Thomas William "Tom" Selleck is an American actor and film producer. He is best known
for his starring role as the private investigator Thomas Magnum in the television series Magnum,
P.I., based in Hawaii. He also plays Police Chief Jesse Stone in a series of made-for-TV
movies based on Robert B. Parker novels. Since 2010, he has appeared as NYPD Police Commissioner
Frank Reagan in the drama Blue Bloods on CBS-TV. Selleck has appeared in more than fifty film
and television roles since his initial success with Magnum, P.I., including a co-starring
role in the highest-grossing movie of 1987, Three Men and a Baby. He also held top billing
in Quigley Down Under, Mr. Baseball, and Lassiter, to name a few. Selleck has also appeared as
Dr. Richard Burke on Friends, where he played the on-again, off-again love-interest of Monica
Geller. He played A.J. Cooper on the TV series Las Vegas.
Early life Selleck was born in Detroit, Michigan, the
son of Martha S., a housewife, and Robert Dean Selleck, who was an executive and real
estate investor. His father was of English, and distant Scottish, German and Irish, ancestry,
while his mother was of English descent. Selleck's family moved to Sherman Oaks, California,
during his childhood. Tom's siblings include brother Robert, sister Martha and brother
Daniel. Selleck graduated from Grant High School, in 1962.
While working as a model, Selleck attended the University of Southern California on a
basketball scholarship where he played for the USC Trojans men's basketball team. He
is a member of Sigma Chi fraternity and a member of the Trojan Knights. While majoring
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
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. 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, Coma,
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 by Wayde Preston in the 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 producers would not release the actor for other projects,
so Selleck had to pass on the equally enticing film project for the role of Indiana Jones
in Raiders of the Lost Ark, which then went to rising star Harrison Ford. The choice between
the roles of Indiana Jones and Magnum 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
taking the high road and honoring the first contract with Universal Studios was the career-savvy
direction. It turned out shooting of the pilot for Magnum was delayed for over six months
by a writers' strike, which would have enabled him to complete Raiders.
Film
Selleck starred in the 1979 TV movie Concrete Cowboys 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.
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, although
he also won a "Western Heritage Award" for his 1997 role in Last Stand at Saber River.
His last two cowboy roles to date were in the 2001 TNT movie Crossfire Trail, 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 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 Office of Naval Intelligence and become a private
investigator living in Hawaii. The show would go on for eight seasons and 162 episodes until
1988, winning him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1984. Selleck
was famous for his mustache, 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.
Friends In the late nineties, Selleck played the role
of Richard Burke, Monica's boyfriend, at the end of the second season of the hugely successful
TV series Friends. Richard was a divorced 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 eight
films, with the most recent released on May 20, 2012. In addition to his portrayal of
the films' protagonist, Selleck now 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. 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 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—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. 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. As of March 2012, Selleck is featured in Coldwell Banker's new television
ad campaign focusing on the deepest, most personal meanings of homeownership.
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. Selleck received a Star on the Hollywood Walk
of Fame in 1986. The star is situated at 6925 Hollywood Blvd.
Golden Apple Awards – 1982 Male Star of the year
Golden Apple Awards – 1983 Male Star of the year
People's Choice Award – 1984 Favourite Male TV Performer
Emmy Award – Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
People's Choice Award – 1985 Favourite Male TV Performer
People's Choice Award – 1985 Favourite All-Round Male Entertainer
Golden Globe Award – 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. Personal life
From 1971 to 1982, Selleck was married to model Jacqueline Ray. During that time, he
adopted her son, Kevin Shepard. On August 7, 1987, Selleck married Jillie
Mack. They have one daughter, Hannah Margaret Selleck. The family lives in Fallbrook, California,
Freedom, California, and Thousand Oaks, California. Selleck has a summer residence in Jonesboro,
Maine. In the 1980s—specifically around the time of filming Three Men and a Baby—Selleck
also owned a home on upscale Lakeshore Road in Burlington, Ontario, a city southwest of
Toronto. Selleck lives on an avocado farm. In an interview
with Good Housekeeping, Selleck talked about living and working on his farm, "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. Outrigger Canoe Club team mate Dennis Berg, in the summer
2011 issue of Volleyball USA magazine, said 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 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 gruelling
show, 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. Political views and the NRA
To promote his film 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 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; it was criticism
which led her to make a statement 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." Selleck is a member of the Board of Directors
and public spokesman of the NRA. After close friend 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. In 2002, Selleck donated the rifle he
used in Quigley Down Under, 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. For a number of years, Selleck appeared in
television advertising for National Review. He endorsed Senator John McCain in the 2008
presidential election. Selleck describes himself politically as "a registered independent with
a lot of libertarian leanings." In a 2012 magazine article about his career, he mentioned
that he likes the fact that his character on Blue Bloods and his family are visibly
practicing Catholics, while adding that he is not very religious himself.
Filmography See also
References
External links Tom Selleck at the Internet Movie Database
Tom Selleck at the Internet Broadway Database Tom Selleck at Emmys.com