Norman S. Powell, whose six-decade career included stints as a producer for 24 and an executive at CBS, has died at age 86.
Powell died Wednesday of acute respiratory failure, according to his publicist.
The longtime television fixture, whose career goes back to the 1950s, was the son of legendary Hollywood stars Joan Blondell and Dick Powell.
TV icon: Norman S. Powell, who produced the second season of 24 and worked 13 years as a CBS executive, died Wednesday at 86; seen in 2016 in Beverly Hills
Powell was twice nominated for Emmy awards, first for the 1977 ABC miniseries Washington Behind Closed Doors, and then decades later for producing the second season of the controversial terrorism thriller 24 from 2002–2003.
He was also responsible for greenlighting the pilot that led to the popular police procedural Cagney & Lacey, the first series to feature female detective partners as its leads.
In the midst of Powell's career, he worked as an executive at CBS for 13 years, where he became a senior vice president for the network's Entertainment Productions division and supervised numerous TV movies and shows, including the feature-length Cagney & Lacey pilot.
Powell was born in 1934 to Blondell and her first husband, cinematographer George Barnes.
Blondell was best known for appearing in Busby Berkeley musicals and bawdy films made prior to the introduction of the Production Code censorship guidelines, though she had major roles late in life in John Cassavetes' Open Night (1977) and Grease (1978).
Acclaimed: Powell was twice nominated for Emmy awards, first for the 1977 ABC miniseries Washington Behind Closed Doors, and then decades later for producing the second season of the controversial terrorism thriller 24 from 2002–2003; still from 24
TV legacy: He greenlit the Cagney & Lacey pilot while serving for more than a decade as an executive for CBS
She later married Murder My Sweet and Pitfall star Dick Powell, who costarred with her in several musicals. He went
