Word: selleck
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Selleck leads the prime-time muscle brigade...
...hunk, chiefly responsible for the return to glamour is Tom Selleck, the 6-ft. 4-in., 200-lb. star of CBS's Magnum, P. I., which premiered in 1980. A genial shoot-'em-up, Magnum is set in Hawaii, a location that allows Selleck, 38, to romp on the beach and show off his grizzly-bear chest to the camera with once-a-week regularity. No. 2 in the latest Nielsen ratings, the show has apparently propelled Selleck to movie stardom as well. His first feature film, High Road to China, displaced Tootsie as the box-office leader...
When women, who make up 56% of Magnum 's adult audience, began pushing the show up the charts, the network cry went out for more muscle, and producers began asking for "Tom Selleck clones." Where to find them? In the men's fashion magazines and in TV commercials, of course; no one forgot that Selleck became widely known through the commercials for Chaz men's cologne. Dark-haired Jack Scalia, 32, the man who was exposed in the Jordache jeans ads and overexposed in Eminence shorts, was recruited for the short-lived Devlin Connection and then...
Some of the former models can actually act. Selleck reminds anyone within earshot that he studied the craft for 15 years. On-camera, he has the charm and unthreatening masculinity of a slightly more serious Burt Reynolds. Others are getting on-the-job training. "I try as hard as I can, but I see where I need improvement," says Barton. Still others, like the wooden Scalia, appear to have graduated from the Ali MacGraw School of Thespian Arts. "I would have preferred it if Scalia had had some acting experience," admits Thurm, who brought him into television. "But we weren...
...even when she and Selleck are at their best, their characters trap them; the unflappable flapper and the hard-bitten ex-ace with a heart of gold never grow beyond stereotypes. Eve can that only dance and break hearts, but she can stunt-fly and shoot as well as the war veteran. (Mercifully, no one ever actually says, "Just like a man!," but it's the insinuation that counts.) O'Malley, for his part, can not only drink and seduce woman, but he can stunt-fly and shoot almost as well as Eve. As the mercenary-who's-really...