Nero Wolfe is a 1979 American made-for-television film adaptation of the 1965 Nero Wolfe novel The Doorbell Rang by Rex Stout. Thayer David stars as Nero Wolfe, gourmet, connoisseur and detective genius. Tom Mason costars as Archie Goodwin, Wolfe's assistant. Written and directed by Frank D. Gilroy, the made-for-TV movie was produced by Paramount Television as a pilot for an ABC television series, but the movie was shelved by the network for more than two years before finally being broadcast December 19, 1979.
Nero Wolfe (film)
Thayer David (Nero Wolfe) and Tom Mason (Archie Goodwin) in the 1977 TV movie Nero Wolfe
Cover of the Visual Entertainment, Inc., DVD release of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe: The Complete Series (2017)
Nero Wolfe is a brilliant, obese and eccentric fictional armchair detective created in 1934 by American mystery writer Rex Stout. Wolfe was born in Montenegro and keeps his past murky. He lives in a luxurious brownstone on West 35th Street in New York City, and he is loath to leave his home for business or anything that would keep him from reading his books, tending his orchids, or eating the gourmet meals prepared by his chef, Fritz Brenner. Archie Goodwin, Wolfe's sharp-witted, dapper young confidential assistant with an eye for attractive women, narrates the cases and does the legwork for the detective genius.
Carl Mueller illustrated "The Red Bull" (1938) for The American Magazine
Nero Wolfe and his boyhood friend Marko Vukcic hunted dragonflies in the mountains where Wolfe was born, in the vicinity of Lovćen
Manhattan brownstone used for exteriors in A&E TV's Nero Wolfe
Cartoon by Stan Hunt for The American Magazine (June 1949)