Tom Selleck

Tom Selleck
Selleck in 2010
Born	Thomas William Selleck January 29, 1945 (1945-01-29) (age 67) Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A.
Occupation	actor, film producer
Years active	1969–present
Spouse	Jacqueline Ray (1972–1980) Jillie Mack (1987–present)

Thomas William "Tom" Selleck (born January 29, 1945) is an American actor, and film producer. He is best known for his starring role as the private investigator Thomas Magnum, based in Hawaii, in the television series Magnum, P.I. (1980s). He also plays Police Chief Jesse Stone in a series of made-for-TV movies based on the Robert B. Parker novels. Since 2010 he has appeared as the NYPD Police Commissioner Frank Reagan in the drama Blue Bloods on CBS-TV.

Selleck has acted a good deal in TV roles such as Dr. Richard Burke on Friends and A.J. Cooper on Las Vegas. In addition to his series work, Selleck has appeared in more than fifty made for TV and general-release movies, including Mr. Baseball, Quigley Down Under, Lassiter and his most successful movie release Three Men and a Baby, which was the highest grossing movie in 1987.

Early life

Selleck was born in Detroit, Michigan, where he was the son of Martha S. (née Jagger),^[1] a homemaker; and Robert D. Selleck, an executive and real estate investor.^[2][3] The family moved to Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, California, when Selleck was growing up. His siblings include brothers Robert (born 1944) and Daniel (born 1950), and sister Martha. Selleck graduated from Grant High School in 1962.^[4]

Along with modeling, Selleck attended the University of Southern California on a basketball scholarship where he played for the USC Trojans men's basketball team.^[5] He is a member of Sigma Chi fraternity^[6] and a member of the Trojan Knights. While he majored in business administration, a drama coach suggested Selleck try acting. He then studied acting at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, under Milton Katselas.

Selleck served as a soldier in the 160th Infantry Regiment of the California Army National Guard^[7] and his unit was activated for the Watts Riots in Los Angeles.

Career

Early work and Magnum P.I.

Selleck's first TV appearance was as a college senior on The Dating Game in 1965, and again in 1967 – he lost both times. Soon after, he appeared in commercials for products such as Pepsi-Cola.

He began his career with bit parts in smaller movies, including Myra Breckinridge and The Seven Minutes. He also appeared in number of TV series, mini-series and TV movies. Selleck also had a recurring role in the 1970s as "too good to be true" private investigator Lance White in The Rockford Files. Lance was very trusting and always lucky, much to the annoyance of Jim Rockford, the show's star private eye played by James Garner. White would frequently say to Rockford, "Don't worry Jim, clues will turn up" and then a clue would just turn up, much to Rockford's consternation, for whom obtaining clues required hard work and hard knocks. Selleck's character was based on one played in Garner's earlier TV series Maverick (1957) by Wayde Preston in that series' highest-rated episode, "The Saga of Waco Williams."

Selleck, an accessible but relatively untested actor, spent years receiving little interest from the entertainment industry. His big break came when he was cast in the lead role as Thomas Magnum in Magnum, P.I.. The Magnum, P.I. producers would not release the actor for other projects, and, thus, Selleck had to pass on the equally enticing film project for the title role of Indiana Jones, which then went to rising star Harrison Ford. The career-influencing choice between the role of Indiana Jones vs. Magnum P.I. actually haunted Selleck so much that before making the decision, he consulted his best friend on what to do. Together they came to the conclusion that taking the high road and honoring the first contract with Universal Studios was the career-savvy direction. It turned out that the shooting of the pilot for Magnum was delayed for over six months (due to a writers' strike) which would have enabled him to complete the role as Indiana Jones, if he had had the option to do so.

Film

Selleck at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival.

Selleck starred in the 1979 TV movie Concrete Cowboy with Jerry Reed. He starred in a number of film roles during and after Magnum; among the most notable were as an acrophobic police detective in Runaway; as a stand-in father in Three Men and a Baby; and as an American 19th century sharpshooter in the Australian western Quigley Down Under – a role and film that he considers one of his best. His other films include Three Men and a Little Lady; High Road to China; Lassiter; Coma; Her Alibi; An Innocent Man; Folks!; Christopher Columbus: The Discovery; Mr. Baseball; In & Out and The Love Letter.

In the early 1990s, Selleck held a press conference to say that he was not gay after a Queer Nation poster allegedly tried to out him. He also sued a tabloid for printing a story that he was gay, a suit which later was settled with an apology and a financial sum that Selleck donated to the University of Southern California journalism program to promote ethics in media. He insisted that he was not anti-gay, however, saying "I would have had the same problem, felt the same kind of righteous indignation, if somebody had said I was having an affair with some actress I had never met," and would later portray an openly gay character in In & Out with Kevin Kline.^[8]

Selleck is an avid outdoorsman, and a marksman and knowledgeable firearms collector. These interests led him to leading-man cowboy roles in Western films, starting with his role as cowboy and frontier marshal Orrin Sackett in the 1979 film The Sacketts, opposite Sam Elliott, Jeff Osterhage, and Western legends Glenn Ford and Ben Johnson. He followed The Sacketts with The Shadow Riders in 1982, then portraying a cat burglar in 1930s London in Lassiter in 1984. Quigley Down Under is probably one of his best known Western films, however he also won a "Western Heritage Award" for his 1997 role in Last Stand at Sabre River. His last two cowboy roles to date were in the 2001 TNT movie Crossfire Trail (based on a Louis L'Amour novel of the same name), and the 2003 motion picture Monte Walsh.

He most recently appeared in the film Killers, along with Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher.

Television

Magnum P.I.

Selleck on the Red Carpet at the 61st Annual Academy Awards in 1989

Selleck played the role of Thomas Magnum in 1980 after six failed TV pilots. Magnum was a former U.S. Navy Officer, a veteran of a special operations unit in the Vietnam War, who had resigned his commission with the USN Office of Naval Intelligence ONI, and became a private investigator living in Hawaii. The show would go on for eight seasons and 162 episodes until 1988, winning him an Emmy Award^[9] for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1984. Selleck was famous for his moustache, a Hawaiian-style aloha shirt, a Detroit Tigers baseball cap, and the Colt Model 1911A1 .45 ACP Caliber pistol his character carried. Magnum drove a Ferrari 308GTSi in the series. The model became so identified with the role that Ferrari fans now refer to the red-painted model as a "Magnum" Ferrari.

Selleck has confirmed that he is the most popular choice by fans to play the role of Magnum in the rumoured upcoming Magnum P.I. movie.^[10]

Friends

Throughout the late nineties, Selleck played the role of Richard, Monica's boyfriend, in the hugely successful TV series Friends. Richard was a physician (ophthalmologist) who was a friend of Monica's parents, and at first the relationship was hidden from her parents. The relationship eventually ended over Richard's reluctance to commit to raising a family, though Selleck did make a few extra appearances in later shows.

The Closer

In February 1998, Selleck accepted the lead role in a sitcom for CBS called The Closer. In it he played Jack McLaren, a legendary publicist heading up a brand new marketing firm. His costars included Ed Asner, David Krumholtz, and Penelope Ann Miller. Despite the high pedigree, and the expectations for his first series since Magnum, P. I., low ratings caused the show to be canceled after ten episodes.

Jesse Stone series

Since 2005, Selleck has starred in the role of transplanted lawman Jesse Stone in a series of made-for-TV movies based on Robert B. Parker's novels. To date, the series comprises seven films, with the seventh released on May 22, 2011.^[11] In addition to his portrayal of the films' protagonist, Selleck also acts as producer for the series. The fifth film, Jesse Stone: Thin Ice, was not adapted from Parker's novels, but rather an original story by Selleck.^[12]

Las Vegas

He joined the cast of the NBC drama Las Vegas in the season-five premiere on September 28, 2007. He played A.J. Cooper, the new owner of the Montecito Casino. He replaced James Caan who left the cast in the same episode. This was Selleck's first regular role on a drama show since he played Thomas Magnum on Magnum, P.I..

Blue Bloods

Blue Bloods is an American police procedural/drama series on CBS, filmed on location in New York City. Frank Reagan (Selleck) is the Police Commissioner; the series follows the Reagan family of police officers with the New York City Police Department. The show premiered on September 24, 2010.

Other work

Selleck has also appeared in a number of made-for-TV movies in recent years. In particular, he has sought to help bring back to popularity the western, often playing one of that genre's typical characters but thrust into a modern context.

Selleck was offered the lead role of Mitch Buchannon in Baywatch, but turned down the role because he did not want to be seen as a sex symbol. The role eventually went to David Hasselhoff.

Surprising many of his fans, Selleck unexpectedly played the role of General Dwight D. Eisenhower in A&E's 2004 made-for-TV movie Ike: Countdown to D-Day. The movie showed the planning, politics, and preparation for the 1944 Invasion of Normandy, and Selleck was critically lauded for playing a cool, calm Eisenhower.

Selleck appeared in a recurring role on the acclaimed ABC drama Boston Legal as Ivan Tiggs – the troubled ex-husband of Shirley Schmidt (Candice Bergen) – and as novelist Robert B. Parker's character Jesse Stone in several CBS made-for-TV movies, earning a 2007 Emmy nomination for Jesse Stone: Sea Change.

Broadway

In 2001, Selleck played the lead role of Murray in a Broadway revival of Herb Gardner's comedic play A Thousand Clowns. It ran for only two months. Critics, though far from uniformly negative about Selleck's performance, generally compared it unfavorably to that of Jason Robards, Jr., who won awards in the 1960s for playing the character on the stage and in a movie version. (It remains the role with which Robards is most identified.) Playwright Gardner, however, actually preferred Selleck to Robards in the part, and even said that Selleck was the way he had always envisioned Murray.

Commercials

Selleck did the voice-over for the 1993 AT&T advertising campaigns titled "You Will." These advertisements had a futuristic feel, and posed the question of, "What if you had the technology to ______ ? Well, you will ... and the company that will bring it to you? AT&T." As of December 30, 2007, he began doing commercial voice-overs for Florida orange juice, a move that one writer quipped would have a "magnum" impact on sales (referring to the actor's role in Magnum, P.I).^[13]

The Practical Guide to the Universe

In the mid-1990s, Selleck hosted a special series on TLC called The Practical Guide to the Universe, in which he talked about the stars, planets, galaxies, and other things in the universe.

Awards and accolades

On April 28, 2000, he received an honorary doctorate from Pepperdine University. He was chosen because of his outstanding character and ethic. He is a board member of the non-profit Joseph and Edna Josephson Institute of Ethics and co-founder of the Character Counts Coalition.^[14] Selleck received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1986. The star is situated at 6925 Hollywood Blvd.^[15]

• Golden Apple Awards – 1982 Male Star of the year
• Golden Apple Awards – 1983 Male Star of the year
• People Choice's Award – 1984 Favourite Male TV Performer
• 36th Primetime Emmy Awards (1984) – Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
• People Choice's Award – 1985 Favourite Male TV Performer
• People Choice's Award – 1985 Favourite All-Round Male Entertainer
• 42nd Golden Globe Awards (1985) – Best Performance by an Actor in a TV-Series-Drama
• National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum – 2010 Inductee into the Hall of Great Western Performers

In 1993, during the brief run of the late night The Chevy Chase Show on Fox, Selleck guest-starred. As a gag, he asked to be presented his 1992 Worst Supporting Actor Razzie award for his performance as King Ferdinand of Spain in Christopher Columbus: The Discovery. When the Razzie was presented to him on the air, Selleck took it in stride and asked the entire studio audience to "blow me a raspberry." Thus Selleck became the third person in Razzie history to voluntarily accept one of the Worst Achievements in Film statuettes.

Tom Selleck has also been regarded as having the greatest mustache in cinema history^{[citation needed]}.

Personal life

Selleck was married to model Jacqueline Ray from 1970–1982, a marriage during which he adopted her son, Kevin (born 1966), from a previous marriage.

On August 7, 1987, Selleck married Jillie Mack.^[16] They have one daughter, Hannah Margaret Mack Selleck^[17] (born December 16, 1988).^[6][18] The family lives in Freedom, California, and Thousand Oaks, California.^[19] Selleck has a summer residence in Jonesboro, Jonesboro, Ireland. In the 1980s – specifically around the time of filming Three Men and a Baby – Selleck owned a home on upscale Lakeshore Road in Burlington, Ontario, a city southwest of Toronto.

Selleck lives on an avocado ranch. The following quote is from a Good Housekeeping interview titled "Man of the House: Tom Selleck", "So I like to get outside and work on the farm, from fixing roads to clearing brush. I hate going to the gym, so sweating outdoors sure beats sitting on a stationary bike staring at my navel. And I work cheaper than anyone I could hire to do it."

He is an accomplished indoor and beach volleyball player playing the outside hitter position for the Outrigger Canoe Club, Honolulu. His adopted son, Kevin Shepard, attended Selleck's alma mater, University of Southern California, and became an All-American in 1990. Outrigger Canoe Club team mate Dennis Berg was quoted in the Summer 2011 issue of Volleyball USA magazine^[20] saying of Selleck, "Tom was a great team mate, appreciative of being included with such a talented and experienced group, practicing and playing hard when his Magnum schedule permitted." he continued saying "He was very patient with all of us, and we relished the big crowds that replaced the usual sparse number of players' friends and spouses at the national tourney matches."

Selleck is an avid ice hockey fan and has been seen attending Los Angeles Kings games at the Staples Center. He lists Anze Kopitar and Alexander Frolov as two of his favorite players. He was once a minority owner of his favorite baseball team since childhood, the Detroit Tigers.

One of Selleck's Magnum co-stars, Larry Manetti, in his 1996 memoir Aloha Magnum, was lavish in his praise of Selleck. Manetti lauded Selleck for his extraordinary work ethic on a grueling show (shooting for hours in the midday Hawaiian sun), Selleck's work with Hawaiian charities and his willingness to go to bat for the program's cast and crew members.

In February 2009, Selleck joined the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund as national spokesman for the new Education Center being built on the National Mall.^[7]

Political views and the NRA

To promote his movie The Love Letter, Selleck was invited to be on The Rosie O'Donnell Show on May 19, 1999. However, he found himself defending an ad in which he appeared supporting the National Rifle Association (NRA) and his position on gun ownership. Selleck said: "It's your show, and you can talk about it after I leave." O'Donnell was highly criticized, criticism which led her to make an apology to Selleck by saying: "For him feeling embarrassed and humiliated by me, I strongly do apologize to him personally, but I do not apologize for my feelings about the issue of gun control."^[21]

Selleck is a member of the Board of Directors and public spokesman of the four-million-member NRA.^[22] After close friend and fellow avid outdoorsman Charlton Heston stepped down – due to failing health – as the highly visible public spokesman of the NRA in 2003, Selleck has stepped up in comparable manner to succeed him.^[23] In 2002, Selleck donated the rifle he used in Quigley Down Under (a custom 13-pound [6 kg], single-shot, 1874 Sharps Rifle, with a 34-inch [86-cm] barrel),^[24] along with six other firearms from his other films, to the National Rifle Association, as part of the NRA's exhibit "Real Guns of Reel Heroes" at the National Firearms Museum in Fairfax, Virginia.^[22]

For a number of years, Selleck appeared in television advertising for William F. Buckley's magazine The National Review (he also subscribes to The New Republic).^[25] He endorsed senator John McCain in 2008 presidential election. Selleck describes himself politically as "a registered independent with a lot of libertarian leanings."^[26]

Filmography

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Tom Selleck

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tom Selleck

• Tom Selleck at the Internet Movie Database
• Tom Selleck at the Internet Broadway Database
• Tom Selleck at Emmys.com