Majoring in Lee

Looking at the television (and, to a lesser degree, film) career of Lee Majors during the 60s through the 80s, it seems hard to believe that he had even the slightest trouble getting started, but he was getting close to 30 before he landed his first part! From then, however, it was a career that would make many others trying to find success on TV salivate.

Born Harvey Lee Yeary, Majors was dealt a cruel blow when his father died prior to his birth and his mother died when he was only one-year-old. He went to Kentucky, where he was adopted by his uncle and aunt and grew up to take part in any and all types of sports, particularly football. Married and with a young son of his own, he kicked around in many different jobs before moving to L.A. where he was given a shot along with his new name (the last name coming from a former pal, and idol, of his: Johnny Majors, a college football star and later a celebrated coach.)

Majors’ first onscreen part was that of Joan Crawford’s adulterous husband in the horror film Strait-Jacket. He had no lines, but there are worse ways to break into the biz. After a couple of guest roles on TV, he landed the plum part of bastard outcast stepson Heath on The Big Valley, Barbara Stanwyck’s new western series. The sought after part was won in favor of 400 other wannabes!

He was sorely lacking in experience, but his brooding intensity helped cover up the rough spots until he could grow as an actor. The series enjoyed immense publicity along with ratings success and he learned (sometimes the hard way!) how to apply himself to his work from the stern Stanwyck, a woman who stood for no horsing around, so to speak, on the set.

Often seen shirtless and in tight tan pants, his physical charms were obvious and he was the subject of many a fantasy to certain little cowpokes all over the nation.

Majors filmed a supporting role in the fine Charlton Heston western Will Penny, but was slapped with a career setback (similar to ones that fellow TV stars Kate Jackson, Tom Selleck and Pierce Brosnan would later face) when he was offered the role of Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy, a film that won the Oscar for Best Picture and shot Jon Voight to stardom, but was forced to turn it down due to contractual obligations to Valley.

Nevertheless, he stayed very busy, finishing off the final season of the western and then joining the cast of The Virginian before co-starring on the legal drama Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law, starring Arthur Hill. He tried to break up his image a bit by taking on atypical roles on shows such as Night Gallery, but retained a decidedly narrow range. He even managed to appear in William Wyler’s final film The Liberation of L. B. Jones. Lee was still appearing on the critically acclaimed law series when he filmed a TV movie (one of several notable ones he was doing at that time) that would bring him even greater fame.

The Six Million Dollar Man was a tele-film that concerned a severely injured astronaut, Steve Austin, who is rebuilt with powerful electronic parts and enlisted to help the government on difficult missions. The film was successful enough to inspire a weekly series and that series was a smash hit. Check out Mr. Major's propensity for ignoring the buttons on his shirt and you will see why the success of the show in certain circles was assured!

Soon, Lee was featured on comic books and record sets as well as having his likeness (not a very good one!) applied to a large-scale action figure. Boys of a certain age will surely remember the Six Million Dollar Man doll, which featured an arm with retractable “skin” that revealed square pieces of circuitry. (I won’t go into the implications of suggested foreskin here!) One of the figure’s eyes was “bionic” allowing children to see through the back of his head in what was meant to be increased vision but in my model actually made things seem further away!

A spin-off, The Bionic Woman, came about starring Lindsay Wagner and that show was a big success as well, even earning Wagner a Best Actress Emmy. (Majors had to settle for a mere Golden Globe nomination that same year.) While starring in his own hit series, his second wife Farrah Fawcett (billed at the time as Fawcett-Majors) became a sensation herself on Charlie’s Angels and the couple became poster children for Hollywood glamour and success.

It was following the cancellation of Man that Majors embarked on a stab at big screen stardom and, one after another, his films failed to catch on. The Norseman was preposterous from the start, with Lee’s unavoidable Midwestern accent and 70s era moustache clashing with the alleged period setting.

He followed this up with the more appropriate Steel, about the construction of a high rise in Lexington, KY and which constituted a homecoming for him of sorts, but it had very little box office impact either. A series of unsuccessful films following this one including Killer Fish (in which Lee sported some hideous 70s clothes and even a man bag!), Agency (starring Robert Mitchum) and The Last Chase, a cheesy film about a futuristic world with limited transportation.

Retreating to television, he landed still another success in The Fall Guy, an action series about a Hollywood stuntman who also takes on work as a bounty hunter. Majors also performed the theme song (in a barely adequate way, I’m afraid!) and the show ran for five seasons. He then reunited with Lindsay Wagner for a few bionic reunion TV-movies.

Majors has not really regained the attention he had prior to The Fall Guy going off the air, yet he has always remained busy at work. He took on recurring roles in series such as Tour of Duty, Son of the Beach and The Game as well as trying one more of his own, Raven, which didn’t catch on, a rare experience for him. His grizzled, somewhat overweight (at the time) appearance may have had something to do with it.

Mr. Majors has had some work done here and there over the years, but still looks decent for a man of 70 (can it be true?!) He’d look even better if he’d quit wearing his hair longish and smeared back as if he just stepped off of a rollercoaster.

Even as I type, he has several films either in the can or in production, having somehow caught on again as a cult figure. Perhaps some of this is due in part to the attention he received when his celebrated ex-wife Fawcett died of cancer not long ago. Though he married twice after her (his current wife being about 35 years his junior!), the glare of publicity surrounding her death couldn’t help but shine on him to a degree as they were once such a major item. Their marriage had ended in a splashy tabloid mess when she left him for his own best friend Ryan O’Neal. O’Neal, though he and Fawcett had had their own set of issues, was with her at the end, which seemed to demonstrate that he did care about her, in any case.

In The Underworld, where only the important things matter, Lee Majors holds a place of honor for his handsome face and his remarkable hairy chest which was always front and center during the peak of his career. If trophy wives and some less than prestigious projects have tarnished his overall image at all, his earlier images remain favorites here!

You'll Rue Today!

Despite a lengthy (and quite varied) career on stage, in television and in films, Miss Rue McClanahan, whether she likes it or not, is most likely to be remembered for her work as Blanche Devereaux on The Golden Girls.

Hailing from Ardmore, Oklahoma (where her birth name was Eddi-Rue McClanahan), she spent many years weighing whether to pursue an acting career, which she craved, or stay a full-time mother to her young son and settle for running a dance studio. Her son, from a brief late 1950s marriage, was shuffled back and forth from McClanahan’s parents house in her home town to wherever (frequently New York City) her acting career took her in those lean early days.

She won parts in low-budget feature films with names like Five Minutes to Love, Angel’s Flight and Walk the Angry Beach and worked intermittently on the stage (sometimes rubbing elbows with future stars like Dustin Hoffman, pictured here.)

All along, she took on any and all types of roles from musicals to comedies to dramas. In 1970, she took on a limited run role on the daytime soap opera Another World, playing a pediatric nurse with eyes for her young twin patients’ father. Even though she was meant to be a villain (her character was slowly poisoning the wife who stood in her way!), she received plentiful fan mail and her role was extended beyond its initial conception.

Everything changed for her, though she couldn’t quite know it right then, when Norman Lear spotted her on stage and cast her as half of a swinging couple (with Vincent Gardenia as her husband) who head to an unknowing Archie & Edith’s house on All in the Family for a night of wife-swapping naughtiness. That gig led to Rue being cast as Bea Arthur’s ditzy, but well-meaning friend Vivian on Maude.

Vivian was not a regular during the first season, appearing only a few times, but once the considerable chemistry between Bea and Rue was revealed, she came on board the series, marrying neighbor Arthur Harmon (Conrad Bain), and remained with it until its cancellation. Maude gave Rue primo exposure and included many zany situations for her. She performed in 100 episodes of the popular show and it only came to an end because Bea Arthur didn’t wish to continue any longer.

Norman Lear then developed a comedy series specially for Rue called Apple Pie. She was very pleased with the concept (concerning a lonely Depression-era woman who advertises for a ready-made family in the newspaper and opens her home to them), but the series was caught in the mire of an executive changeover and given no support, being cancelled after only two episodes had aired.

The next several years were kept busy through TV movies, sporadic features, and many guest-starring appearances on popular shows like Lou Grant, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Trapper John, M.D. and Newhart, among others. It was then that she was offered a co-starring role with Vicki Lawrence in a series based on ‘Mama’ Thelma Harper, made famous on The Carol Burnett Show. McClanahan was to portray Harper’s feisty, fiery sparring partner on Mama’s Family. However, in between the contract-signing and filming, the creators decided to introduce the flouncy, mouthy, confrontational character of Naomi (played by Dorothy Lyman) and Rue’s character of Aunt Fran was augmented into a dithering, meek idiot. Betty White appeared from time to time on this show as haughty Ellen, but the two didn't become particularly close then.

McClanahan’s heart was no longer in the project in the wake of the drastic changes and she welcomed the chance to exit after 24 episodes. Fortunately, for her, the signature role of a lifetime was coming available not long after and she was free to take it.

Miss McClanahan was given a copy (dog-eared, according to her) of a pilot for a sitcom about three older, single ladies living together in Miami, Florida. The series, called The Golden Girls, contained a role she wanted to play very badly - Blanche - but the producers, having seen her essay goofballs such as Vivian and Aunt Fran, wanted her for Rose! Betty White, who had been a smash on The Mary Tyler Moore Show as the sexually suggestive Sue Ann Nivens, was in line to play Blanche.

It wasn’t until someone in the casting process suggested a switch that Rue would get to sink her teeth into Blanche and the roles would be swapped. This left Betty White reeling (briefly!), but she soon got a grip on Rose and made her an equally indelible character as well. After some nudging, Bea Arthur was coerced into taking the role of Dorothy and the star trio was set. Estelle Getty, who had wowed audiences in the play Torch Song Trilogy, had already been hired to play Dorothy’s stroke-ridden, take-no-prisoners mother in a recurring role, but once the pilot was shot, it became clear that all four ladies needed to appear together in every episode. (Thus, Coco, the gay male housekeeper, was swiftly written out of subsequent episodes without explanation.)

In an odd bit of lunatic decision-making, the director of the pilot episode, Jay Sandrich, refused to allow McClanahan to use the inimitable southern accent that has since become a hilarious piece of TV history. So we were robbed of hearing the “true” Blanche in what was an uproarious start to the series. Incidentally, Sandrich returned to direct Girls only one other time in what is widely regarded as the show’s nadir: the piggyback pilot for Empty Nest that included Paul Dooley and Rita Moreno hijacking the show to set up their own series. It eventually came about with a heavily augmented cast and scenario.

The first four or five seasons of this show rank among the all-time funniest programs that ever aired on TV. The mix of actresses/characters was top-notch, the stories were both hysterical and yet touching and the dialogue teemed with unbelievably clever and humorous dialogue. Not long after director Terry Hughes departed (long referred to as “The Fifth Golden Girl”) to concentrate on a feature film career, the tone of the show gradually shifted and it became far more arch, knowing, crass and silly. There were still magic moments to be had (and certainly the two-part finale was sensational as well as touching), but things had veered a bit too far off course for this viewer’s satisfaction. (Sophia jumping off the roof of a mansion into a pile of leaves? Miles having been in the witness protection program all along? The list goes on…)

It didn’t help that each of the actresses actually began to look progressively younger and more fit as the show wore on instead of the other way around! Blanche’s vain attitude and self-indulgence was far more hilarious when it was obvious that she didn’t fit her own descriptions of herself. Once Rue genuinely started to look sensational, her caustic remarks took on an unwelcome edge. Likewise, Rose got to be extra idiotic, Dorothy indulged in some needlessly goofy scenarios and Sophia was far too “in on the joke” and didn’t resemble her character as initially conceived at all. Once again, Bea Arthur decided to depart the show, but, thankfully, each actresses managed to snag an Emmy apiece.

Rue’s Emmy speech was memorable in that she recounted the way that casting directors had encouraged her to give up any hope of a film & TV career because she wasn’t photogenic. It was a poignant and memorable moment for her and her fans.

The remaining ladies took part in a horribly misguided spin-off of The Golden Girls called The Golden Palace. By now, the chemistry was almost completely drained (the trio was often referred to "a table with one missin leg") and it was quietly cancelled after one season.

Rue, however, remained busy. She portrayed The Mother Superior in televised productions of Nunsense and Nunsense 2: The Sequel and had a string of well-received TV movies called Children of the Bride, Baby of the Bride and Mother of the Bride. Though she had made some brief forays onto Broadway early in her career, she had two notable projects later on in which she was featured as a “name,” a revival of The Women and a stint in Wicked, both, of course, featuring her in showy supporting roles. In a bit of startling casting against type, she portrayed a severely wounded military academy instructor in the sci-fi, CGI extravaganza Starship Troopers!

A treacherous and debilitating battle with breast cancer came her way in the late-90s, but she licked it with her by-now customary determination and aplomb. This, and her career and marital exploits, was examined in her autobiography My First Five Husbands. McClanahan has said that it took some getting used to for her play the man-hungry Blanche Devereaux. However, she revealed herself to be no slouch at landing men throughout her life (she is currently on hubby number six and Bea Arthur was quoted as having said, “Rue always puts on a great wedding!”), even taking part in a steamy affair with a pre-fame Brad Davis of Midnight Express. A lifelong animal lover (and tireless advocate for them and for other charitable causes), she also related some of her feelings in that area.

In 2008, a shockingly heavy and bloated-looking McClanahan appeared in twelve episodes of the cable series Sordid Lives, a prequel to the chicken-fried play and movie of the same name. Though it wasn’t always easy to see the formerly vivacious and sassy actress in a part like this, she retained her sense of comic abandon, her character enjoying a late in life love affair with a neighbor who had no legs!

Anyone who enjoys Rue and who has a couple of hours to spare should check out her zesty, candid and amusingly snarky Archive of American Television interviews, presented in 5 parts. Her entire career is recounted and she pulls no punches in discussing the projects and personalities she dealt with and/or enjoyed over the decades. She’s delightful throughout, practically giving a performance of a sort, though she’s clearly shooting from the heart and why not?!

She does lament to a degree the fact that she has played hundreds and hundreds of roles in her life and yet will always be “Blanche,” but what a role to be remembered for, and ultimately, she understands that. It’s not possible to add up the laughs she’s given me over the years through her work as that character.

http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/rue-mcclanahan

Getting Railroaded

Regular visitors to The Underworld can’t help but be aware of my diehard affection for 1970s disaster films. In the wake of genre epics like The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno from Irwin Allen and 20th Century Fox, almost everyone else wanted to try his hand at it as well, since, for a time, disaster at the movies meant box office gold. The Cassandra Crossing was Britain's (and Italy's) answer to the genre and, though it is far-fetched and occasionally ridiculous, it is a thrilling and tense movie.

A thriller on several levels, this concerns a passenger train that has been infected with a deadly (and very nasty) plague. As officials debate the best way to handle this considerable problem, the train hurtles forward to the title locale, a rickety bridge that has been out of service for close to thirty years!

Sophia Loren top-lines (as is no surprise with producer-husband Carlo Ponti in charge) as a divorcee and author who happens to be boarded on the same train as her ex-husband (whom she was married to twice!) Richard Harris is the husband, a noted neurosurgeon. The two lob sarcastic barbs and occasionally poignant lines at each other and attempt a sort of updated Nick & Nora Charles thing. (Ironically, their character names are Jonathan and Jennifer, the monikers of the couple from the later The Thin Man-inspired TV show Hart to Hart and Lionel Stander, Max the conductor in this film, played The Harts’ cohort on the series---ALSO named Max!)

Other passengers board in the typical genre fashion, each with his or her own tics and traits and duties to the story. Ava Gardner, as a wealthy and sarcastic socialite, looks stunning. She ludicrously, but welcomely, appears in a new drop-dead Franka ensemble with complimentary jewelry for almost every scene. Nothing about her character is realistic, but she adds great style and class to the film. Yes, she’s older (this is post-Earthquake), but she’s made up and photographed well throughout most of the movie and her undeniable sparkle is captured occasionally.

Martin Sheen plays her latest boy-toy and they share a rather kinky, Oedipal relationship. Sheen’s full of edge and neuroses, countered by the jaded and blasé attitude of Gardner.

O.J. Simpson plays a mysterious priest. This was filmed, of course, back when he was an amiable, highly admired ex-football star turned actor (of a sort.) It’s sometimes difficult to watch him in his old films now in the wake of what’s come since then. He’s likeable here, but certainly not very good acting-wise.

Famed acting coach and director Lee Strasberg is absolutely excruciating as a sort of male Estelle Getty from The Golden Girls, omnipresently appearing everywhere when one least expects (or wants) it, trying to sell watches to the passengers and applying other schtick. He gets somewhat better toward the end when his character exposes some poignant characteristics, but his appearance here is mostly embarrassing.

Ann Turkel (doubtlessly on board due to her off screen relationship with Harris) is a hippie singer, one of several in a small gaggle, who warbles a truly awful song, which stops everything in its tracks (pun intended.)

Also on board is the infected terrorist who is spreading the horrific plague everywhere he goes (which is hilariously punctuated by ominous sounds and scenes of him coughing into the train's food, etc...) Then there’s Alida Valli, who, in better days, was a glamorous Italian film star and even a Hitchcock leading lady in The Paradine Case, but now is playing a somewhat dim grandmother in thick glasses.

Meanwhile, off the train and at a command center, Burt Lancaster, as a stern army colonel, and Ingrid Thulin (who exists solely as a verbal punching bag for Lancaster), as a dedicated doctor, argue over the best course of action. She fights for the rights and lives of the passengers. He sees them as already expired casualties of an unfortunate situation. Eventually, it is decided to direct the train to an old concentration camp in Poland, but first it must traverse the The Cassandra Crossing!

The film contains some very impressive aerial camera work (it really should be viewed in widescreen) and doesn't take long at all to begin it's feeling of dread and suspense. Though a lot of the drama is diffused by clumsy editing, inane dialogue, agonizing bit players, lax rear projection (but not too often) and lazy acting, there is enough good in the film to overcome this.
Immeasurably helpful is Jerry Goldsmith's Italian-flavored, chug-chug score, which wrings every ounce of excitement it can out of the visuals. It's also fun to see Loren in a film of this type, pitching in and holding her own with Harris in the action scenes. There is a level of emotion in several instances that helps this rise above some other disaster flops like When Time Ran Out and Avalanche. Quite a lot happens in this film. The plague would be enough, but then there's some gunplay and the weakened bridge! The situation in the film is serious and threatening and isn't relieved until almost the fade-out, so a few missteps along the way can be forgiven.

The Dustin Hoffman-Rene Russo film Outbreak shares more than a few similarities with The Cassandra Crossing, so fans of that one may like this, too. Still, there’s something about the bleak, aged, Euro-look of Crossing that adds to the cynicism of the situation and makes for a less slick, showy product than Outbreak was.

Containing an international cast, The Cassandra Crossing was able to be marketed all over the world with varied selling points. Check out this foreign poster in which Loren’s startled expression takes center stage and the garish colors promise an explosive scenario whereas the US version at the top of this post emphasizes the stars at the top and a darker (and probably more accurate) tone. As an aside, the way Soph maneuvers her way through the aisles of the passenger cars is the way I have forever since behaved when traveling through a train, a plane or even a bus!

Whew, O'Brian!

Born with the decidedly less marquee-friendly name of Hugh Krampe, today’s hunk is better known to film and TV audiences as Hugh O’Brian.

Mr. O’Brian left college at age 19 to join the US Marines in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor. When finished with his duty there, he landed in Los Angeles where he performed in theatre until securing a contract with Universal Studios where he was kept quite busy.

As part of their publicity machine, he was paired up with their other contracted actors for various pictures, photo-ops, manufactured stories and the like. My favorite is a feature on five Universal actors spending the day at a bathhouse where they steamed, sauna-ed, ate, were rubbed down, showered and played cards, all while dressed in only white towels or less! He may or may not have fully appreciated the benefit of hanging out naked with Rock Hudson, Scott Brady, Tony Curtis and John Bromfield, but I would have!

Very often, O’Brian was relegated to supporting roles, frequently in westerns, and, thanks to his lean, trim physique, he was sometimes put to use in Indian roles with names like Red Buck and Kajeck and subjected to some garish styling (as in this photo!) (He actually shaved his head for this role in Seminole, though, and wore a wig for several films after!) Even later, after he had become a little more famous, he would still be saddled with an awful wig in the Jeffrey Hunter-Robert Wagner western White Feather.

Though he had no numbers of his own, he appeared in the bigger-than-life Irving Berlin musical spectacle There’s No Business Like Show Business in 1954. He would later appear on occasional variety shows and in stage musicals such as Guys and Dolls, which he took to Vietnam and other Asian countries in order to entertain the troops there.

In 1955, however, he took on what would become his signature role. The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp ran for seven seasons and made O’Brian a household name. Appearing in more than 150 episodes, he almost always sported a fitted, patterned vest and a distinctive flat-topped black hat. This image would be plastered on everything from comic books to magazine covers to endless publicity shots.

He was chosen for the role based on his vague resemblance to the real life lawman, though the series understandably took quite a bit of liberty with the facts. To a certain generation of viewers, Wyatt Earp is synonymous with Hugh O’Brian. And to a faction of that generation, the sight of Hugh in his trim pants, wielding a rifle or a long-barreled pistol is an indelible one. He would reprise the role much later in a bit of stunt cameo casting on the TV series Guns of Paradise and the telefilm The Gambler Returns: Luck of the Draw.

His signature series ended in 1961 and, though he had worked in films and other TV projects all along, he was free to work in features again without the constraints of a heavy schedule. One of his successes at this time was the “coffee, tea or me” romantic comedy Come Fly With Me, in which he was a pilot romancing stewardess Pamela Tiffin (one of three ladies featured in the movie.)

Mr. O’Brian remained a bachelor throughout the course of his acting career and he also tended to avoid scandal of any kind. One thing he possessed in spades, which is now as rare as The Ark of the Covenant, was manners. His frequent appearances on Password demonstrated his gentlemanly qualities as he stood up and greeted the female players he was paired with. He tended to be scheduled with amusingly wacky fellow celebs such as Eva Gabor or Carol Channing, which often left him bemused.

O’Brian, always a very trim and athletic man, had shown his body off when playing Indians and others, but he most often was dressed up to the neck in beautiful suits and ties. However, in 1965, he filmed what would be a monumental time capsule in preserving his extreme hunk-a-tude, Love Has Many Faces. A splashy, sometimes garish soap opera set in Acapulco, the story concerns Lana Turner’s character, a jaded millionaire, who is married to an ex-gigolo (Cliff Robertson), is pursued by another gigolo (O’Brian) and has just had an inadvertent hand in the death of still another one!

If Hugh O’Brian never did a single other project of any kind in his career, he would be a star in The Underworld based on this film alone. Radiating confidence, sexuality and manliness, he saunters around the film with his shirts wide open or in a towel or, most memorably, in some of the briefest swimming briefs imaginable. He skis, performs beach acrobatics and slithers around daring anyone to find even one hint of fat or flab anywhere on him.

Like most of Poseidon’s favorite male stars, he also possesses a deep, sensuous voice that he uses to try to tempt Lana into betraying her husband (who has his eye on Stefanie Powers anyway!) It’s difficult to see why she keeps resisting!

There are really only three reasons to see this film, but they are good ones. One is to view the stunning Acapulco settings. Another is to enjoy the heralded Million Dollar Wardrobe that Edith Head threw together for Miss Lana. The third and biggest reason is to see Mr. Hugh O’Brian at the zenith of his attractiveness.

Though he wasn’t necessarily making “important” films, O’Brian was starring in mostly watchable and entertaining ones. Another guilty pleasure is the 1965 version of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians, a black and white mystery with a cast of solid supporting actors mixed with flavor of the day starlets.

Set in a snow-covered mountain chalet, there is limited time for beefcake (and Hugh looks great in his stylish 60s sweaters), but he still delivers in a brief bathroom scene. He’s viewed shirtless by another suspect through a keyhole, but also is shown heading to the tub to turn it on as a distraction while he does some spying of his own. Here the keen-eyed audience is allowed a fleeting, covered glimpse of “Little Hugh” who is a) not that little and b) pressing against his pants on his right side.

As the 70s dawned, O’Brian starred in many television movies, a memorable one being Harpy, which concerned his wacko ex Elizabeth Ashley and his beloved Harpy Eagle (the title having duel meaning.) He also attempted another series, this time called Search, with science-fiction elements, but it didn’t catch on completely and was cancelled within seven episodes.

Like many actors of his era, especially ones who hadn’t quite managed to maintain a really important film career, he kept busy on episodic TV like Fantasy Island (the pilot film plus four episodes), The Love Boat and Charlie’s Angels where he portrayed a character very similar to Hugh Hefner, the two men being friends in real life. (Somewhere out there floating around is a 1970s photo of O’Brian, taken at The Playboy Mansion I believe, wearing nothing but a very large tie!)

He appeared in occasional projects (including The Shootist, John Wayne’s final film, becoming the last person Duke ever shot and killed on screen, and a brief role as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “father” in Twins) before calling it quits, for all intents and purposes, in 1994.

The jewel in the crown, however, of this gentleman’s life is his wondrous Hugh O’Brian Youth (HOBY) Leadership Foundation. Inspired during a 1950s visit to Dr. Albert Schweitzer, O’Brian soon set up the program that inspires high school sophomores to develop themselves. It’s been in operation for over fifty years and has affected the lives of, literally, hundreds of thousands of young people. This, and his other many charitable efforts have earned him various awards and the respect of many.

In a startling move, to those unaware of the relationship anyway, Hugh was married for the first time when in his early 80s! Less surprising when you find out that they had been a couple for 18 years prior, it was still an eye-opener to see him tying the knot for the first time while in his 8th decade. An unorthodox ceremony to say the least, it was held in Forest Lawn Cemetery, was presided over by Rev. Robert Schuller and included singing from Miss Debbie Reynolds!

See below a link to the magazine article and photos (be sure to click “continue” at the bottom of the first page) regarding the Universal Studios actors enjoying their day at the Finlandia Baths:

http://themave.com/bijou/50/stagnite1.htm

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EDITOR'S NOTE -11/15/19:  I have never again located the color photo of Hugh wearing only a large tie, but - as luck would have it - I recently acquired the man's autobiographical memoir and there on the back (in sepia tone) was the picture! So I am posting it here for all to see.