There were 120 episodes of The Fugitive running over four years. The climax of the series came when Dr Richard Kimble, who was on the run because he had been wrongly charged with the murder of his wife, finally meets and confronts the one armed man who is the murderer -we had been all waiting for over the years – in fact it did seem in mid series that the many adventures he had, made this main storyline seem secondary.

That last episode in the USA was watched by a record mind boggling 78 million viewers.

David Janssen was Dr Richard Kimble.

A little later, David Janssen again hit gold with another great series on Television ‘Harry O’ – a detective role that really caught on

“Harry O” is considered by most TV critics as a small masterpiece of the television form and David Janssen an example of the special charisma that very few actors have before the television camera.

It was television that saved David Janssen from a career of B-movie obscurity. First, the actor and producer Dick Powell chose him to portray “Richard Diamond,” one of the first of hard-boiled TV detectives.

In the 1957-60 series, Janssen’s secretary, “Sam,” appeared only as a pair of legs and a voice. It was Mary Tyler Moore’s first TV series role.

Then came “The Fugitive,” in which he played a Midwestern doctor, Richard Kimble, wrongly accused of murdering his wife constantly on the run from the police and trying to find the real killer, a one-armed man.

After “The Fugitive” ran its course, there was what seemed an unending procession of made-for-TV movies and mini-series.

Some were good, some not-so-good, but David Janssen was always in demand, always working.

He started acting at the age of 9 in a Buster Crabbe and Johnny Weissmuller film “Swamp Fire.”

He was born David Meyer on March 27, 1931, in the small town of Naponee, Neb., the son a local banker and a Ziegfeld Follies girl.

After his parents were divorced, David Janssen’s mother brought him to Los Angeles. He graduated from Fairfax High School, attended UCLA for a semester, then dropped out to go into summer stock.

After an unsuccessful attempt to land Broadway roles, David Janssen returned to Hollywood, where he signed to a contract by 20th Century-Fox and took his stepfather’s last name.

The studio bleached his hair blond, unsuccessfully tried to talk him into ear surgery to lessen his resemblance to Clark Gable, then dropped him entirely.

Universal signed David Janssen and his streak of B-pictures began. He did 32 movies for Universal, few of them memorable.

“I played an ‘agreer,’ “ David Janssen later said of this phase of his career. “The star would say, ‘Don’t you think so.’ I’d agree with him and disappear from the picture.”

Last came “The Fugitive,”—one of the highest rated TV series of its time—stardom, and a never-ending stream of scripts and film offers.

There were more than 100 movies in all, many of them made for TV. At the time of his death, David Janssen had just finished a major film, “Inchon” with Sir Laurence Olivier and had begun work on a TV movie, “Father Damien.”

He died very suddenly in February 1980 at the age of 48. He had no previous history of heart problems but he died of a massive heart attack.