A Blue Day at Blue Mesa Grill

David Shaw, at left, was recently featured in the HBO documentary Funny Old Guys.

There are plenty of famous faces populating this morning's obituaries: filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, talk-show host Tom Snyder, infamous Houston TV newsman Marvin Zindler. No less notable is David Shaw, who wrote more teleplays for such legendary 1950s and '60 TV series as Playhouse 90 and the Philco TV Playhouse than anyone else in the show business. Shaw, who died Friday in Beverly Hills at the age of 90 and was interviewed extensively for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences archives, also wrote screenplays and had his plays performed on Broadway.

And, yes, Shaw does have a significant Dallas connection: One of Shaw's two daughters is Liz Baron, who started the five-locations-chain Blue Mesa Grill with her husband Jim nearly 20 years ago. --Robert Wilonsky