Like millions of others, Selleck moved to the LA area from the Midwest shortly after World War II. And, as Bing Crosby crooned in a popular song at the time, he made the San Fernando Valley his home.

Selleck hammered out a living in the Post War years by selling and leasing commercial real estate. "I don't think people realize that he came out here... with nothing but the family car and the GI bill," says one of his sons, actor Tom Selleck. "He bought an 1,100-sf house for $11,000 and he risked everything on a straight commission job."

It was a gamble that paid off. The elder Selleck slowly rose through the ranks at the old Coldwell Banker Commercial Group to become a senior vice president and director of corporate communications. He left the company in 1987 to form a Westlake Village-based development firm known as Selleck Co.

The company went on to build commercial projects across the Valley and in other parts of Southern California. One of his last projects was also perhaps his greatest: He helped to transform a shuttered, 68-acre General Motors manufacturing facility in Van Nuys into a $100-million mixed-use project known simply as the Plant.

The Plant has helped to reinvigorate once-deteriorating Van Nuys and has replenished thousands of jobs that were lost when GM closed its old facility. "The project couldn't have been done without him," remembers State Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Van Nuys), who represented the area on the LA City Council when Selleck began the ambitious redevelopment project in the mid-1990s.

Selleck was also one of the Valley's biggest civic boosters and voluteered for several government commissions and nonprofit agencies. He played a key role in bringing the Olympic Games to LA in 1984 and was honored with the Fernando Award, the Valley's highest honor for community service and civic leadership.

Selleck is survived by his wife, Martha; sons (and development partners) Tom, Dan and Robert II; daughter, Martha Selleck Ketchum; 14 grandchildren and three great-granchildren.