„You Have to Call Him”. Frank Sinatra Had One Condition to Play in Magnum P.I. TV Series
Frank Sinatra turned out to be a fan of Magnum P.I., however, despite expressing a desire to appear in the TV series, its creators first had to meet the musician's condition.
Magnum P.I. was a hit in the 1980s, and the series starring Tom Selleck was popular with viewers and apparently also with big-name stars who wanted to take part in the production. One of them was Frank Sinatra, who made an interesting condition, even though it was he himself who wanted to appear in Magnum P.I. However, the idea of his participation seemed interesting enough to everyone to agree to meet his expectations.
During an interview with CBS, Selleck talked about how Sinatra told his Magnum P.I. co-star Larry Manetti that he was a fan of the TV show and would like to appear in it.
Larry comes to me and says, “Frank wants to do the show”. “But he wants to be asked, so you have to call him”. And he wanted to do it right away. So I said [to Sinatra], 'Well, we're gonna have to write it for you. What do you wanna do?' He said, 'Oh, I don't care. Just make sure I get to beat somebody up.
And that's how it came to that Sinatra appeared in the 17th episode of the 7th season of Magnum P.I., as retired police sergeant Michael Doheny. This was the musician's last acting role, in which, according to his wish, he had the opportunity to beat someone up. The interest of a star like Sinatra was further proof of what a hit the series with Selleck was at the time, which helped make him even more popular.
The actor further proved how he cared about this production and the people involved in it, for whom he fought to make sure they received their well-deserved bonuses. To this end, he tricked the directors at CBS.
- “Too cerebral and over-reliant on technique.” Winner of 3 Oscars was Katharine Hepburn's “least favourite actress onscreen”
- “I was crying with laughter.” Christian Bale called “one of his tops” the 28-year-old film, which has only 16% on Rotten Tomatoes
- “Sort of asinine, sort of cliched, sort of unnecessary.” Morgan Freeman refused to film The Shawshank Redemption scene he described as “overkill”
- It went unnoticed, but Simon Helberg from The Big Bang Theory 3 years earlier played almost the same role in the Friends universe
- “How could you do something so fun and be so miserable.” Tom Hardy hated making this movie and has no intention of starring in a similar one