Bruce Boxleitner - I’m really a pretty nice guy!
Title: Bruce Boxleitner: I’m really a pretty nice guy!
Source: Movie Mirror
Author: Judy Matthews
Date: September 1978
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The psychotic killer stalked his victims mercilessly, leaving a trail of TV violence behind him.
Murders, rapes, kidnappings - he was guilty of just about every crime the script-writers could think of to make a bad guy worse.
Now, believe it or not, the arch-villain has reformed. The onetime favorite meanie of the cop shows has become TV’s newest western hero.
But Bruce Boxleitner sitll shakes a little when he things how close he came to spending the rest of his actor’s life as a fugitive from TV’s most wanted list.
In Hollywood, type casting can be the dead end of a promising career, and it’s to Bruce’s credit that he managed to break out of that confining formula mold. But what is there about Bruce that made producers see him as the perfect criminal type in the first place?
“I wish I knew,” Bruce smiles wryly. :On TV I raped women, killed people, and even sunk a Japanese industrialist in a waterproof box on Hawaii Five-O. I never saw myself as all those terrible people. I’m really a pretty nice guy.”
Actually, Bruce is a nice guy.
And nice-looking, too - tall (6 feet 2), lean (170 pounds), and the perfect picture of the able frontiersman with brown shoulder-length hair for his role as Luke Macahan of ABC’s How the Wast Was Won.
“That part is the best thing that’s happened to me in Hollywood,” Bruce says happily. “For the first time I’m doing something romantic.
“I’ve never really known why it started out the other way. The only reason I could figure is that in episodic TV, the hero is always the star, so the only other good role in the script is the bad guy who stirs up trouble for the hero.
“And if you look at it that way,” Bruce reasons, “I guess bad guys were good for me. Because things happened very fast when I came to Hollywood. I worked a lot, right from the start.”
But even when he was busy being bad, Bruce dreamed of being good. And How the West Was Won is that deam come true.
“I’ve always loved westerns, you see. I guess I’ve seen every western movie you can name,” he says with a wide grin. “I would have gone est if I’d lived back then. In fact, if there’s such a thing as reincarnation, I’d say I must have been there in some other life.”
In this life, though, Bruce has always had one burning ambition, and it wasn’t to hunt indians. He wanted to be an actor.
Born 27 years ago, he grew up as the son of a CPA in Mt. Prospect, Ill., where, as Bruce recalls, “there wasn’t much opportunity to get on a stage.” So, as soon as he finished high school, he decided to bypass college and enroll in Chicago’s famous Goodman Theater.
His first role was lead in a Chicago production of Status Quo Vadis, a show that went on to play in Washington before it quietly folded in New York. When the show closed, Bruce moved into the dinner theater circuit, and a short time later, with sufficient buffet dramas under his belt to build his courage, he decided to try Hollywood.
“I always wanted to do television,” he says.
Soon he was guesting on such shows as Mary Tyler Moore, Gunsmoke, Police Woman, Hawaii Five-O, Baretta and a movie of the week called Cry for Help.
It was the Gunsmoke spot that won him producer John Mantley’s invitation to audition for How the West Was Won. And Bruce remembers it well.
“We’d done three fr four readings and were called back for the finals in John’s office,” he recalls. “I glanced over when I came in, and there he sat - big James Arness - right in front of me.
“It was awesome. He’s such a huge man that the sight of him started me shaking. I grew up with Jim Arness as one of my heros. And I’ve learned woring with him that hero worship was justified. Just being around Jim is an education in iteself.”
How the West Was Won has been the major turning point in Bruce’s life in more ways than one.
It was on the first day of shooting the initial pilor movie for that series that Bruce met the girl of his dreams.
When he first spotted blonde Kathy Holcomb on the set, she was so pretty he thought she must be his leading lady. Then they were introduced. And, as Bruce recalls, it was quite a shock to discover that Kathy was his TV sister.
Now, they’re also related by marriage. Kathy Holcomb has become Mrs. Bruce Boxleitner in real life.
And according to Brice, there’s no doubt they’ll live happily ever after.
“We started going together as soon as met, and it was the real thing right from the start. But we deliberately didn’t marry for two years, because we wanted to be absolutely sure.”
And that slow courtship, Bruce maintains, was the blessing on their merger. “Now it’s bound to lst forever,” he says proudly. “We know each other so well we can weather any storm.”
They were married last May 28, and despite the fact that they work on the same show, there hasn’t been as much on-set togetherness as you might expect.
“We don’t work in the same scenes that much,” Bruce explains. “Jim Arness and I are mostly awa together on our adventures.
“I guess that’s why we just haven’t realized how weird it is that we’re playing brother and sister. But sometimes,” he admits, “we do still have to pinch one another to believe that all this is really going on. At first, you know, everybody was doubtful any of t would last.”
There were, indeed, those who predicted How the West Was Won would never get off the ground. So it was a happy surprise to all concerned when, from that first pilot airing, the show zoomed to the top of the Nielsen charts and stayed there.
And now that he’s an established star of the cowboy-and-Indian stable, Bruce is totally dedicated to doing the best job possible with his often-demanding role. He’s determined to bring “a fully authentic look to my character.” And that’s not as easy as it sounds.
“Westerns are the thoughest shows for actors because you need so many other skills,” Bruce points out.
That’s why he’s spent so much time learning how to shoot and ride that it’s now become second nature. He’s even joined a national organization called The Buckskinners, a group that gets together to live the lifestyle of frontiersmen. Bruce’s initiation was an apprenticeship program which took him on a four-day excursion into the wilds of central California.
“I lived like an 1840’s fur trader, wearing buckskin pants, boots, calico shirts vest and a heavy winter coat,” he recalls. “We slept in a teepee, had marksmanship contests, and cooked over a campfire.”
Fortunately, Bruce wasn’t completely out of his element. He’s always been and outdoorsman. He loves fishing, backpacking, tennis and swimming, and he stays in top condition by running three miles a day through the canyons around his Beverly Hills house.
Occasionally, while he’s jogging Bruce mulls the turn of fate that saved him from a life of TV crime. And that checkered past may be one reasons he’s so determined to be the kind of western hero he admired as a child.
“In my day we looked up to Davy Crockett. Today it’s dope-crazed rock ‘n’ rollers and The Fonz, who’s just a cartoon character. There’s too much of kids playing Baretta, jumping on pushers and pimps when they shouldn’t even know all about all that stuff,” Bruce frowns.
“Kids today need heros to look up to, and I don’t want to sound pretntions, but I hop they’ll find one in Luke Macahan.
No doubt about it: Bruce Boxleitner - TV’s onetime bad guy - has gone straight. And he’s aiming all his energies at staying that way.