Bruce Paltrow, TV producer and Gwyneth's dad, dies

Bruce Paltrow, who made his name as the producer behind NBC’s ”St. Elsewhere” in the 1980s but was better known in recent years as Gwyneth’s dad, died early Wednesday in Rome of pneumonia, U.S. diplomatic officials tell the Associated Press. He was 58 and had been suffering from throat cancer.

Before he was known as Gwyneth’s father, he was known as Blythe Danner’s husband. He and the actress, who currently costars in another hospital drama, CBS’ ”Presidio Med,” married in 1970. (The couple also had a son, Jake, 27.)

Paltrow’s first major TV series work came as a writer for the 1970s drama ”The White Shadow” (starring Ken Howard). In 1982, he created ”St. Elsewhere,” the much-loved medical drama that ran on NBC for six years. In the 1990s, he worked on NBC’s ”Homicide” with his ”St. Elsewhere” partner Tom Fontana.

Paltrow had been traveling in Italy with Gwyneth to celebrate her 30th birthday. Dad and daughter were close. In 1997, she told Entertainment Weekly, ”I always used to beg him to let me be on ‘St. Elsewhere,’ but he never would.”

They finally got to work together on 2000’s ”Duets,” the karaoke-themed feature film directed by Bruce and starring Gwyneth. Critics and audiences received the movie indifferently, but people are more likely to remember Paltrow for sharing his daughter’s famously emotional night at the Oscars in 1999, when she won Best Actress for ”Shakespeare in Love” and told the world her parents ”mean everything to me.”