"CRUTCH": THE CONCEPT

Log Line: CRUTCH is a series based on the actual cases of Don Crutchfield from the 60s to the present. These cases involve celebrities plus a healthy dose of numerous shady and colorful characters.



CRUTCH will be 22nd Century modern yet be able to segue seamlessly back into the colorful 1960s. The PI to the Stars, as Don Crutchfield is known, has cases involving his clients such as Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lewis, Carroll O'Conner and Charles Bronson to name a few of big name celebrities he handled. In recent years Crutchfield has become involved in investigations concerning O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson and other recognizable names. Crutchfield is continually being asked by the media to comment on various cases from Princess Di's death to the latest scandal or crime reported daily in the LA Times. He has appeared numerous times on national TV with well known media figures including Diane Sawyer and Bill O'Riley.

CRUTCH is somewhat unique in that the series will flow from today to the 60s and back, depending on story lines. In the 60s Crutch operates from his home base, which in Steve Crane's Luau. Crane was a famous restaurateur who was twice wed to Lana Turner. Their daughter Cheryl Crane was arrested for the stabbing death of Johnny Stompanato who was her mother's gangster lover. Across the street from Crutch's office at 430 N. Rodeo in Beverly Hills, the Luau was the watering hole of the majority of Hollywood's elite, professional athletes, journalists and a number of LA organized crime figures.

The retro 60s segments will be populated by very colorful characters. The Wheelmen are such characters, a ragged, seldom sober, band headquartered at a gas station and repair shop on Fairfax Avenue. They are surveillance drivers extraordinaire. PIs of the day hired them to tail subjects. In their meticulously mechanically maintained muscle cars, they were a colorful but dying breed. They became extinct when no-fault-divorce became California law.

The tough noir PI Crutch adapts with the changes in the business and the new challenges. Crutch's operation today is very sophisticated for a non-public, sole owner company. His Beverly Hills office covers a good 2,000 square feet. This includes a small state-of-the-art forensic laboratory. He also has the equipment and technical ability for computer analysis and counter-electronic surveillance.

KELLY RILEY, Crutch's right hand, was a CSI supervisor for the Boston Police Department. Her ex-husband is a prominent Massachusetts's judge. The divorce was bitter and the husband has been able to blackball her from being hired by government agencies.

She came to LA to get as far away as possible from Boston and eventually was hired by Crutch. She is extremely skilled thus Crutch had his tiny lab upgraded and now he has a forensic capability that is the envy of the private investigation industry in Los Angeles.

CRUTCH covers the guts of Hollywood and LA. There is Violence and danger but there is also an abundance of humor. Like most cops, Crutch has a macabre and biting sense of humor. The series will vividly recreate the music, fashion and feel of the 60s as well as 2008. It will be a series that is the best of two worlds and will have popular appeal.


"CRUTCH" - SERIES STORY CAPSULES


The Paparazzi Caper

Crutch assists his old friend Ron Galella, perhaps the most famous of the paparazzi, who is being threatened because of a photograph he took of a young married society woman having an affair in the 60s with Mickey Cohen, the gangster. A baby is born out of the union, but the society woman's husband thinks the girl is his. The woman's daughter today is now the senator from Nevada and is running for her party's presidential nomination. A death bed confession reveals that Cohen is her father. If this breaks in the tabloids, much less the main stream media, her campaign could be derailed. Crutch finds himself embroiled in a high power case involving wire taps, blackmail, violence and death threats.

Script available