TELEVISION : Under His Spell : The magic is back for producer Aaron Spelling, whose ‘Beverly Hills, 90210’ has brought him another ratings winner

Aaron Spelling will not give interviews at his much-publicized Beverly Hills mansion. “ Noooo . . . definitely not. We just don’t do that sort of thing at our home,” says the producer who has made more hours of television than anyone else. “I wish people would find something else to talk about.”

Regarded by many as the king of schlock, Spelling may love publicity, even court it, as with the time he and his wife, Candy, appeared in Variety to scotch rumors that she was having an affair. These days, however, he would prefer that people talk about his contribution to entertainment history--”not the damn house,” his fabulous wealth or his age.

With Fox’s “Beverly Hills, 90210,” Spelling, whose company has produced such shows as “Dynasty,” “Charlie’s Angels” and much more titillation and glitz, again has a major hit after years in the doldrums. Premiering Friday on CBS is “Hearts Are Wild,” a one-hour series that Spelling hopes will cement his return as a major TV power. In addition, he is the executive producer of the political drama miniseries “Grass Roots,” starring Corbin Bernsen, Mel Harris and Raymond Burr, which will run on NBC on March 1-2.

“A lot of people perhaps wrote me off, but I was just dormant,” he declares, “. . . not dead.” During that time, Spelling, such a network staple during most of the ‘70s and ‘80s, was virtually out of the picture by the end of the ‘80s: “Dynasty,” “The Love Boat” and “Hotel” were canceled as viewers began preferring sitcoms in TV’s “Cosby Show” era, and he had little luck with new series such as “HeartBeat” (1988), about a group of women doctors, and “Nightingales” (1989), a drama about a group of attractive young nurses.

Spelling’s long hold on ABC--which he once so dominated with hits that it was called Aaron’s Broadcasting Co.--disappeared as the network took a creative turn that culminated when it signed Steven Bochco (“Hill Street Blues,” “L.A. Law”) to a long-term deal as its primary producer. ABC also went upscale and experimental with its hour series with such shows as “Moonlighting,” “China Beach,” “thirtysomething,” “Twin Peaks” and “Cop Rock.”

But suddenly everyone is talking again about the Spelling magic, and his production company has at least two more shows in the pipeline. It’s no wonder that he thinks the pendulum is swinging back in his favor.

“There is a definite need for more variety on TV today,” he says. “I don’t think the networks are giving the people what they want. They need escapism. That’s what ‘Love Boat,’ ‘Fantasy Island’ and ‘Dynasty’ gave--escape from the harshness of day-to-day life. At least one of my upcoming projects will offer this outlet.”

Certainly no one will mistake “Hearts Are Wild” for cinema verite . Previously called “Jack of Hearts,” the Spelling Entertainment-Lorimar Television production is set at Caesars Palace and “looks behind the hopes of all those who pass through its turnstiles,” according to Lorimar. The pilot and two episodes of the drama, created by Eric Roth, are in the can. Filming on the fourth of seven planned hours was scheduled to resume today at Caesars and other Las Vegas locations.

Kay Gardella, TV critic for the New York Daily News, expects that the new show will prove little more than “Hotel” with sand--or, perhaps, “Vega$” with a hotel.

“I suspect it will be very much like his old formula of glitz, glamour and romance, with very little depth.” Historically, Spelling programs “made no social statement,” she said. “Rather, they did what Madison Avenue and advertisers do: make things look good.”

Spelling’s TV output is measurable in miles of film; he’s in the Guinness Book of World Records, credited with producing almost 2,500 hours of TV shows and feature films. Douglas Cramer teamed with him on “Dynasty,” “Dynasty II: The Colbys,” “Hotel,” “The Love Boat,” “Matt Houston,” “Vega$” and many other, shorter-lived series. Esther and Richard Shapiro were the creators and co-executive producers of the “Dynasty” series. Darren Star is the creator of “90210.”

But Spelling takes credit for all those thousands of hours of footage--much to some of his partners’ chagrin.

None of these familiar Hollywood names want to go on the record saying anything negative about the man who helped make each of them very rich. But accept anonymity, and the muttering grows loud.

The Shapiros sued Spelling over the ownership of “Dynasty” before settling out of court. Others complain that Spelling is “lapping up” all the praise for the success of his shows, forgetting those who helped put them together.

“He was simply the salesman,” said a particularly embittered ex-partner. “In the beginning, there may have been some creative input, but mostly he was just good at getting the networks to sit up and listen.”

Leonard Goldberg--who was Spelling’s co-producer on such hits as “The Rookies,” “Starsky and Hutch” and “Hart to Hart”--describes Spelling as a man with “a very good instinct for popular TV, as well as a very good promoter.”

Whatever former co-workers may say about Spelling, the sheer volume of his productions--Guinness says you would have to watch 24 hours a day for almost 104 days to see every last episode of the Spelling oeuvre --testifies to a talent for dreaming up programming ideas.

“This is a man who has the ability to know what it is people want to see and is fantastically prolific,” enthused Ron Lightstone, executive vice president of Spelling Entertainment, control of which Spelling sold in April to Charter Co., a unit of Cincinnati investor Carl H. Lindner’s financial empire. “I sat at a meeting with him once as he came up with 20 story lines in five minutes,” Lightstone said.

Spelling also has proven to be an able businessman in a town where such skills often seem in short supply. He took his company public in 1986. And though its performance has been uneven, Spelling Entertainment has lately thrived in Lindner’s stable, which includes petroleum, defense and insurance companies, along with Chiquita Brands fruits.

While Spelling does not relish being classified as a man who fed the populace mindless drivel, he makes no apologies for his output.

“I’ve been chastised for entertaining the audience,” he says. “I’d rather be accused of pleasing the audience than the critics. I’m proud of what I’ve done. People need to have a valve release. I really do think so. And as times get tougher--and obviously we are not out of this recession, we maybe are entering a bigger one--I think it’s needed even more than ever.”

Still, recent years have seen him trying to shed his candy-floss image by producing “message shows” like the award-winning “Day One,” which looked at the building of the first atomic bomb. The CBS show won critical acclaim when it aired in 1989 and scored in the Top 30 of the weekly ratings.

Spelling is a small, wiry man with hair that turned silver in his early 20s. He likes to present himself as a simple Texas lad who still is not used to the enormous wealth and power he now wields. He tells of his poverty-stricken childhood like it was the plot for an hourlong soap opera.

“We were seven people crammed in a small $12,000 house with one bathroom. It was a very bigoted, dirty-collar neighborhood, and we were the only Jewish family. I got my butt kicked every day going to and from school, so my mother had to accompany me . . . which made me look even more like a nerd.”

This continued harassment apparently led to a nervous breakdown at age 9, when--as Spelling tells it--he spent more than a year in bed. His salvation was a Catholic teacher who allowed him to write daily book reports, which kept his creative juices flowing.

Some cynics have suggested that this tear-jerking tale is little more than fiction--like the fluctuation in his age at every interview. Describing himself as “in my 60s” in this conversation, Spelling himself admits: “I’ve lied so many times, I can’t remember which is true.”

One longtime colleague recalls the occasion when Spelling told another producer that he studied at the Sorbonne in Paris during World War II, only to be informed that the Germans had occupied France during that time and it was unlikely that he could have been there.

“He is a very complicated man,” said another. “He is constantly reinventing his past and that of his wife, Candy. Then they go and build a huge carbuncle and complain when it becomes the joke of the town. What else did they expect?”

The 123-room mansion took about five years to complete, much to the annoyance of such neighbors as Audrey and Sidney Irmas, who obtained an injunction to control the truck traffic that the Spellings’ construction project brought to the neighborhood.

Some people may see a connection in the size of what some consider a huge eyesore--built on the site of Bing Crosby’s former house--with Spelling’s acknowledged insecurity. Did the poor Russian-immigrant tailor’s son opt for a Hearst-size monument to show that he has made it to the top of the heap?

“I have nothing to prove,” he replies. “We needed more space, because I suffer from claustrophobia. It’s not that there are so many rooms, but that they are bigger and the ceilings much higher.” Spelling also says this phobia prevents him from taking elevators above five floors.

So it is just as well that his sumptuous Beverly Hills offices are on the fifth floor of a Wilshire Boulevard complex. It is here, in a cream-colored office the size of an Olympic swimming pool, that he holds court and gives all his interviews.

“You must forgive my casual dress,” he apologizes in a gravely, slightly Southern drawl, as a visitor enters. “But I’ve been at the studio working.” It was 10:30 a.m., and he had been on the “90210” set.

The program’s success is especially satisfying to Spelling because Fox approached him with the concept at a time when he was pretty much an untouchable in the fickle world of Hollywood.

“They called and asked if I would like to do a high school show,” he explained. “Why me? I don’t know. But when I said I didn’t know anything about how teenagers think, they pointed out that I have two of my own.”

Initially it seemed that the Spelling factor--a feeling in the industry that he had lost the magic touch--would sink the show. The first six episodes did badly in the ratings, and the critics were preparing to hack at the carcass.

But then the show took off. When it showed original episodes last summer, “90210’s” ratings jumped significantly as teen-age girls in particular began to avidly follow the lives of a Midwestern family who find their values are turned upside down when they move to Beverly Hills.

Although Spelling’s creative contributions to “90210” are limited, he says it is his favorite of all his shows, because of its attempts to deal with such real-life issues as teen pregnancy, date rape, alcoholism and other previously taboo blights affecting the young. Spelling’s “Mod Squad,” which he created in the late ‘60s, is another instance in which he attempted--successfully--a show directed at young people dealing with social issues of their times.

“The great thing is that they let us do what we want. So using entertainment and a little glamour, we can get messages across which people can identify with,” Spelling says. His teen-age daughter Tori is one of the stars.

Not only is he the most prolific producer in the history of TV, but Spelling is also something of a Hollywood misfit. In a community where selling oneself has always been so important, Spelling is rarely seen at parties or functions. He doesn’t fly, and he has few friends over to the new house--although his children’s friends visit regularly.

He loves television, though he complains that there are too many reality programs intruding into people’s living rooms. “I think life is reality enough. People want to be entertained,” he insists. “They want fantasy, love stories and happy endings.”

Spelling also has some harsh words about the current plethora of family-oriented comedy on TV, which he believes could backfire on the networks.

“We are in danger of laughing ourselves out of an audience,” he says. “People are bored. They want a balance of shows from escapism, and I intend to give it to them.”

His heart may be into fantasy, but Spelling is still searching for recognition as a producer of serious programs. To that end one of his pending projects is a three-hour HBO movie version of “And the Band Played On,” based on Randy Shilts’ book about AIDS.

The project has been on and off for several years--first at NBC, now at the cable movie channel, languishing most recently amid a debate about how true the script should be to Shilts’ journalism. There are no signs that production will begin in the near future.

But Spelling talks passionately about close friends who have fallen to the disease and of his high hopes for this message show.

“It will show that for the price of one Stealth bomber, we could have stopped AIDS,” he says.

Then, showing a naivete that belies his reputation as a shrewd businessman, Spelling adds: “I hope the government will see it and say, “Whoa! . . . Look at this movie! Maybe I’d better get on the side of AIDS.” The entire production team is being asked to contribute its salaries to AIDS charities.

Spelling, understand, sees himself as a crusader of sorts in an industry of staid, old white men. It is with pride that he notes he was the first to make a program with three leading ladies: “Charlie’s Angels.”

“The old-boys network kept saying, ‘You gotta have a guy.’ I wanted to do it my way, because it was a fun show to do and there were no women on TV at the time.

“It was called schlock when it debuted with a 57 share--something the networks would kill for today. Yet critics used to say to me that they did not believe these three beautiful ladies were really detectives. . . . I said: If you really believed that, then you are really weird. It’s just entertainment, that’s all.”