The community of people still writing books about classic television is rather small, and I’ve been fortunate enough to meet and/or have some interaction with many of those who do it well. One of them is Ed Robertson, whose books about The Fugitive and The Rockford Files are in my classic TV library, as they should be in yours.
Ed’s latest title is Men of Action: Behind the Scenes of Four Classic Television Series. What makes this book intriguing is that only one of the four series he has selected would be considered a success by the usual criteria – popularity, longevity, etc. Yet all of them contributed something memorable to the TV landscape, and still have fans 50 years later.
The four shows covered are The Magician, The Untouchables, Harry O and Run For Your Life, all of which were (not coincidentally) covered by Robertson in articles he wrote for the magazine Television Chronicles. The book expands on those pieces, and also includes interviews with cast members and creative personnel.
Outside of perhaps The Untouchables, these are shows that were too obscure to have entire books devoted to them, or even to merit a detailed history, even in this internet era when nothing is obscure anymore. It’s a treat to have someone remember them and celebrate them, especially when it happens from a writer that really knows his stuff.
Men of Action answered a lot of questions that I had about these shows but was too lazy to search out the answers myself. Like why did The Magician’s Anthony Blake (Bill Bixby, wonderful as always) stop living and working out of a private plane? Turns out the show’s producers were concerned that having one man fly everywhere by himself would make him unsympathetic, at a time when Americans were waiting in long lines at gas stations during the energy crisis.
And since I always preferred the early episodes of Harry O that were shot in San Diego, I wondered why the series moved to Los Angeles. Ed provides the details, and I guess I can’t blame them now.
Run For Your Life was the series with which I was the least familiar. For several years it has been on my back burner of shows I’ll get to one of these days, maybe because, given the premise and how it ended, there would always be the disappointment of an unfinished status to its narrative. But Ed’s tribute has reinvigorated my interest, and thankfully there are still several episodes on YouTube I will soon be checking out.
Of course I knew The Untouchables, which Ed describes as “simultaneously the most loved and most despised television show of its time.” But once again I learned more about the series that will enrich future repeat viewings.
If you were a fan of these shows, or just curious to know more about them. Men of Action is certainly worth picking up. You can do so here
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