Alan Sacks, Co-Creator of ‘Welcome Back Kotter’ and TV Producer, Dies at 81
variety.comPat Saperstein Deputy Editor Film and TV writer-producer Alan Sacks, who had an eclectic career that included co-creating the popular 1970s series “Welcome Back, Kotter” and working on projects set in the 1980s L.A.
punk scene, died of complications from lymphoma on Tuesday. He was 81. Sacks was born in Brooklyn and started his career in the research department of ABC Television.
After moving to Los Angeles, he continued working at ABC as a program executive. Along with Gabe Kaplan and Peter Meyerson, he helped develop and co-create “Welcome Back, Kotter,” basing the sitcom on his high school friends in Brooklyn and on Kaplan’s stand-up routine.
He also worked on “Chico and the Man,” created by “Welcome Back, Kotter” executive producer James Komack. In 1991, Sacks created and produced a Saturday morning children’s show, “Riders in the Sky,” for CBS, which replaced the “Pee-Wee Herman Show.” During the 1970s and ’80s, he produced made-for-TV movies including “Women at West Point,” “Rosie: The Rosemary Clooney Story” and “A Cry for Love.” In 1984, after working on a project about L.A.
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