New York (AP) Tom Selleck Begins his memoir in the middle of a car accident. He is 17 years old and in the passenger seat when he and two friends board a plane in his mother’s red Chevy Corvair down Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles. Everyone will be fine eventually, but it’s a harrowing moment and a unique way to look back.
“It’s an unusual way to start,” the “Magnum, PI” and “Blue Bloods” star admitted in an interview. “It seemed like the best way to step back a little bit and talk about my upbringing through a bad accident and its effects.”
“You Never Knew” introduced readers to the University of Southern California, Bachelor No. 2 in the Army, Bachelor No. 2 on “The Dating Game,” and through minor roles and commercials before gaining lasting fame as Amy and Thomas Magnum. takes away
“I haven’t had one of those headline-making lives,” the 79-year-old actor tells The Associated Press. “The only way I could make the book entertaining — and I think my main job and purpose in this book is to entertain — was to get into the stories in a way that would get the reader into my head.”
Selleck spent four years writing the book Longhand on yellow legal pads, citing George Will and Raymond Chandler along the way. He would write in the afternoon and read what he wrote to his wife at dinner.
The self-portrait that emerges is of an actor who kept his head down and worked on his craft — he made six unsold pilots and had his first major film in the ill-fated “Daughters of the Devil” — until Big time didn’t come in the middle of it. 30s
“If Selleck has one thing to sell his authenticity,” says Alice Heineken, co-author of Celiac. “He’s a guy who knows who he is. He’s managed to carve out a very successful career over the decades by finding a way to be himself in some kind of business.”
Selleck says he has no intention of writing or sharing everything about his life, although he does reveal details about his secret marriage to his second wife, Jill Mack, whom he first called “Cats.” I saw on stage. (Yes, she fell in love with Rumpletiser.)
“There’s a lot of stuff that I haven’t talked about, and there’s a lot of stuff that everybody’s talked about and it’s not really true,” he says.
Readers will learn that Selleck—known for his 6-foot-4 matinee-idol figure and build, sense of humor, and easygoing manner—was often plagued by insecurities and doubts, writing, “You The critic on one’s shoulder is a formidable opponent.”
“I wanted to speak the language of my business to young actors,” he says. “It’s not an easy road. The product you’re selling — when no one says it, which is 99% of the time — is you.”
Famously, his shooting schedule for “Magnum, PI” forced him to turn down an offer to play Indiana Jones in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, a part Harrison Ford. The Hollywood strike actually made both possible, but Selleck is relaxed, writing that “my only regret was what happened there from time to time.”
Magnum’s character – a Vietnam War veteran turned handy detective who zips around Hawaii in a red Ferrari – aired from 1980-1988.
Selleck won an Emmy for the 1984 episode “Home from the Sea,” in which Magnum treads water alone in the Pacific Ocean until he is rescued, talking to figures from his past. “I made it, Dad. Why didn’t you?”, the character anxiously asks his father, who was shot down over Korea in 1951. He was pushed to host the Emmys the year he won one.
“Part of me was still in host mode. I grabbed my Emmy and ran across the stage to my host podium. I put my Emmy down and looked out at the audience for the first time. What, I have to say, the applause went up and stayed that way a little longer than I expected,” he writes.
Selleck bet on himself throughout his career, turning down a permanent gig on “The Young and the Restless” and appearing for work in the 1979 TV miniseries “The Sickets” even though the director told him that he I do not want.
“I’m most proud that I, as a person, was willing to take the risk. They didn’t always pay off, but many times they did,” he says. “Risk is the price you pay for the opportunity itself.”
Portraits of other stars also appear, such as Carol Burnett, Princess Diana and Frank Sinatra, whose last acting work was on “Magnum, P.I.” demonstrated.
“Blue Bloods” fans will have to wait until the last few pages to discover that Selleck initially fought for it to be a character-driven show and not a procedural one, as the pilot was. He won and the show is in its 14th season. “I can’t be so lucky twice,” he writes.
Selleck writes that he built his career as an ant-player, making sure each role was performed to a high standard and then moving on to the next. If that meant pushing back scripts or budgets, so be it.
“Just showing up and getting a paycheck wasn’t my idea of work,” he says. “I always tried to do it in a business way. You know, humor and don’t throw the script against the wall.”
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Credit : apnews.com
