David Soul, the actor who brought the cool detective Ken Hutchinson to life in the popular 1970s TV series “Starsky & Hutch,” has died. Soul was 80. The cause of death was not announced by his family.

 From 1975 to 1979, detectives Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson (Soul) and Dave Starsky (Glaser) patrolled the fictional streets of Bay City, Calif., in their bright red-and-white Ford Gran Torino and channeled their street savvy to investigate a variety of crimes.

“Starksy & Hutch” returned to Soul’s life in 2004 with director Todd Phillips’ comedy film of the same name. The movie starred Ben Stiller as Starsky and Owen Wilson as Hutch. Soul, Glaser and the iconic Gran Torino made brief cameos in the film.

Before he found fame as an actor, Soul started his professional career as backup singer and, warming up audiences for stars like Frank Zappa and the Byrds. After the success of “Starsky and Hut”, he returned to music putting out four albums of soft rock in the late 70’s and his song “Don’t Give Up On Us” went to number one in 1977. I remember my Aunt Pauline talking about why she used that as her first dance wedding song and the fact that Daivd Soul sang it was the icing on top of her wedding cake! WOW that’s a great career when you can touch a fan’s life like that and that’s what David Soul did for fans.

Check out these great highlights from “Starsky and Hutch” here: Courtesy: Bing Videos