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was 99 and 44/100 percent soap opera: I told Pamela. She knows the truth. You had not right! Pamela's going to have an abortion. You're lying�. She wouldn't do that! She is if you don't stop her. You're the only one who can. NO!�. � |
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Visually, the scene was sheerest cliffhanger. It overhung , as a matter of fact, a sheer cliff, facing out over an evergreen bowl - nestled beneath snow-tipped peaks - called Grizzly Flats.
The Lorimar Productions cameras and crew were ensconced safely at road level in top of the scarp, looking down. The two actors, James Franciscus and Sam Elliot, delivered their sudsy lines as they clung to bushes and outcroppings some 20 feet below. They studiously avoided looking down the 700-foot drop, straight to the floor of the canyon. It was the climax of an episode in the new ABC series "Doc Elliot." One slip, one klutzy move, and it could have been the climax also of the acting career of the series' star James Franciscus. Among the kibitzers peering into the abyss from behind the camera was a uniformed Los Angeles County fireman there to monitor fire regulations. "I wouldn't do what they're doing down there," the fireman said, "for a million bucks. That's not rock, that's shale they're hanging onto!" A U.S. Forest Ranger from the local station, standing nearby, shook his head in agreement, and disbelief. A station wagon skidded to a stop at the Grizzly Flats shooting side, delivering a brace of stuntmen in costumes matching Franciscus' and Elliot's . When he was told that the doubles had arrived and could take over, Franciscus flashed his megawatt grin through the branches of this life-line alder bush and yelled up the slope. "Save 'em for the close-ups!" Mainly to relieve the anxiety of the topside people, Franciscus relented to the point of using concealed safety rope. (Elliot was at this point snugged securely in a little hummock.) The grip who rigged the rope said, "Hey, Jim - I'll throw you down both ends and you'll be doubly safe!" A make up man dropped a water atomizer to the mountain-climbing actors, for instant sweat. "Spritz yourselves down and let's go." Said director James Sheldon. When the squirt gun was tossed back up, it was intercepted by a prop man. A water fight broke out, make up vs. props. Grips and gaffers entered the action, filling paper cups at the fountain head on the front bumper of a camera truck. At the same time, a friendly running feud between the star and crew, which began when they all worked together on ABC's old "Longstreet" - was re-ignited. Franciscus and camera operator Ronnie Francis had been keeping daily tabulation of bad marks, according to whether on-camera or behind-the-camera goofs caused scenes to be re-shot. At the end of each week the side with the most marks bought the winning side a bottle of booze. Before Sheldon called for action, Francis warned Franciscus: "Watch it, Jim. If you fall off that cliff, that's a bad mark." "Yeah," said Franciscus, "but if you don't keep me in focus all the down, that's a mark against you guys." It was that kind of day. The sun was blazing over the mountains in a hard blue smogless sky.
"Doc Elliot" is the series that dares to ask the question: can a handsome, successful surgeon form a New York City Hospital find happiness as a general practitioner in a small, non-mining town out West? If the show succeeds, it will be, for one thing, a Triumph of the Disclaimer. Executive producer Lee Rich ("The Waltons," "Apple's Way") had said earlier that Doc Elliot could best be described as what it was not. "It's laid in the wide open spaces of Colorado, but it's not a Western. It's about a doctor, but it's not a medical. Benjamin Elliot is a good GP, but he's not Superdoc. He gets deeply involved with people, but a buttinsky, he ain't" Producer Sandor Stern, himself an M.D. who put in five years of general practice in Toronto, added: "Our guides in putting together episodes for "Doc Elliot" are mostly don'ts. We don't do the disease of the week; we don't have the obligatory operation-room scene; we don't get fascinated with medical hardware. Our prime concern is with this New York City fish-out-of-water and the strange - strange to him - people he has to deal with in the mountains One matter on which there have been no disclaimers, dissensions or caveats is the casting of James Franciscus as "Doc Elliot" All down the line, since the pilot script was delivered to Lorimar over a year ago, he has been the first and only choice to play the fish-out-of-water in the non-Western nonmedical Western. Why the unanimity about Franciscus? His looks? The answer would be yes - if the popular image of a country doctor, a timber-line GP who administers to a territory of 600 square miles out of a camper, were that of a cool, lean, blue-eyed, golden-created Adonis with the smile of a soft-sell evangelist. On the other hand, his looks do bolster the fish-out-of-water premise, especially when juxtaposed against the craggier features of the series regulars Noah Beery Jr. and Bo Hopkins, and guest stars like Royal Dano and Will Greer. This is known as "going for contrast," or "casting against the part." In this case it is also casting against the player. By all rights, James Grover Franciscus shouldn't be an actor at all, much less the faded-denium role of Doc Elliot. His background to the delight of his irony-mongering biographers over the past 19 years is, to say the least, "privileged." St. Louis Social Register; Ivy League (Yale University, English major); brother in real estate; stepfather in Wall Street. While producer Stern agreed that Franciscus' good looks and button down style help establish him as a friendly alien in Gideon Colorado, he didn't think that was the ultimate reason Franciscus was so right for the part. Franciscus was so right for the part, "Doc Elliot" is human. He makes mistakes. He's vulnerable. And Jimmy has that quality of vulnerable in his boyishness. He makes women want to mother him." Contrast? Vulnerability? The answer was still not all in. Why, then, was Franciscus also so right for the leading parts of Detective Halloran in "Naked City", Russ Andrews in "The Investigators" and for the title roles in "Mr. Novak" and "Longstreet?" The true answer would seem to lie within the impressive roster of credits. James Franciscus is quite simply, a man for all series. He is the Quintessential Series Actor (QSA). QSA is a category of performer as new as the medium of television - and as old as certain aspects of the craft, as the stock-company trouper and the prewar stars of radio serials and B movies. The QSA loves his work and works hard at it. He is altogether reliable, punctual, self-controlled, energetic, attentive, affable, and thoroughly knowledgeable in both sides of the camera. He is professionally agile: transportable from scene to scene, episode to episode, series to series, always landing on his feet. Franciscus, moreover, is eminently palatable to the viewing public. He is seldom a source of gossipy nuggets in the trade papers. He is out of bounds to the fan magazines. He has never been seen barefoot in public. He has never written an as-told-to expose, nor taken the stump for the environment or the American Indian. He is not given to posturing on talk shows. He's not only a QSA, but one in partnership with a "hot shop" - Lorimar Productions. A class guy, as they might say in the studio commissaries, in a quality show. Quality, in this case means that the people in "Doc Elliot" will look "real." In the background will be "real" mountains (even though the San Gabriels of Southern California will be standing in for the Rockies of Southern Colorado). The soapiest of scenes will hopefully be redeemed by the homely touches that are the hallmark of the Waltonfolk of Lorimar - here a mumble, there a smudge, there a stumble. The questions remains, how "real" is James Franciscus? The answer: quite. He is a very private person. As an interviewee he is a man of well-chosen words, antecedents and teeth. Yet, despite his outward self-control, he has an ingenuous delighted-with-life quality. While waiting for the cliff-clutching scene to be set up, earlier, Jim had leaned back in his director's chair, tilted his head to get the full sun, closed his eyes and chuckled. "You know, I'm doing right now, at 40, what I've wanted to do ever since I was 3 years old. This is it man! There's no place I want to go back to. Especially school. How I hated that prep-school syndrome. So unreal-locked up for seven years in a phony all-male society." He lifted his arms towards the opposing rim of Big Tujunga Canyon. "I have to be where I can spread my wings." Franciscus does his soaring, however, within well-defined perimeters. When he's working on a series his life is an immutable routine. Up at 5 or 6 in the morning. A 10 to 12-hour day at the Burbank Studios or on location. Home for late dinner with his wife Kitty, good nights to his three daughters, Jamie (12), Kellie (10), and Korie (1) - all IE's - and so to bed. "Weekends I spend recharging and cleaning out the cobwebs. Saturday and Sunday mornings I work on my next script. Afternoons I play tennis. Pretty exciting, huh? Saturday nights, though is when I go bananas." Aha! Goes bananas, eh? "Well-you know - few friends over, some good food, maybe a little cup of cheer�" James Sheldon, director, "Jimmy's two scripts ahead. He's in full control- that 's why he's doing his own stunt work and feeling so frisky." The obvious question was: what does Jimmy do when he's not in control? "He blows his cool." What manifestation does that take? "Well, his smile gets a little muscle-bound. But you'd never notice it unless you've worked with him as long as I have." The scene was finished, and Franciscus was hauled back up to the horizontal world after nearly two grueling hours of verticality. I asked him what he thought about between takes. "Oh, mostly about 'Doc Elliot.' The role itself, tomorrow's scenes, next week's script." "And wondering about the series' success? How long it will run?" I asked. "Oh, no," He said, "I never think about a series' success in terms of longevity. What does concern me is my longevity. I've been at it since 1955 and I'm still here. What I am in this business is a survivor." |
