Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes) - Tom Selleck (Live in Santa Barbara)

Episode Date: July 29, 2026

Ted Danson recently joined Tom Selleck on stage at the Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara, CA for a live discussion about Tom’s memoir, “You Never Know.” They discussed how Tom nearly didn’t do Magnum, P.I., his brushes with Princess Diana and Frank Sinatra, the making of "Three Men and a Baby," and much more.    Special thanks to LiveTalks LA for the use of this audio.    Like watching your podcasts?  Visit http://youtube.com/teamcoco to see full episodes.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jim Garner, in a way, just kind of saved my life. I would have been long gone from that version of Agnum. Welcome back to where everybody knows your name. Today, I'm sharing with you a recent conversation I had with my friend, Tom Selleck, before a live audience. We were at the Granada Theater in Santa Barbara talking about his memoir, You Never Know. Without further ado, here's me and Tom Selleck live in Santa Barbara. Anyone under 70, you should probably leave. You won't understand what we're talking about.

Or you can stay. Let me just say off the bat that I have so much respect for you. You are a true gentleman in this business. You're a loyal friend, and it's an honor to be up here talking with you. And I will go anywhere and do anything for you, Tom Selleck. Thank you. Yeah, true. I've been debating all afternoon. Do I do cards or no cards? We're here, obviously, you're talking about this. It's just come out recently. The paperback? Paperback now.

But you're the hardcover. With added material. Added? Yes, we're going to talk about that, too. And it was on the bestseller list for like forever, you know, the hard copy, which is very cool. So let me just start at the obvious. Why write this book? What made you decide to do that? Well, I didn't want to write a book. I thought, I never wanted to. I said, well, I didn't have one of those lives, you know.

I didn't kill somebody and go to rehab. And I didn't. And I just, I didn't know what I'd write about because I didn't want to write about who I was dating. I didn't want to do anything about politics. And I didn't, I just decided, I kept getting asked, well, I'll talk about the work. Yeah. Yeah.

And I wasn't about to settle grudges. That was very important to me. Yeah. I still don't. Did you literally wake up in the morning and go, okay, here we go, blank piece of paper and just start at the beginning? I mean, what was that process? No, I got, the publisher assigned a writer to me, a good writer. Right.

And I talked to him for about a year every weekend and told him stuff at all. And I say, when are we going to get to collaborate? And he says, oh, we'll get that late. Well, then it came time to deliver the book and we hadn't had any collaboration, so I fired him, which was expensive. And when I got my strength back, I decided to do it. And I did have help from Ellis Henneken, but he did not write this book. I think the other writer thought, yeah, he's just one of those celebrities. He wants to get a paycheck.

I'll write it. And that wasn't the case. So I'd written scripts. I'd written and fixed an awful lot of scripts, and I decided to try it. So I'd go up to my little office in the afternoon. Maybe I have a scotch, maybe a cigar. And I'd write for about. two hours and then I go down to dinner with Jillie and Hannah and read it to them.

After the Scotch, did it still sound good? No. Well, yeah. I wasn't under the influence. I just, it became a ritual. And I heard good writers do that. I wanted to be a good writer. So if I passed muster with Jillian Hannah, I talked to Ellis, who is a good writer.

in his own sense, and he'd give me just some pointers and stuff. And then I wrote the whole thing longhand. I'm computer illiterate. So the whole book was on yellow pages. Thank you. Are there computer illiterate people out there? And that was kind of it, and it took four years altogether. Wow.

you brought up jilly mac and hannah your daughter who's not here but jillie mack's here someplace and it was so nice to see you for me i haven't seen you for so long but your beautiful wife is here um jillie mack i'm going to applaud for you jillie mack i don't know where you are but anyway um okay um ben eyes that's where you grew up basically in that area Sherman oaks yeah I know your family... But not the high end of Sherman Oaks, what they called north of the boulevard. South of the boulevard was the hills above Sherman Oaks, and we never made it there.

A man of the people. You grew up. Yes, I was. But anyway, I know how important your dad was to you, in your whole family. Yeah. But I remember some of the advice that he gave early on was when your career was starting

don't let them change you. Yeah. I just love that that was, you know. It was a, I had a, I wasn't setting the world on fire at USC in the business school. I hope you can't check my transcripts. And basketball meant a lot to me, but I was riding the pine. So through a couple accidents, one, I went on the dating game. and then I also did a Pepsi Cola commercial with a basketball format

because I could stuff a basketball with either hand. Probably didn't have much to do with my acting. But one thing led to another, and I got offered this contract at Fox, a new talent program. And I had this job. I had to have a job at SC. I was there United Airlines Campus representative. I'd been for two years,

and that was, I was going to have to quit that. So I went to my dad and I wanted his advice. And he thought for a minute. And he said, well, I think it's one of those opportunities that people consider special. It's kind of like your brother Bob. My brother Bob played in the Dodger organization. Tommy the Sorda sign him. And he said, I think if you don't take the risk, you might get to be about 35 and wonder, what if.

And that's all I needed to hear. And I had to quit my job with United Airlines, which wasn't fun. And I had a job waiting for me when I got out of SC if I could figure out a way to graduate. But he gave that advice fully, but when I said goodbye, Dad, and thank you, he just kind of looked down to himself. He didn't really say it to himself. He said it a little bit out loud, but it was, I heard it. He said, just don't let him change you. Oh, that is so sweet.

See, I thought that was like in your face. advice. That was his hope and prayer for himself that his son wouldn't be changed. But the point with it was he still gave that advice. He'd heard all the Hollywood stories and didn't know whether that was going to be a healthy environment, but he still gave that advice freely to take the risk. And it made me realize when he said that how hard a decision it was for him to tell me to do it. And so off you went to a contract player,

which means what describe that? That's where they pay you a minimum fee and you go where they tell you. Well, they had a talent school, which was the last of the old studio system. And I had never done a play or anything

or wanted to be an actor or anything. So I was just brand new. I went on a a couple early interviews, and some of the producers weren't very nice. They said, oh, you're in the talent program. You're one of those people that go from the talent school to the pay window to the commissary.

Wow. I mean. Well, they resented it when they, by then, they had the power at the studio, and they resented it when the studio said, you've got to see this contract player. So it was a long road after two years and a six-month stretch in the military in the Army National Guard infantry. They fired me. And they fired me along with my friend Sam, Elliot, and Jim Rowland. Are you kidding?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Lyle Wagner. But he had a gig already. He got on Carol Brown. Yeah. So what was the first, oh, wait a minute, this is going to work? What was your first film or TV show where it was like, oh, who is this guy?

That was about 10 years later. Rockford? Was Rockford before? No. Look, I did. It was very strange. I got fired and I'd never had a job at Fox other than the contract program. as soon as I got

fired, I got two jobs at Fox. One was Lancer, which I don't know how many people remember it. Yes. Lancer was the show

that they did once upon a time in Hollywood about. And I was the star of the teaser. I wasn't really the star of the teaser. I had a couple of lines

in the teaser. And my job was to act scared to death at a ferocious German shepherd at my throat. Because I was making fun of a cowboy with a hook for one hand and three guns. And it wasn't very smart. But you get a script, they constantly put you in dumb situations. Yeah. That was, I was scared to death.

And the dog is supposed to pin me up against a war. wall. And that's the end of the teaser and the end of my time in Lancer. And I look over and the director's talking to the animal trainer. And I thought they hated it. I was terrible and everything. And so the trainer comes over kind of on the QT and a very low voice. And he says, look, the director doesn't think the German Shepherd is ferocious enough. And I was just thrilled. It wasn't me. It was a dog.

And he said, here's a piece of steak. He said, hide it in your fist. And when the dog comes for you, put it up to your throat. And I guarantee you the dog will come. So very little acting involved. I was scared to death. But I was scared to death. But I was thrilled.

It worked. I'd never heard that story. You get hurt all the time that way. I love that story. I didn't know that one. The second job was with May West. In my room record. How did that turn out?

Did you have any? Well, I got. Yeah. Did you get to come up to my room sometime? Well, it was a big deal. She hadn't, kind of. It wasn't. It wasn't basically

it had been 20 years since she'd done a film, and it was very, it was in all the magazines and everything else. So my agent secretary called me up and said, you have an interview at 8 p.m. in her dressing room. Well, I said, no. It's just an interview. Well, I went, and yes, there was a whole bunch of people all auditioning for one of six years.

young studs, as the script called him. It wasn't a very good movie. I just went in, and it was Miss West, and she was in a beautiful white gown, ready to go out on the town. So then I didn't think anything of it, and about four or five days later, I get a call from my agent secretary again. She says, you have an interview with Mae West in her apartment at 8 p.m. I said for what? Because I thought she was putting on her.

She said a movie, Myra Breckermridge. Then I knew it was for real. So, I don't know, I went up to her apartment. Everything was white, the walls and the carpet, the couch, the piano, and her dress. And I was with a guy, her assistant. And she said, would you? you read with me? But she wasn't Mae West. She was kind of Brooklyn-y. So I said, yes. And the guy had told me, it's Miss West when you address her. I said, yes, Miss West. And he said, so I get the script,

and I look at it. And she's over-leaning against the piano. And She says her first line on it, it's May West. And I was a huge fan, and I started laughing. I think she thought I was laughing at the material, which she wrote. But I was just laughing out of nerves, and that's May West. So after we finished, I laughed a few more times. Assistant whispered in her ear, and she's leaning against the piano, and she says, come here. So I came over, she said, put your hands on my waist.

So I put my hands on her waist. This is true, I swear to God. And she says, now spread your legs. So I spread my legs. And then she became the Brooklyn Maywest, Miss West, and looked at her assistant said, it's going to work. What she was, she was not a tall woman.

Lower your height. And so she wanted to see if I could get shorter, which I did. And so I played, I think, young stud number of, I don't know what. His legs. The guy who had the great line was Young Stud number four or something. She's going into her office, Letitia Van Allen, I think, in this ravenous cast. person and she looks at the guy and she says, how tall are you? He says, six foot, seven inches. She says, never mind the six feet. Let's talk about the seven inches. And that was, that was,

but she could do that. Yeah, that was man. Yeah. She got away with a lot of stuff. If you watch May West in movies, you always thought you were getting away with something that they didn't allow. But she was pretty classy, and I got to know her quite well. Did you afterwards? Yes? Well, she asked me to escort her to a couple things. So that was really cool. That is really cool.

Yeah. So I'm sitting with her, and I know her a little better now at her USC function. Because her assistant was associated with USC. And I got up the nerve finally to carry on a conversation. and I said, you know, my favorite movie of yours is my little chickadee with W.C. Field. And she said, she just changed totally. She said, I don't like that man. It turned out that he improvised the scene after she left the set.

And it was so good they had to keep it in the movie, but she was very much a businesswoman. and very proud that she got the writing credit and name above the title. Well, suddenly, W.C. Fields was demanding both. And sadly, those two great talents never worked together again. Wow. What was next?

When did Rockford come along? Rockford came along in the late 70s. Yeah. That's where I went. Wait a minute. Who is that? You were so good in that. When I did White on White and nearly perfect.

Yes. I played this guy Lance White, who was the perfect detective, which Rockford wasn't. And he was always getting Rockford into trouble, and he was, it just was, Steve Cannell wrote it.

He wrote it because he'd written two pilots for me and Jimmy Whitmore, Jr., and neither one of them sold. So we wrote this Lance White character, and it was really good character. It was very funny, but everybody said that should be a series. You should do the series. And I said, no, Lance White isn't funny. He's funny because Jim Garner reacts to him.

But that was a big break. Yeah. You spent time with Jim later, Garner, right? Did he become a friend of yours, or did you? We became, I did two of them. They asked me back, which was really nice. And the second one, yeah, we were friendly, and he always broke all the union rules. And he drove to the set in his hot rod van and stuff.

So we finished early at Lake Sherwood, California, went back to the studio. And I'm sitting there, and I'm pretty preoccupied because something had happened. and he says, what's wrong? And I say, well, look, I had a contract at the studio for a series, but I fulfilled that contract. Now the studio is assigning this show to me, saying the contract is still valid and that I have to do it. The show, incidentally, was called Magnum,

and I hated it. It was terrible. So basically, Jim's not a guy. He's very self-effacing. He said, look, I'm not one to tell anybody what to do. But he said, look, you don't have much power. But if they want you, you will never have more power than you do right now. That's all I'm going to say. And I said no to the studio. And Jim Garner, in a way, just kind of saved my life. I would have been long gone from that version of Agnum. But it was a big fight for a long time. I didn't know this.

So wait, so the original script that you were told to do... It was written by Glenn Larson. Right. Who's a good guy, but wasn't my kind of writer. Did Battlestar Galactica. and I don't know, fall guy and stuff. But it, the character had no flaws. And he had two beautiful women on his arm and a Ferrari.

But I just said no. And that's where I met our friend, the late Skip Brittenham. Our lawyer. My agent Betty McCart said, I want you to meet this guy. He's a new lawyer in town and really good. We had lunch together, and he had represented me ever since. And you. Yeah.

Henry, he got his bones by telling Henry, don't go to work tomorrow, when the Fonz was taking off. And he was a minor character. Anyway, a great lawyer, a wonderful lawyer. It's why our suits look so good. So how soon before the next version of Magnum came along? Well, after a very long time, Skip worked out of deal with them. He said, you're not going to get out of this,

but they're going to offer you a choice of three different submissions. They want to commit commitment. I had also done by then a movie miniseries called The Sacketts, which was a huge, huge break. So they knew that I could handle the series. And so they gave me a choice, and you're going to meet with these writers. I had never met with a writer in my life.

And now the writers are auditioning for me. And Don Belisario had lunch at Lesser. remember this there. Yeah. And had lunch with me and he says, what do you want to do? I said, I want to do something like Rockford. I want a character with flaws and some heart. And he said, say no more.

He did it. And he came back in about two weeks with the best TV movie I had ever read at the time. Yeah. And it was called Magnum. Yeah, you can applaud Magnum. Unbelievable. But I don't call in anything else because later on, after the studio got a hold of it, the lawyers saw it and they said Magnum, well, Kliniswit did Magnum Force,

so he's going to sue us. So we'll put a P.I. there. I did not like that. But we lost that battle. P.I. in Hawaii is not the most flattering term for a Philippine Islander. And I was living in Hawaii at the time.

And I just, so I don't call it that name. I call it, man. But it was a long road. Where did you get the Cajonis? Is that okay? To go to a studio early on and go, no, I'm not doing that. I want it better.

Well, I had never, I had done six unsold pilots. And I know what they were saying. They said, who the hell does he think he is? He's never even gotten on the air. Right. So if it hadn't worked, I would have been long gone and back with United Airlines. Pretty quick. But I don't know.

It was a risk. I'm not sure my dad ever said risk is the price you pay for opportunity, but he lived his life that way. And this seemed to me to be the time to take a risk. I was pretty well qualified after about studying for about 12 years. Milton, I saw you work out. Milton Gonzalez. Milton Gonzalez.

You studied with him, didn't you? Acting coach. Sorry, this is a sidebar. Talk amongst yourselves. Didn't you study with Milton, I studied with Milton Cotellas. For just a short time, but that was for a short time later on to just kind of keep the instrument oiled. The major lessons I learned in acting in class, you learn lessons on the set, but an acting class was from a guy named Sal Dano, who I was with for years.

and he really taught me, gave me the groundwork for a craft that you could do. Milton was just a very good director and he had good actors in the class. It was a workout. He would critique stuff and all. But, yeah, I had a long time to practice. I did a lot of commercials. Can we get to the part where I come into your life, please? This is very important.

You don't know this show was really important. You did a show on Magnum in 1981. Yeah? It was Don't Say Goodbye. And I remember it because of you. Well, partly because of you. But it was... I was there. Go on.

It was a show with a very good cast. Academy Award winner Mercedes MacGaimbridge, Andrea Markovici, and some guy named Ted dancing. Some guy, yeah. Some guy, yeah. Well, I didn't know him, but you were smart. You played the guy who turns out to be the bad guy, but you didn't let the audience see it coming. So now we get, here's where it really gets complicated.

And I wonder what you thought of what's going on, man. Basically, at the end of the movie, I'm with Markovici in the back of a cabin cruiser, and you're there and you pull a gun. I, of course, kick the gun out of the hand, and then we get into a grappling fight. Yeah. And you reach into a side cupboard of the cabin cruiser and pull out a great big grappling hook. Yeah. Ted's six-four, and he's got a grappling hook, and I'd had to do a lot of these kind of cliche-ridden things by then.

And I said, I can't do this. I don't know what you were thinking. I said, I can't. We got to fix this. I said, here's what I think I should do. Andrea Markovici is at the back of the boat. She's right behind me. She's safe.

I have the keys to the boat, and he's got a grappling hook. think I should run away. Well, the show was written in L.A. And we were in Hawaii. Hello, Don. Yes. Now, I don't know whether the solution was okay with you, and I know you met with us because it was you and Rich Colby and Markovici,

and we talked and came up with this plan where I just show you. the keys and say goodbye, and we dive into the water, and you can stuck on a boat headed in a very bad direction. Yeah, we had to get out of the scene. Yeah, it's pretty. So you dive in the water to swim because the police are coming. We yell police, and for some bizarre reason, you swim into the propeller of a cabin. It was sad. All right, before we go on. No, no, here's why it's important. Go on, go on. It's also important because that was the show where we heard. Magnum was renewed for the rest of the year.

That's right. And for the first time, I was pretty cautious because I'd done six-ons old pilots. That's the first time I ever said, okay, we're a hit. It's all because of Ted. Or Ted's body. Here's my memory. Everything he said true. What did you think when...

No, I thought it was brilliant. It was smart. I loved just watching you. But later, about whatever, you know, six months later when it's on TV, I'm watching it. And there is... I'm six-two, not six-four. You're six-four. I'm playing the murderous schmuck husband.

In my mind, a little frail-looking, getting beat up by Tom Suss. 6-4, gorgeous, and then they do this pan shot up like this, looking down on the boat. And it's the first time I realized I'm totally bald back here. I had never seen it. Never seen it on TV. I left that. You told me that story. I left it out of the book.

But it's on you now. Give us a minute. Here, let me jump in because this is some of my... You were huge already. Magnin just was like wildfire, even before you were renewed. It cut pretty hot, pretty fast. Really fast. And here's Tom Selleck's life at that moment where he'd have a bus that would drive up.

It was his trailer, but it was a bus that he'd drive up. And he had to have people meet him when it was time to walk to the set. Because there were 40, 50, 60 tourists who'd found out where they were swarming Tom Selleck. Then he would go to the set, polite, you know, to everyone along the way and then did his work. He was amazing. The crew loved him. He was so respected. And I could see it was my first time watching somebody take care of a crew, which is so smart.

You know, they are the people who work so hard. I got that from Jim Darnet. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, so much respect. So many kudos. for you. How did, that was huge, that fame, that amount of fame.

What was that like for you? You seemed to be handling it, but what was it like? I wasn't handling it very well. How so? Give us a dirt. It turned out after about episode, as soon as it got on the air, after you, the episodes made the air date, we couldn't work in Waikiki anymore. Wow.

Yeah. Actually, there's a quick story. about it. I think my friend Dennis Berger is here and his wife, Tina. Dennis and I are both former national champion volleyball players. And I don't know where he are, bags. Everybody calls him bags. So I'm with Dennis and Tina, and it's about four or five weeks into Magnum in their car. And Dennis or Tina, or Tina, or Tina, And Nina says, you've got to go to this ice cream place. It's the best ice cream I've ever had.

And I go, fine. And, but it was in the middle of Waikiki. And we stop and I say, the bags, I say, I can't go in there. You said, sure you can. And I said, no, I'll get mobbed. And he said, just try. So it wasn't very crowded. So I go in, it was at the back of a little mall, and I go to the, towards the ice cream counter,

and sure enough, a woman and her boyfriend or husband are coming up to me. And I go, here we go. I'm going to do one, and then it's going to turn into 20 and everything else. And she says, excuse me. And I was just about to politely say, just in a little bit. I just interrupt her to politely because time is valuable. And I was about to say, certainly, I'll pose for a picture with you. And she said, could you take a picture of me and my boyfriend next to that beautiful palm tree?

So actually, Baggs and Tina, that was a very good lesson at a very good time. It's a title of my book. You never know. You never know. Yeah. You were so famous that you get invited to the White House to dance with Princess Diana. Yes, I was. Give me that.

Tell me what that was like. It was... That has to be scary a little bit. It was neat. Jilly went. He had a beautiful gown and a beautiful state gown. dinner, and then they moved to a different area where there was dancing. Now, I didn't sit with Princess Guy at her table. You're calling her Princess Die now? Is that what you said?

Yes. Okay. Your Majesty. And so now, she invited three guys, John Travolta, Clint Eastwood, and me, three actors. And so, Clint. and I, they're starting to dance. And it was, we just kind of snuck around the corner and hid and had a good time, just kind of bullshitting and stuff. John Travolta starts dancing with Princess Die. And then everybody starts forming around them and clapping and they're going crazy and rocking out. And suddenly this woman comes up to us. He said, excuse me, this is the second dance with Mr. Travolta. We don't want rumors to start.

One of you has to cut in. And I said, I'm not cutting in on John Travolta. And Clinton didn't even bother. So anyway, she says, the next dance then. And then I, you know, did you go to Cartillion? I didn't either. I dodged it. My big brother Bob did, but all I know how to do is a box step and a dip. That's good. And you don't want to dip with Princess Guy. So it wasn't a very long dance, but I just kept apologizing for my dancing. And it was over.

Now, Jilly danced with the Prince. Nice. And they were having a great old time. Jilly who can dance. Jilly who can really dance. Yeah. And at the end of the first dance, he asked her to dance again. So they did two dances together.

When you were dancing with Princess, did you give you much taller? Did you have to do that wide stance lower? No, no. The hip thing? I didn't have to be shorter. Oh. She was tall, wasn't she? She was tall and gracious, and she was having the time of her life.

With you? No, with just the whole evening. It was her guest list. It was her thing. And it was, you could tell what she was just loving every minute. While we were on the subject, one of the neatest things about having. The subject of fame. Who you get to meet as a result of whatever success you have in life, you do get to meet the most amazing people.

Do you have a – this is an out of a left field kind of question, but who are some of the amazing people you just got to meet because of being Tom Selleck? Well, lots of people. I knew the Reagan's pretty well. I worked with Nancy on her drug abuse thing for several years. more people than you can count. One, I really, since we're talking about Magnet, one was Frank Schott. Oh, yes. Tell me that story. Frank on the set. I knew kind of knew Frank because Larry Minetti knew him, and I kind of got to know him.

And Larry comes in to Charles Johnson, our producer's office, and I was sitting in there. And he said, guess what? Frank wants to do our show. And I said he does. And Chris Abbott was in there too. So basically, he said, but he wants to be asked. So we get him on the phone. And Larry gets him on the phone and basically says,

Tom wants to talk to you. And I knew Frank, but not like Larry did. And I talked to Frank, and I said, we'd love you to do our show. He said, oh, well, it's nice to be asked. But no. And I said, but look, this is really complicated. He said, don't worry, I'm not going to charge you anything. Just pay my expenses.

Forget the fact that expenses turned out to be about $200,000. But so I said thank you, Frank, but it isn't that simple. We got to write a script for you. And what do you think it should be about? He said, oh, I don't care. Just make sure I get to beat somebody up. And it was done. It got very serious because, you know, TV, you don't have 42 scripts waiting.

and we wrote a very good script and Frank was excited and Frank got a bout of colitis and was in the hospital. And we don't have another show. And he says, I'm going to get out of here in two days and I'll be there. He's a tough guy because he was, it knocked him for a loop. And it turned out he showed up for work and he wore his Hawaiian shirt loose because he had a temporary colossomy bay.

He was going to get hooked back up. So he's doing fight scenes and everything else, doing all his own stunts that way. And I don't know what we would have done if Frank did that, but didn't do that. But it was, he just said, and I could tell he was, this was his last acting job. Oh, how sweet.

Yeah. How old was he, do you think, roughly? Do you have any idea how old he was at that point? I think about 75. Cool. Wow. But it was his last acting job and I wanted to make it right. And he had no patience whatsoever.

He had the patience of his saloon singer. A smidge entitled. And he said, you have to take this in the right tone. Because Frank did not mean it in malicious way or anything else. but he wanted to do everything in one take. So he starts to walk away, and the sound man says, Frank, we got to do it over again. We had a sound problem.

He says, who do you got on sound? Johnny Ray? Well, Johnny Ray was a famous singer that Frank knew who was deaf. So then we got a little more, we had a very delicate dolly shot that was really hard to get and they missed it. They said, we got to do it again. He said, who he got on cameras?

Stevie Wonder? But it wasn't, I don't know how to explain it. I'm not casting aspersions at Frank. It wasn't racist. He probably knew both people. It just was kind of who he was. He was famous for doing one take period, wasn't he? Yeah.

He just walk away. Yeah. And I'm now executive producer of the show And I don't want it to, Frank was going to be, it was going to be seen by so many. I didn't want to do a show that wasn't up to his standard. So it was a real, we were all exhausted after his six days. But what a guy. Yeah, what an opportunity.

When Frank died at his funeral, Julie and I were there. And so was everybody. And I got to sit near Sophia Lorenz. Nice. But we thought there was a mistake in the service at a certain point. The archbishop spoke, everybody spoke. And then the church just, everything stopped. And I thought, oh, they've had a glitch.

And it was silent for about, well, I don't know, 20, 30 seconds. And suddenly, filling the church on the loud speakers in the room, was Frank singing, put your dreams away for another day. And there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Wow. He was one of a kind. Yeah. That's a great story.

Tell me, I know it meant a lot to you to make sure that Magnum was a vet, Vietnam vet, and you really serviced that. It was the heart of Don show. That's what the pilot was about. And the network said, okay, all that Vietnam stuff was great in the flashbacks and all, but you've got to get rid of Vietnam. Vietnam is death to the show. And Don and I both, we were as one on this and just said, we're not going to do that. Yeah. I mean, we took quite a few risks. Yeah. Yeah. And there were those things, all along the way, Thomas Magnum wasn't

a disaffected veteran. He was just a Navy SEAL who said one day I woke up and I was 33 and I never bid 23. So Magnum is his

his early 20s period. And that was a fight and the network was sensitive about it, and ended up being, the Vietnam arc ended up being one of the most important things in Magnum. And what was so nice at the end was we got a call from the Smithsonian. Yeah, and they wanted my Hawaiian shirt and my Detroit Tiger hat and the ring I wore. And I thought that was great. Maybe I'll be next to Archie Bunker's chair.

some of them, Mary Tyler Moore's Bray, until we went there. And the guy read the citation for us being there. And Magnum was recognized as the first show to recognize Vietnam veterans in a positive light. And that's why we're in this with sound like. But I bragged to them. But it was worth the risk. Yep. Okay, we're going to get back to me now.

I'm feeling faint. Yes. A little lack of oxygen. I come back into your life. Actually, I think it was right after the, you wrapped Magnum. You went to Toronto to shoot three men and a baby. Yeah. Right?

But that's kind of funny. First season? And I caught up with you after that. I'm a very important fixture in Tom's life. But boy, did we have fun. He's only my partner in the number one movie in the world. Yeah. And we all thought the number two, the three men and a little lady when it came out,

we thought, oh, here we go again, it's going to be a huge hit. And Jeffrey Katzenberg had luncheon with me, and I said, he said, it's going to be huge. It's going to be huge. This one movie we're keeping our eye on. It's home alone or something like that. Well, you know what happened? They didn't have a deal for a sequel. And Michael Eisner threw a fit after the first one,

number one movie in the world. And he said, what are you talking about? It's April, and that's my Christmas movie. So, you know, I think it was written under duress. I like the movie. but it didn't have the heart or the jeopardy of the first one. And only Ted knows the ghost story,

so I'll have to tell you about that. Do you all know the ghost story? I think it was actually, this is back when you had to buy DVDs to watch a film again. And I think it was actually, you know, the rumor was started by whoever's making money off the DVDs.

But there's a scene where, I'm talking to my mother, Celeste Holm, and behind me you see a ghost. But what it really was was a cardboard cutout of me because I was this vain actor. Hard part for me. And I had cardboard cutouts of all the commercials I'd been in.

But it looked like a little boy staring through. When you see it, you will get chills. And all the stories were made up. about it. There's a ghost in New York, this apartment. We shot it in Toronto. Yeah, the kid died in the room. Yeah, yeah. All of that stuff. But it wasn't a house.

It was on the soundstage. Soundstage. They built the set for the movie and they tore it down. I have this memory of walking around with Steve Gutenberg before you got there and people had recognized us and then Tom came

and it was like and it was like crazy and insane. and then Leonard Nimoy, who was our director, came out to dinner with us, and the three of us were dwarfed by the attention that Leonard Nimoy got. Remember that? Leonard Nimoy, you know, who would have thought that he would be good directing a comedy?

And he came in late, too. He was brilliant. Yeah. And he envisioned that movie, and we didn't. Normally, you'd work with a doll and then they'd shoot a close-up of a real baby. He had us, you know, all it takes, we were working with a real live baby. Yeah. And they were twins.

And Leonard had their schedules and when they peed and when they did this and that and when one could work and when the other one. And I think he's responsible for the movie. Him and Robert Court. Yeah. It was a good producer. Yes. I'm going to, we have only a certain amount of time and I want to go, I want to get to your Westerns, man.

Quigley Down Under. Quigley Down Under is the single best Western I've ever seen. You are the perfect Western man, you know, tall, rough, rugged, gentleman, and you just don't mess with you kind of character. And Quigley was just brilliant. And you had a great villain. Alan Rickman. It was the villain.

It was a prince of a guy. One of the nicest man I've ever met. And what a great actor. Yeah, Quigley had been in the hands of a couple of people, I think, Sean Connery and Steve McQueen. And it's one of those scripts that was around and I saw it.

And I was, first of all, very proud that I had the juice to get a mate. This is about, I don't know, six-year Magnum. And I did it at the end of Magnum. But I just loved it. I love the script. I love the idea.

I got hooked on westerns in a miniseries called The Sacketts. There's a lot about that in the book. And it was discovering a life that, you know, I live on a ranch now. Discovering a life that I thought I might want. and discovered I was right. Sometimes you want something and you go, no, I don't like it here, I've got to get out of here. You worked with Ben John?

Ben John? There's two mentors, acting mentors in my life, Jim Garner, and the other is Ben Johnson. And Uncle Ben was, we had a, we had a big, cattle drive. I was working in the next shot and you had to drive this herd of cattle for, oh, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of yards. And they had a Dolly shot. Well, a Dolly is on a bunch of like railroad tracks. So it was hot. It was really hot.

and Bob Totten, the director, he had such loyalty that they didn't have enough Dolly track to do the whole shot. So in that incredibly hot weather, the crew, as soon as the camera passed one section of track, they'd unhook the track and run down to the very end and add it. Well, Glenn Ford was having problems on that show. I loved Glenn. I loved his work. I thought he was... Great cowboy.

I don't know. He had his demons at that point. And I refused to even think what they were. But so he had a cue card guy. And all he had was this Tennyson poem, fill the can, fill the cup, all the woodeny ways of men, a couple more lines.

So his lines rhymed. So you had this crew doing this in this incredibly hot water. Ben rides up to Ben Johnson and Jeff Osterhage. And it's a big moment in the film because suddenly this cow hand knows Tennyson. And he's having a cue card guy off screen place cue cards. And he couldn't get the poem right. and every time you you

it takes a long time to turn a herd of cattle and bring them back to their start mark and we did it two or three times and Totten who had a temper the director the hat came off that was a bad sign

and down on the ground God damn it And Glenn gets offended and goes to his dressing room. So Ben's out there. I had my horse because I was ready to go in the next scene and I watched this whole thing. And he's out in the middle of the herd and everybody starts to go to sit in their chairs. And Ben just says, where are you boys going? And with that, everybody who was in that scene got back on their horse and went out with Ben,

including me, and Ben just sat there and told stories. And the goal was to shame Glenn into coming out of his dressing room. Where are you boys going? He was something else. He was a world champion roper, a phenomenal stunt man, a great rider and an academy of. award winner. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I love that. He was always good, no matter what he did. Okay. Let's get you to New York. Blue Blunts. Yeah. Yeah. How long is it? How long? How many years?

Well, they claim 14, but it was 15. We did 15 seasons. 293 episodes. Wow. But that's, did, you did more than that in I don't think that many, but ours was silly and easy. That was hard. Blue Bloods was a labor of love. For everybody or for you, you mean? I think for everybody.

Yeah. Why? What do you mean by that? Well, Leonard Goldberg had a real hand of casting talent. And he put together this group. That doesn't mean anything. think maybe people don't realize, but a lot of shows become miserable to work on. You get a lot of egos, and I'm not coming out of my dressing room until he's coming out.

I did that once. Yeah, and it's miserable. It's absolutely miserable. Oh, you did it. Oh, I get the joke. I'm sorry. I stepped on his joke. Now you do.

Blue Bloods was never that. I like to think it had something to do with, I knew I was going to be in a leadership position. Frank was the patriarch of a family, so I thought, set an example. Either way, everybody got it. And the real truth to that is, in the last year of Magnum, at our last family dinner, everybody wanted to come back. We'd already taken a 25% cut in salary. We'd already done all sorts of things to keep the show going.

But the show was, it was very frustrating because Blue Bloods was out of the top 100 shows on broadcast television. Blue Bloods was number six in our 15th year. That's amazing. So anyway, yeah, nobody wanted to leave. Everybody was going to stay on. That's hard to get. It may be some kind of record to have the same cast intact for that length of time. Yeah.

You know, usually if it wasn't a family, it would be different. But, you know, you couldn't very well replace Jamie or Danny or anybody with another actor. Was that period of Blue Blood's New York time when you also did Broadway? No. I did Broadway in 2001. Right, of course. Right after my father passed away. And it meant a lot to me. I'd never done a play, ever.

and but from the time I started in Fox, we do scene studies. And that happened to be when I saw this movie, Thousand Clowns. And I went back the next night, and I loved it. So I started putting up scenes from a thousand clowns. And from then through all the time I studied acting when I did a scene from Thousand Clowns, and the teacher would say, well, that was very good. but why are you doing this? You will never be cast as Murray Burns and a thousand clowns.

So come 2001, Tony Randall called and wanted me to do detective story. And I said, I hate that play. I did an acting class. I've done it forever. I couldn't do it every night. I said, but if you ever want to do a thousand clowns, I'm your guy.

Just flipping it. And I get a call from her gardener, the playwright. And he says, I want you to play Murray Burns in a thousand clowns. It taught me so much that play anyway, because it taught me what my appetites were that I could not be just a big six-foot-four-inch muscle. sorry. Yeah, no.

That there was another side and I ought to be able to use that too. So we did it. And it was sold out at the Long Acre Theater. You know who John Simon is? Yes. He's a pretty rough. Yeah, he's a rough critic.

He gave me a great review, which is the only time he ever did. He beat me up pretty good most of the time. Anyway, the play was very successful until 9-11 happened. Which was, you know, I'm new to theater. I knew how to act.

I'd done tons of scenes from plays. But I'm also in a leadership position in that show, and I'm not used to it. But I got a call from Dave Munts. I don't know whether you remember Dave. I worked with him since Magnum, and he was with me on that show for organization reasons. And he said, look out your window. He woke me up.

And I couldn't see the towers, but I could see the black smoke drifting towards Brooklyn. So I turned on the TV and time to watch. the North Tower went first, I think. Anyway, so the play was shut down. I walked around New York with my friend Dave Munts for a couple days. Mayor Giuliani wanted everybody to go back to work, especially Broadway. And I didn't, you know, A thousand clowns is a comedy and a comedy with heart,

but I talked to a lot of people on the street, and they said, you all have to. And the second day, the Long Acre Theater was a very old theater, and around the corner from us, on 8th Avenue, I think, was a firehouse. And every time they'd roll, you know, you could hear it in a theater. And we get peeved and a little upset and hope it didn't come at an important time. Well, we visited that firehouse around the corner.

Now, when we turned the corner, it was six foot deep in flowers. And we went inside. You don't know what to say, but paid our respects. And there was one woman, we hadn't met her yet, that was surrounded by a couple of firemen. There was food from the neighborhood and all. And it turned out she lost her husband and her father in 9-11. and that that firehouse suffered the biggest loss,

I lost 15, all 15 people on ladder nine, I think it was. And then they said, you're going back to work tomorrow. It was just a unique experience. I called Herb because we'd only had two days. And what happened was I got a call from, we had a young actor. He started the show when he was nine. Usually if you're playing nine or ten, you get somebody who's 15 to play younger.

But he was just this middle-aged kid, Nicholas King. And his mom called. and said, Nicholas doesn't want to come back to New York. Wow. She said, I think he needs a talk from Uncle Tom. And he gets on the phone and then his grown-up voice. He's a middle-aged kid. And he says, hello, Tom.

And I said, hi, I hear you don't want to come back. He said, well, Tom. I just think that I'm afraid the buildings will fall in on me. He said in a very grown-up voice. Well, he came back. And that first night, they dimmed the lights on Broadway, all the marquies to honor the fallen in 9-11. And we're all outside, including Nick.

and two F-16s come zooming by really low. And he kind of coweres a little bit, hides behind me and Dave Munst. Dave said the exact right thing. He said, don't worry, Nicholas. That's the sound of freedom. Yeah. So anyway, I talked to Herb and said,

you want me to say something after the show? And he said, nah. And so we did the show. It was different. But there were about 200 people. Usually we were sold out with over 1,000. And we were going to give them the best show we could. And after the first act, I went back to my dressing room, and there was a fax.

And Herb had scribbled something he wanted me to say. I have it in the book. I wonder if you let me read it. Yeah. Because he's a great writer. So after the play, we all stayed on stage. And I said, I think I paraphrased Edmund Burke, all that's necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. Thank you for doing something. And then I read Herbie's message.

I hope I can read this. I get through it, I mean. Theater at its best is community, a free community. We get together without projectors, screens, and gimmicks, live people, telling other live people a story. Whatever story we please. American theater at its best, at its most alive, is a place of infinite variety, home of the subversive and the sublime, the Maverick and the Madman, the inspired and the inspiring, the sage and the clown,

and most important, the brave, and the free. As different as each human thought, as varied as each mortal response, we honor that America and that theater tonight. We can applaud Murray or Arnold or nobody at all. All of you, the American, American theater audience lives its love of freedom by cheering, booing, holding fast, or walking out. And as is the case tonight by simply showing up, we hear on stage, applaud you

all. Good writer. Okay. I think maybe we'll take some questions if that's okay with you. Yes. Pre-selected adoring ones. That's all. But before we... By the way, when you got dismembered by the boats propeller, your scream was really good. Thank you. Watch it. But first, I want to tell you, Tom, you're an amazing storyteller. You're really, really good. I've been mesmerized just listening to you.

Tell your stories. No wonder you're a good writer because you're a good teller of stories. So James Garner was a big informer. influence to you. Carol Burnett was a huge influence on you. And how did Carol and other women in your life actresses have an impact on you? Well, Carol certainly did. I think every actress you work with has an impact. Sometimes it's not so good. Sometimes it is. Either way, you can be civil. You didn't have to be civil with Carol. She was.

I always said, we get trapped in a vault and she thinks she knows the code to get us out, but it just turns on the sprinklers. So Carol climbs up on my shoulders trying to get to the thing. And all I can say is every actor

should experience Carol doing a scissor lock on your head with the sprinklers going and getting soaking wet. Carol was such a good sport. She did two shows. But I, you know, there's so many, so many people that matter so much.

May West obviously had an influence on me. It was just very interesting to see her and get to know her from her era. Judith asks, we just started watching Woo Blitz and Love It. you tell us why the picture of Teddy Roosevelt is on the commission of all? Yes, I can. Teddy Roosevelt was the first police commissioner.

And actually, there were four of them, but Teddy was such a dynamic personality. You got rid of the other three. An interesting story. Teddy, you know, he had all his pals from Tiffany. And he said, our mental of valor is nothing. It's not good, and it's an important award. So we had the Tiffany guys design a Medal of Valor, which was really grand with the initials, New York.

Anyway, it was so expensive they couldn't do it. The interesting part of it is years later, the New York Yankees bought that Tiffany design, And that's where the unique Yankees, NY comes from. It comes from the NYPD's Medal of Valor. You're being very generous talking about New York baseball, being a Detroit guy. Yes. And Detroit Tigers hate the Yankees.

And I don't like the Yankees. But that's okay. This won't be shown in the art. We're all right. Steve asks, curious if there are any stories you left out of the book and what was the process

of pulling together recollections? There's a lot of stories that could have been in the book that I'd want in the book. Like I said, I wasn't going to hold grudges. You know, you get mistreated

and stuff like that. like that, it's, it's part of the deal. But there were, there's a ton of stories. And my problem was this, that I was moving along with this story in this book. And it was, it was going past 300 pages. And I worked for 50 years, 50 plus years. And I go, if I put all the stuff in and include all those 50 years, it's just going to read like a resume. I mean, you've got to tell some stories in depth to hopefully affect the audience in an entertaining way and an emotional way.

So I wasn't about to do a doorstop and do a thousand-page book. So that's when I came up with the idea of Magnum. There's lots of stories that if I can get up the energy to do it again, I probably will. But there's lots of stories in this first period that are equally good. There were things I wanted to do for sure. we had fatalities on two sets, two helicopter crashes. I thought they deserved to be commemorated. And I don't think there was, they're kind of shunted away.

Except for the families of the people who passed away. We had one in the first year of Magnum, and we had one on a movie I did High Road to China. Just stuff, there's a lot of good stories I had to cut out. And I think the publisher was right to say, look, you know, 300 and some pages is enough. You know, I think people buy books by how thick they are. Well, that looks interesting, but I'm not going to get that today. It's that thick, and I don't have time. So I can't answer the why.

what I left out, no. Is there any actor or director you would have liked to work with that you have not had the opportunity to work with? John Wayne. Although I was haunted by John Wayne in a way. You know, you look at all those guys, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, all the John Ford Stock Company. I got a little taste of the tail end of it

which I'm grateful for, but you kind of look at a role and you go, gee, John Wayne could have played that. And that was the case with Quigley, and I had to get that out of my head because he would have done great. I don't agree with you, my friend. I don't. You nail that. Don't take Quigley away from me. I'm so good in it. Hey, Tom. Ted. This has been the best. excuse to hang out with you. You really are a good storytelling. Thank you. Yeah. That was the gentleman, Tom Selling. Special thanks to Live Talks, Los Angeles, for letting us use this episode.

Pick up Tom's memoir, you never know, at a bookstore near you. And if you want more of me and Tom, check out our past episode from 2024. That's it for this week. Special thanks to Team Coco. If you've enjoyed this episode, send it to a love. one. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts if you have a mind. See you next time.

Where Everybody Knows. You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name. With Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Leow, our executive producers are Adam Sacks, Jeff Ross, and myself. Sarah Federovich is our supervising producer. Engineering and Mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez.

Research by Alyssa Graal, talent booking by Paula Davis and Gene Boutista. Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Anthony Yen, Mary Steenbergin, and John Osmore.