Edwin Albert Flesh Jr. Bio/Wiki, Net Worth, Married 2018
Edwin Albert Flesh Jr (December 4, 1931 – July 15, 2011), known as Ed Flesh, was an American art director and designer who worked on a variety of television programs from the 1950s through the 1990s. He is best known for designing the Wheel used in the game show, Wheel of Fortune. In 1993, Flesh was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for his work on Supermarket Sweep. His other credits as a television art director include Pyramid, Days of Our Lives, Press Your Luck, Celebrity Sweepstakes, Second Chance, The New Newlywed Game, To Say the Least, Name That Tune and Jeopardy!.Flesh was a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he was born on December 4, 1931. He received his bachelor's degree from Franklin & Marshall College, located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Flesh then enrolled at Yale Drama School, where he studied graduate level scenic design for three years.Flesh relocated to New York City after completing his studies at Yale. He worked as a scene designer for off-Broadway productions before being hired as the "supervisor of scenic design" for NBC. He transferred from New York to NBC Studios in Burbank, California, where he worked as the head art director for games shows, as well as the soap opera, Days of our Lives.Flesh is credited with conceiving and designing the wheel for NBC's Wheel of Fortune. Flesh designed the wheel to spin "horizontally instead of vertically", a design unlike most previous game show wheels.Flesh later designed the sets for The Montel Williams Show and The David Letterman Show, a short-lived daytime show on NBC which aired in 1980. He also designed the sets for three special editions of The Oprah Winfrey Show, in which Oprah Winfrey interviewed John Travolta, Barbra Streisand and Madonna.Ed Flesh died on July 15, 2011, at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, California, at the age of 79. He was survived by his partner of forty-four years, David Powers.
Ed Flesh's Scenic Design career began in New York with NBC Rockafeller Center TV Studios. In 1968, Ed was hired by Milt Altman at the West Coast NBC-Burbank Studios to Art Direct the daily day-time series "The Days Of Our Lives", alias "DOOL". During his tenure on the show, Ed accepted, or was assigned additional Tele-Sales projects the art department accepted. In 1974, Ed departed "DOOL" accepting design-art direction duties on preliminary game show pilots. Among those pilots was the "Wheel of Fortune" game show pilot with Merv Griffin (Executive Producer) and Nancy Jones (Producer). The three staff Art Directors at NBC-Burbank, during 1969-1976, were John Shrum, Ed Flesh, and Hub Braden. Not on staff, but with the NBC Art Department, were Mary (Dodson) Weaver, Richard "Dick" Stiles, Spencer Davies, Jay Krause, Bob Keene, Jan Scott, Herman Zimmerman, Richard James, Molly Joseph, Frank Swig, Bill Morris, Edward Stephenson, Romaine Johnston, Ken Johnson, Mary Ann Biddle, and Rene Lagler, Charles Lisanby, and Roy Christopher (running the Brunning print machine). Ed Flesh, after quitting his staff position in 1977, retained his design office in the NBC Art department, primarily accepting game show pilot projects. On some of these sold game show pilots, he performed as the show's art director. Ed became known as the "Game Show Wizard" having more successful "sold" game show pilots as a production designer than any other West Coast designer.
Production Designer
Title
Year
Status
Character
Supermarket Sweep
1990
TV Series
Lingo
1987
TV Series 1987-1988
Days of Our Lives
1968-1973
TV Series 1,023 episodes
Art Director
Title
Year
Status
Character
Days of Our Lives
1973-2005
TV Series 112 episodes
Jeopardy!
1991-1995
TV Series 2 episodes
Caesar's Challenge
1993
TV Series
The $25,000 Pyramid
1986-1991
TV Series 3 episodes
Scrabble
1984-1990
TV Series 4 episodes
Triple Threat
1988
TV Series 1988-1989
The $10,000 Pyramid
1982-1988
TV Series 10 episodes
The All-New Dating Game
1986
TV Series 1 episode
For Love or Money
1984
TV Movie
The New Newlywed Game
1984
TV Series 1985-1986
Go
1984
TV Series 1 episode
Press Your Luck
1983
TV Series
The Pop 'N' Rocker Game
1983
TV Series 1 episode
The Midnight Special
1981
TV Series 1 episode
Chain Reaction
1980
TV Series
Happy Birthday, Las Vegas
1977
TV Special
Second Chance
1977
TV Series
Stumpers!
1976
TV Series 1 episode
Christmas in Disneyland
1976
TV Movie
Set Decorator
Title
Year
Status
Character
The All-New Dating Game
1986
TV Series
Celebrity Double Talk
1986
TV Series
Time Machine
1985
TV Series
Your Number's Up
1985
TV Series
Scrabble
1984
TV Series
Go
1983
TV Series
You Bet Your Life
1980
TV Series
The Guinness Game
1979
TV Series
All Star Secrets
1979
TV Series
The Better Sex
1977
TV Series
Name That Tune
1977
TV Series
Stumpers!
1976
TV Series
50 Grand Slam
1976
TV Series
Blank Check
1975
TV Series
Three for the Money
1975
TV Series
Name That Tune
1974/I
TV Series
Celebrity Sweepstakes
1974
TV Series
Sale of the Century
1969
TV Series
Art Department
Title
Year
Status
Character
Sale of the Century
1969
TV Series set designer
Nominated Awards
Year
Award
Ceremony
Nomination
Movie
1993
Daytime Emmy
Daytime Emmy Awards
Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction/Set Decoration/Scenic Design