Douglas Netter

Douglas Netter is a television producer as well as the former executive vice president and C.O.O. of MGM Studios, a post he held from 1970 to '75. Born in 1921 in Seattle, Netter began his career in 1967 as an associate producer for the Dean Martin sci-fi comedy "The Ambush." He reunited with Martin again in 1975, this time with full producer status, for the crime thriller "Mr. Ricco." In 1978, Netter made his final foray into film--before moving over exclusively to TV--when he co-produced the war drama "The Wild Geese," which starred British acting heavyweights Richard Burton and Roger Moore. At the end of the 1970s and beginning of the '80s, Netter executive-produced a string of Westerns, among them "Buffalo Soldiers," "Wild Times," and "The Cherokee Trail." In 1993, he earned an Emmy nomination as a producer for the historical documentary "The Wild West," and in 1994 he became a major force behind a series that would define his later career, the sci-fi action-drama, "Babylon 5." Netter executive-produced all 110 episodes of the show over five seasons, until 1998, and the series was subsequently spun off into multiple TV movies-which Netter also executive-produced-including "Babylon 5: In the Beginning" in 1998, "Babylon 5: A Call to Arms" in 1999, and "Babylon 5: The Lost Tales" in 2007.