All Charlie's Angels film rights remain solely with Columbia Pictures. California courts decided this today putting a close to Robert Wagner's lawsuit against Columbia Pictures. Robert Wagner and his late wife Natalie Wood -- whom I still adore with all sincerity -- collaborated with the now late Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg to create the hit television series Charlie's Angels. I learn something new everyday. I had no idea that tragically destined Wood and her husband Wagner had any part in Charlie's Angels' conception, let alone development.

Robert Wagner was fighting for compensation from Columbia Studios for all revenues the film accumulated. During the Angels' television days, Wood and Wagner received 50% of all profits that Spelling-Goldberg Productions made. Now here's the tricky part: Spelling-Goldberg Productions sold all of their rights to Charlie Angel's to Sony Pictures Television years back. Whether Wagner was a part of this decision I'm not sure, and whether Wagner received any of the money that Spelling-Goldberg Productions sold it for is another gray area. Either way, due to the court's decision it leads one to believe that at the point of sale, Wagner was freed of any rights or obligations to Charlie's Angels. If that's the case, then it makes sense that Wagner would not receive any money from the success of the films, leaving him no reason to go after Columbia Pictures in the first place.

Here lies the conundrum. Why do people sell the rights to their work in the first place?! There must be something that I don't get. The biggest example of unreasonable sales is The Beatles selling the rights to their music to Michael Jackson. Yes, Charlie's Angels isn't The Beatles but if it's your work, your baby, then no amount of money should replace your artistic marriage to your creation. Therefore, don't sell your work unless you are certain you want nothing to do with it if someone resurrects it into another profitable success.

After suffering a stroke last week, legendary TV producer Aaron Spelling died last night; he was 83. Known primarily for his remarkably successful -- with audiences, if not critics -- escapist television shows, Spelling also produced a handful of movies over the course of his long career in Hollywood, including Soapdish and both Charlie's Angels films.

Spelling served in the Army during World War II, and after returning home eventually headed to Hollywood where he worked briefly as an actor, playing bit parts on TV and in films like Three Young Texans and Wyoming Renegades. Shortly thereafter he began writing for television. Hired by friend and mentor Dick Powell to write for Zane Grey Theater, Spelling eventually became a producer on the show and, in 1959, branched off on his own for the first time with the short-lived Johnny Ringo.

Spelling's greatest success came in the 1970s and 80s, when he produced series such as The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Starsky and Hutch, T.J. Hooker, Hart to Hart, Dynasty, and Charlie's Angels. That list amounts to about 5% of his total output, which runs to over 200 television shows and movies (including the much-loved The Boy in the Bubble); at one time, Spelling was personally responsible for fully 1/3 of ABC's prime time programming.