Tom Selleck life and biography

Thomas William "Tom" Selleck is an American actor and film producer, best known for his starring role as Hawaii-based private investigator Thomas Magnum on the 1980s television show Magnum, P.I.. He also plays Police Chief Jesse Stone in a series of made-for-TV movies based on the Robert B. Parker novels.


He has appeared extensively on television in roles such as Dr. Richard Burke on Friends and A.J. Cooper on Las Vegas. In addition to his series work, Selleck has appeared in more than fifty made for TV and general release movies, including Mr. Baseball, Quigley Down Under, Lassiter and his most successful movie release Three Men and a Baby, which was the highest grossing movie in 1987.

Selleck's first TV appearance was as a college senior on The Dating Game in 1965 and again in 1967 – he lost both times. Soon after, he appeared in commercials for products such as Pepsi-Cola.

He began his career with bit parts in smaller movies, including Myra Breckinridge and The Seven Minutes. He also appeared in number of TV series, mini-series and TV movies. Selleck also had a recurring role in the 1970s as "too good to be true" private investigator Lance White in The Rockford Files. Lance was very trusting and always lucky, much to the annoyance of Jim Rockford, the show's star private eye played by James Garner. White would frequently say to Rockford, "Don't worry Jim, clues will turn up" and then a clue would just turn up, much to Rockford's consternation, for whom obtaining clues required hard work and hard knocks. Selleck's character was based on one played in Garner's earlier TV series Maverick (1957) by Wayde Preston in that series' highest-rated episode, "The Saga of Waco Williams."

Selleck, an accessible but relatively untested actor, spent years receiving little interest from the entertainment industry. His big break came when he was cast in the lead role as Thomas Magnum in Magnum, P.I.. The Magnum, P.I. producers would not release the actor for other projects, and, thus, Selleck had to pass on the equally enticing film project for the title role of Indiana Jones, which then went to rising star Harrison Ford. The career-influencing choice between the role of Indiana Jones vs. Magnum P.I. actually haunted Selleck so much that before making the decision, he consulted his best friend on what to do. Together they came to the conclusion that taking the high road and honoring the first contract with Universal Studios was the career-savvy direction. It turned out that the shooting of the pilot for Magnum was delayed for over six months (due to a writers' strike) which would have enabled him to complete the role as Indiana Jones, if he had had the option to do so.

He starred in the 1979 TV movie Concrete Cowboy with Jerry Reed. Selleck starred in a number of film roles during and after Magnum; among the most notable were as an acrophobic police detective in Runaway, as a stand-in father in Three Men and a Baby, and as an American 19th century sharpshooter in the Australian western Quigley Down Under – a role and film that he considers one of his best. His other films include Three Men and a Little Lady, High Road to China, Lassiter, Coma,Her Alibi, An Innocent Man, Folks!, Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, Mr. Baseball, In & Out and The Love Letter.

In the early 1990s, Selleck held a press conference to say that he was not gay after a Queer Nation poster allegedly tried to out him. He also sued a tabloid for printing a story that he was gay, which later was settled with an apology and a financial sum that Selleck donated to the University of Southern California journalism program to promote ethics in media. He insisted that he was not anti-gay, however, saying "I would have had the same problem, felt the same kind of righteous indignation, if somebody had said I was having an affair with some actress I had never met," and would later portray an openly gay character in In & Out with Kevin Kline.

Selleck is an avid outdoorsman, and a marksman and knowledgeable firearms collector. These interests led him to leading man cowboy roles in Western films, starting with his role as cowboy and frontier marshal Orrin Sackett in the 1979 film The Sacketts, opposite Sam Elliott, Jeff Osterhage, and Western legends Glenn Ford and Ben Johnson. He was easily accepted playing a cowboy, and the roles seemed to "fit" him. He followed The Sacketts with The Shadow Riders in 1982, then portraying a cat burglar in 1930's London in Lassiter in 1984. Quigley Down Under is probably one of his best known Western films, however he also won a "Western Heritage Award" for his 1997 role in Last Stand at Sabre River. His last two cowboy roles to date were in the 2001 TNT movie Crossfire Trail (based on a Louis L'Amour novel of the same name), and the 2003 motion picture Monte Walsh.

He most recently appeared in the film Killers, along with Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher.

Selleck played the role of Thomas Magnum in 1980 after six failed TV pilots. Magnum was a former U.S. Navy Officer, a veteran of a special operations unit in the Vietnam War, who had resigned his commission with the USN Office of Naval Intelligence ONI, and became a private investigator living in Hawaii. The show would go on for eight seasons and 162 episodes until 1988, winning him an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1984. Selleck was famous for his moustache, a Hawaiian-style aloha shirt, a Detroit Tigers baseball cap, and the Colt Model 1911A1 .45 ACP Caliber pistol his character carried. Magnum drove a Ferrari 308GTSi in the series. The model became so identified with the role that Ferrari fans now refer to the red-painted model as a "Magnum" Ferrari.

Selleck has confirmed that he is the most popular choice by fans to play the role of Magnum in the rumoured upcoming Magnum P.I. movie.

Throughout the late nineties, Selleck played the role of Richard, Monica's boyfriend, in the hugely successful TV series Friends. Richard was a physician (ophthalmologist) who was a friend of Monica's parents, and at first the relationship was hidden from her parents. The relationship eventually ended over Richard's reluctance to commit to raising a family, though Selleck did make a few extra appearances in later shows.

In February 1998, Selleck accepted the lead role in a sitcom for CBS called The Closer. In it he played Jack McLaren, a legendary publicist heading up a brand new marketing firm. His costars included Ed Asner, David Krumholtz, and Penelope Ann Miller. Despite the high pedigree, and the expectations for his first series since Magnum, P. I., low ratings caused the show to be canceled after ten episodes.

Since 2005, Selleck has starred in the role of transplanted lawman Jesse Stone in a series of made-for-TV movies based on Robert B. Parker's novels. To date, the series comprises seven films, with the seventh released on May 22, 2011. In addition to his portrayal of the films' protagonist, Selleck also acts as producer for the series. The fifth film, Jesse Stone: Thin Ice, was not adapted from Parker's novels, but rather an original story by Selleck.

He joined the cast of the NBC drama Las Vegas in the season-five premiere on September 28, 2007. He played A.J. Cooper, the new owner of the Montecito Casino. He replaced James Caan who left the cast in the same episode. This is Selleck's first regular role on a drama show since he played Thomas Magnum on Magnum, P.I..

Blue Bloods is an American police procedural/drama series on CBS, filmed on location in New York City. Frank Reagan (Selleck) is the Police Commissioner; the series follows the Reagan family of police officers with the New York City Police Department. The show premiered on September 24, 2010.

Selleck has also appeared in a number of made-for-TV movies in recent years. In particular, he has sought to help bring back to popularity the western, often playing one of that genre's typical characters but thrust into a modern context.
Selleck was offered the lead role of Mitch Buchannon in Baywatch but turned down the role because he did not want to be seen as a sex symbol. The role eventually went to David Hasselhoff.

Surprising many of his fans, Selleck unexpectedly played the role of General Dwight D. Eisenhower in A&E's 2004 made-for-TV movie Ike: Countdown to D-Day. The movie showed the planning, politics, and preparation for the 1944 Invasion of Normandy, and Selleck was critically lauded for playing a cool, calm Eisenhower.

Most recently, Selleck has appeared in a recurring role on the acclaimed ABC drama Boston Legal as Ivan Tiggs – the troubled ex-husband of Shirley Schmidt (Candice Bergen) – and as novelist Robert B. Parker's character Jesse Stone in several CBS made-for-TV movies, earning a 2007 Emmy nomination for Jesse Stone: Sea Change.

In 2001, Selleck played the lead role of Murray in a Broadway revival of Herb Gardner's comedic play A Thousand Clowns. It ran for only two months. Critics, though far from uniformly negative about Selleck's performance, generally compared it unfavorably to that of Jason Robards, Jr., who won awards in the 1960s for playing the character on the stage and in a movie version. (It remains the role with which Robards is most identified.) Playwright Gardner, however, actually preferred Selleck to Robards in the part, and even said that Selleck was the way he had always envisioned Murray.

Selleck was married to model Jacqueline Ray from 1970–1982, a marriage during which he adopted her son, Kevin (born 1966), from a previous marriage.
On August 7, 1987, Selleck married Jillie Mack.They have one daughter, Hannah Margaret Mack Selleck (born December 16, 1988). The family lives in Freedom, California, and Thousand Oaks, California.

Selleck lives on an avocado ranch. The following quote is from a Good Housekeeping interview titled "Man of the House: Tom Selleck", "So I like to get outside and work on the farm, from fixing roads to clearing brush. I hate going to the gym, so sweating outdoors sure beats sitting on a stationary bike staring at my navel. And I work cheaper than anyone I could hire to do it."

He is an accomplished indoor and beach volleyball player playing the outside hitter position for the Outrigger Canoe Club, Honolulu. His adopted son, Kevin Shepard attended Selleck's alma mater, University of Southern California and became a All-American in 1990. Outrigger Canoe Club team mate Dennis Berg was quoted in the Summer 2011 issue of Volleyball USA magazine saying of Selleck, "Tom was a great team mate, appreciative of being included with such a talented and experienced group, practicing and playing hard when his Magnum schedule permitted." he continued saying "He was very patient with all of us, and we relished the big crowds that replaced the usual sparse number of player fiends and spouses at the national tourney matches."

Selleck is an avid ice hockey fan and has been seen attending Los Angeles Kings games at the Staples Center. He lists Anze Kopitar and Alexander Frolov as two of his favorite players. He was once a minority owner of his favorite baseball team since childhood, the Detroit Tigers.

One of Selleck's Magnum co-stars, Larry Manetti, in his 1996 memoir Aloha Magnum, was lavish in his praise of Selleck. Manetti lauded Selleck for his extraordinary work ethic on a grueling show (shooting for hours in the midday Hawaiian sun), Selleck's work with Hawaiian charities and his willingness to go to bat for the program's cast and crew members.

In February 2009, Selleck joined the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund as national spokesman for the new Education Center being built on the National Mall.

In 2010, he appears as "Commissioner Frank Reagan" in the drama series, Blue Bloods (2010) on CBS.

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