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| TV Guide November 16-22, 1963 IT'S BACK TO SCHOOL FOR A YALE GRAD After losing the 'Dr. Kildare' role to Richard Chamberlain, James Franciscus may make the grade as a high school teacher. by Fritz Goodwin |
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For upward of four years now the Hollywood wise men have been predicting great things for James Franciscus. But the vagaries of TV are far beyond a young actor's control, and the "can't miss" prophecies have never quite come true.
This season, at last, the odds appear to be in his favor. If Franciscus doesn't score the big breakthrough as Mr. Novak in NBC's saga of the high school hallways, he'll have only himself to blame - and Dick Chamberlain. Young Dr, Kildare, that is, Richard Chamberlain gets into the Franciscus act at nearly every turn. In the first place, the physical resemblance between the two is striking, and both are clean-cut from the same wholesome cloth. "There's something steady and reliable about Jimmy - about Dick, too," says director Boris Sagal, who has taken a prominent hand in projecting those qualities onto film and TV tube in both instances. Franciscus lack some of the 6-foot-1-inch stature that Chamberlain claims (indeed he may fall somewhat short of the 5-foot-11 he claims for himself), but he gives away nothing when it comes to the level, blue-eyed gaze, the disarmingly sincere smile, the neatly groomed blond hair and trim physique. Such likenesses aside, the professional images and careers of the pair have been intertwined since before the 'Dr. Kildare' pilot went before the cameras at MGM Studios. Not widely known, or publicized at the time, and since largely forgotten, is the fact that Franciscus was the first choice to to play Dr. Gillespie's promising young intern. E. Jack Neuman, who developed the the show for TV, had decided Franciscus was perfect for the role. Sagal, slated to direct the pilot, agreed. Studio brass concurred. There was one hitch. The pilot had to roll immediately in order to be ready for the next selling season - and Franciscus was riding out the final period of an option that committed him to another series, 'Band of Gold,' which found a sponsor but no network time slot. "I loved the Kildare story, and the script was one of the finest ever written, but I'm one of those people who believe things have a way of working out for the best,"Franciscus says now minimizing his disappointment. Yet he still counts the exact margin by which he missed the coveted role."My Band of Gold' option had just 17 days to go," he recalls. Looking back three years, it is obvious that Franciscus enjoyed a long lead over the ten-unknown Chamberlain, in experience and background. His background ws particularly impressive to Hollywood creator-sellers and Madison Avenue Buyers. At a moment when it counted heavily, he was the genuine Ivy League article, a Yale graduate with impeccable Manhattan social and financial references plus an already respectable list of acting credits. Born in Clayton, MO., Franciscus enjoyed what he remembers as a Tom Sawyerish boyhood of lackadaisical schooling. His big moments came when catfishing and skunk-and muskrat trapping with his older brother John in the Mississippi bywaters. Their mother, a former St. Louis fashion model,once had turned down a Paramount Pictures bid for a Hollywood screen test because of stern family opposition. Their father, a real-estate man, died in an Army Air Corps accident above the Atlantic in WWII. The widowed Mrs. Franciscus later remarried, and the boys moved to New York as the stepsons of Francis LaFarge, Wall Street stockbroker and brother of the late authors Oliver and Christopher La Farge. At Fessenden School in Massachusetts and subsequently at Taft prep in Connecticut, both Franciscus boys went out for football, baseball, track and dramatics. Young Jim made his footlight debut at age 12 as old Ben Gunn in a schoolboy 'Treasure Island.' "I was never a good student until I got to college, and then through blood and sweat I finally managed to catch up with the class," he relates. Majoring in English, he made the dean's list in his senior year at Yale, by which time he had rejected possible futures as a writer or an English teacher and decided to be an actor. He already was well on his way, having worked in summer stock in Massachusetts during summer vacations as well as numerous campus productions. It was in one of the latter that a Walt Disney talent scout caught his performance as 'The Great Gatsby.' This led to a leading role in the film 'Four Boys and a Gun." and parts in such TV shows as 'Studio One' and 'Camera Three' before he finished at New Haven. Soon afterward he turned up as a weekly regular, playing John McIntire's junior plain-clothes partner, in the original half-hour series 'Naked City.' Franciscus bowed out of the New York-produced program after its first successful season, however, choosing to live and work in Hollywood. It is idle but interesting to speculate as to what might have happened if Franciscus, not Chamberlain had answered the first call for 'Dr. Kildare' What actually happened is well known. Dick Chamberlain, as the phrase goes, took off. His fan mail climbed to 12,000-and-more letters a month, which publicity-wise statisticians at MGM will tell you surpasses the volume ever addressed to Clark Gable, Robert Taylor, Van Johnson or anybody else in the Culver City dream factory's long annals. With the great bulk of correspondence coming from the milk-bar set, this represents a degree of popularity rivaling that of the chocolate soda. Would it had been different if he wore the stethescope? Not necessarily. Where Chamberlain's smiling face has become an indispensable adornment of virtually every issue of every teen-oriented fan publication on the U.S. Market (under headlines like "What Dick will Tell the Girl he Loves" and "See Dick Wake Up in the Morning"), Franciscus has put his foot down in advance: He'll sit still for no fan-magazine quotes or pictures. In the selected press interviews he does grant, he demurs at discussion of his friendships or social life. "Not that the guy has anything to conceal. He just has kind of an exaggerated idea of the importance of his conservative image, what with this new schoolteacher series and all," says one reasonably close friend. "Actually, he's a very nice guy - and what else is there to say about him?" He's completely devoted to his wife, family and work, in about that order." In 1960 he married vivacious, auburn-haired Kitty Wellman, daughter of William Wellman. They live in William Holden's former New England-style home in North Holywood, with a 23-month-old daughter, Jamie. A second child is on the way, and family-man Franciscus, 29 has the future well mapped. "We want to have these two children then relax for a while, and then maybe have another two later on," he confided recently over the diet-special lunch in MGM's commissary. "That way we'll have younger kids coming along, and not be left suddenly alone when the older ones grow up." "A very nice boy," echoes Dean Jagger, the skilled veteran who shares top billing in Mr. Novak "Very hard worker, too."Franciscus gives the series a full seven-day week. After five days of shooting he devotes Saturday and Sunday mornings to homework, memorizing the next week's script. On Sunday afternoon he frequently plays tennis at the Beverly Hills Hotel courts and picks up a game with anyone, often actors, of about equal unranked racquet skill; and in the evening barbeques for some of the numerous Wellman Clan. "He's the most conscientious and at the same time most talented young actor to come along since Dick Chamberlain," says executive producer Nueman, making the inevitable comparison. "He was really born to play this English teacher, Mr. Novak." Since Neuman originally found Franciscus perfect for Kildare and now believes he was predestined to be Novak. and since Neuman himself was primarily responsible for both characters, it should not be surprising it the two heroes and their portrayers tend to blur together in the public eye. Such coincidental similarities sometimes have been the key to a TV show's success. On the other hand, as one studio observer cautiously points out, "Chamberlain has been exhibiting this image for two seasons already, and if the public gets fed up, Franciscus may be the one who pays for it." The ratings, of course, will provide the final proof of whether virtue and industry win their just reward. Will Jim take off like Dick did? Another chocolate soda may be a bit too much to expect. Still, the people behind 'Mr. Novak' are hoping for at least a milk shake. |