spawnv/spawnl do not return an "R" process state code

[nushin]

Greetings,

I am running RedHat 7.3 and trying to spawn a hello.py program from
hello_driver.py by using spawn*( ) API, as a P_NOWAIT :

os.spawnv(os.P_NOWAIT,'/usr/bin/python',('python hello.py >/dev/null
&'))

and when i check the process state code of hello.py by:
ps -aux

i see that it's in Z (Zombie) state.

If i use spawnl( ), instead of spawnv, i get hello.py running in "S"
(sleep) state. i.e.,
os.spawnv(os.P_NOWAIT,'/usr/bin/python',('python hello.py >/dev/null
&'))

How can i use spawn*( ) so that hello.py runs in normal process state
code of "R"?

I am using Python 2.2.2., and hello.py prints "hello world" a million
times.

Regards,
Nushin