US television production company, active from 1968 into the early 1990s.
The compnay was started by Lee Rich and friends, and for a while was headquartered on the Warner lot. Their first major hit was The Waltons, which premiered on CBS in 1972. Other Lorimar shows that hit in the 1970s were Eight is Enough, Dallas and Knots Landing. (I've softlinked some of their other hit shows from the 1980s and 1990s.)
Lorimar was a powerful force well into the 1980s, also making some side forays into feature film production and distribution (they co-produced The Last Starfighter and An Officer and a Gentleman, among others, and also distrbuted Allied Artists' back catalogue). In 1986, they merged with television distribution concern Telepictures; in 1988, they were purchased by Warner Communications (soon to be Time Warner), and by 1993, they had been absorbed completely into Warner Bros. Time Trax, which premiered earlier that year, was the last new series to air with the Lorimar name attached.