred's recently been on a rant about broadcast journalists not really being journalists (and deserving to be threatened with baseball bats, hit with rocks and bitten by dogs).

First thing my first TV news director shared with me was a quote from Mark Twain:

"Make sure you're right. Then go ahead."

 

[ProducerGuy]

Yeah, but had the facts been presented correctly in the first place, this should not have been posted to begin with, at least not in this thread as it has nothing to do with Talk Radio.

Funny how those things work, isn't it?

But we can salvage this.

How close was the movie Talk Radio compared to the real Berg story?

 

[Ultimajock]

Denver progressive talk show host Alan Berg, already is the subject of the book "Talked to Death" and two movies (one of them based on a hit Broadway play).

...Talk Radio was based on Eric Bogosian's Off-Broadway play. The play didn't get a Broadway production until 2007, 19 years after Oliver Stone's movie of it (with Bogosian in the lead role) was released. Berg was not the subject of the other film you seem to reference here, Betrayed; that picture has a Jewish talk radio host with a penchant for confrontation (played by Richard Libertini) assassinated by a neo-Nazi (played by Tom Berenger), but there the parallel ends; Libertini's character works in Chicago, not Denver, and is a very minor presence in the picture...

How close was the movie Talk Radio compared to the real Berg story?

...the majority of the on-the-air and in-the-studio dialogue was from the Bogosian play, which appears to have been written prior to the Berg assassination according to the published edition of the script; the majority of the outside-the-station material is from Stephen Singular's book on the Berg assassination, Talked to Death...

 

[DToTheJ]

Denver progressive talk show host Alan Berg, already is the subject of the book "Talked to Death" and two movies (one of them based on a hit Broadway play). This weekend, NPR interviewed his brother, David, about Alan's murder. David Berg recounts that Alan was killed by Charles Harrelson, father of Cheers' Woody Harrelson and that hit-man Charles Harrelson and his private detective brother Claude then tried to shake-down David Berg, who was trying to learn what had happened to his missing brother... Lawyer David Berg's new memoir reveals the story of his most dramatic case. Run, Brother, Run is about the 1968 murder of Berg's brother, Alan, allegedly by Charles Harrelson — the father of actor Woody Harrelson — who was ultimately acquitted...

Wrong Alan Berg. The Alan Berg Charles Harrelson was accused (and acquitted) of killing was an executive of a Houston carpet company. That was 1968. Alan Berg the talk show host was killed in June of 1984...

So I guess everybody doesn't know your name.