It was late spring in the tropics. A Hollywood production company was in
Singapore to shoot a movie for television - the first such filming to
take place on the tiny island nation in seven years. Enjoying a day off,
members of the cast and crew had sailed offshore to a small coral
formation, where they spent the afternoon eating, drinking and laughing
at one another�s stories about life so far away from home.

Bruce Boxleitner, the star of the TV-movie �Passion Flower� (scheduled
to air Tuesday, Jan. 28, on CBS), was feeling particularly good. He had
dropped some weight in the humid Singapore heat, but he was exercising
daily and the Asian diet seemed to be good for his health. When a flu
epidemic spread through the production company, Boxleitner had been one
of only three people unaffected.

But there was more to his exuberance than that. For years, Boxleitner
had been playing strong-but-shallow leading roles on series like �Bring
�Em Back Alive� and, currently, �Scarecrow and Mrs. King� on CBS. Now,
in a carefully considered career mo�~e, he was portraying a character with
some obvious flaws - a man willing to kill for the woman he Io\es. He
was enjoying the challenge, and his colleagues were praising his work,
saying the part would open new vistas for him.

Then, suddenly, it all threatened to end. Boxleitner was munching away
on his lunch, when a scalding-hot chunk of baked potato lodged in his
throat. He began to panic, desperately gasping for breath. Most of his
friends didn�t notice; others didn�t know what to do.
�I was afraid for my life,� he says, some weeks later, at the Burbank
lot where he films �Scarecrow.� �All I kept thinking was, what a dumb
way to go. I thought, oh, man... I might die right here on this stupid
rocky atoll off Singapore. This is no hero�s death.�

Thanks to a woman familiar with the Heimlich maneuver, Boxleitner is
once again striking heroic poses as Lee Stetson (alias Scarecrow), the
secret agent who teams up to fight crime with his platonic partner, Mrs.
Amanda King (Kate Jackson), on Monday nights. But after Singapore, Bruce
is, professionally at least, a changed man. While he�s lucky to have
survived the trip intact, he�s clearly hoping that his squeaky-clean
image did not.

After just a couple weeks of rest and relaxation at home, Boxleitner -
his throat still scratchy from the near-choking - is back at work on the
�Scarecrow� set. He spends a couple of hours shooting two scenes in
which he and Jackson meet for dinner at an elegant restaurant, then
retreats to his trailer, exhausted. He was out uncharacteristically late
last night at a move premiere, and the lack of sleep has taken the edge
of his normally animated con~ersational style. But before catching a
short nap and heading back outside to shoot his next scene, he tries to
explain why, after years of turning down roles that might cast him in a
less-than-ideal moral light, he agreed to do �Passion Flower� in Singapore.

�I was a bit skeptical at first, for a number of reasons,� he says,
popping a throat lozenge. �I was tired. It was the end of last season,
and the thought of goIng out of the country for a long time didn�t appeal
to me.� He pauses for a moment, and when he speaks again, it�s almost as
if he�s decided to cut through the small talk and get right to the point.
�I�m not putting this show down,� he says of �Scarecrow,� �but by its
very nature, I don�t get the opportunity to have the really romantic
scenes too often. That�s basically why I did �Passion Flower.� We were
looking for something where I could play a different kind of character.
You know,� he says, only half-joking, �Everybody in �Dynasty� is in bed
all the time - I wanted to get my two-cents� worth.�

On �Scarecrow,� chances are it won�t happen. This season, partly at his
request, a new character has appeared as Lee Stetson�s old girl friend
who now works at the United Nations. In addition, the simmering
relationship between Lee and Amanda has shown signs of heating up. But
the possibility of their ever falling in lobe will probably always
*remain* a possibility - no more, no less, �That�s one ofthe things that
makes the show work,� says Jackson, herself a part owner of the series,
�You�ve got to want to see them get together.�

Their on-screen chemistry, so vital to the show�s success, is no doubt
heightened by their mutual respect of screen. Jackson is an admittedly
demanding actress, who has been labeled hard to work with by colleagues
in the past. But she and Boxleitner genuinely like each other. They
clown around between scenes, and occasionally play tennis together on
weekends. �He�s in control of his life, of his career,� Jackson says,
naming a few reasons for her admiration. �He�s dedicated, loyal. He�s
got a lovely family and a great sense of humor.�

He doesn�t seem to have any problems working with Jackson, and if he
does, he refuses to dwell on them. �You�re not always going to get
along,� he says, �but there�s never been anything devastating. We don�t
have arguments and feud with each other, either. Katie and I have been
[practically] living together on this show for a while now. You know,
you don�t have a hell of a lot to say every day. But it obviously works
between us.�

At 35, Boxleitner still enjoys doing �Scarecrow,� but he felt the need
to branch out during the summer hiatus. �If you�re going to be a leading
man,� he points out, �you've got to be able to get the girl.�

In case you haven�t noticed, he certainly *looks* like a leading man.
Six-feet-2, with blondish hair, green eyes and the requisite strong chin,
he�s a logical heir to Robert Redford�s mantle of wholesome masculinity.
His demeanor fits the part, as well. Boxleitner sometimes does his own
stunts on the show and occasionally gets bumps and bruises, but continues
working anyway. He has a reputation for always giving his best effort,
and for exuding the type of posith~e attitude and good humor that holds
things together in the pressure-cooker atmosphere of day-in, day-out
television work.

To hear his colleagues tell it, the main difference between Boxleitner
and Dudley Do-Right is that Bruce is for real. �He�s a boy scout, he�s
wonderful,� raves executive producer George Geiger. �A real team
player,� says �Passion Flowers executive producer, Doris Keating.
�He�s a super-patriot,� notes his personal manager, Jay Bernstein. �I
have a feeling that if we were in a war, Bruce would be a war hero.�
Applied to Boxleitner, this kind of talk is more than just press-agent
prattle. He has had a thing about larger-than-life heroism ever since
childhood. The oldest of four kids, he remembers building fortresses of
hay on his grandfather�s Mt. Prospect, Ill., farm, pretending to be Errol
Flynn. He tried never to miss an episode of *Gunsmoke* and caught every
Western at the local movie house, where he idolized strong, silent types
like Gary Cooper and John Wayne.

Boxleitner first got his own shot at stardom as a teenager, when he was
thrust into the lead of his high school production of �My Fair Lady,�
because another student came down with mononucleosis. With only four
hours of rehearsal and an untrained singing ~.vice, Boxleitner pulled it
off, winning not only audience approval, but his leading lady as well.
�I was the hero of the day,� he says, using a fa~vrite word to recall
the occasion. �We kissed at the end, gazed into each other�s eyes as the
music came up. God, it was something!�

The girl went back to her mono-stricken boy friend at the end of the
school year, but Boxleitner had found something more important than his
fleeting romance. After earning his diploma in summer school, he headed
to Chicago, where he studied for three years at the famed Goodman
Theatre. At another Chicago theater, he landed a part in a play that
eventually took him to Broadway, where the play bombed. He stuck around
to do summer stock, then headed to Hollywood, where he soon landed a
succession on against-type roles as killers, rapists and other assorted weirdos.

It was around this time that Boxleitner considered changing his name to
something that would look a little more natural on a marquee - something
more reminiscent of Gable or Flynn or Wayne. He couldn�t do it. �To
tell you the truth,� he says, �my grandfather was still alive then - he
was a dairy farmer - and he�d have never understood why I would be
ashamed of my name.�

The move would have been unnecessary anyway. While working on �The
Macahans,� a TV-movie that spawned the short-lived but critically
acclaimed series *How the West Was Won,* two things happened to change
Boxleitner�s life for the better. First, he fell in love with and
married Kathryn (Kitty) Holcomb, the actress playing his character�s
sister. And second, he caught the attention of Jay Bernstein, the man
who helped turn Suzanne Somers, Farrah Fawcett and Linda Evens into
household names. Bernstein and Boxleitner agreed there were not enough
strong male heroes around for kids to look up to, and soon Boxleitner was
playing the kind of roles prescribed by his childhood fantasies.

Now he lives with Kitty, their sons, Sam, 5 years old, and Lee David 2
months, in a ranch-style home in a wgged part of California�s San
Fernando Valley. Kitty gave up acting, temporarily at least, to be a
homemaker and to help her husband with his career. They have three
horses, two goldfish and a dog, and keep Western knickknacks - including
a bronze sculpture of the Duke - around the house.

The relationship is obviously a solid one. Boxleitner spends most of
his free time at home and can be found on weekends riding around the
neighborhood on one of his quarter horses. He also runs 15 to 20 miles a
week, works out on his rowing machine and reads everything he can get his
hands on about military history. He and Kitty are both active in charity
work and entertain guests at home only sporadically - usually one or two
at a time.

If it all sounds a little dull by Hollywood standards, it is. But now
that Boxleitner has established himself, he�d like to develop the wider
range he worked in for years on stage and in smaller television roles.
�I still love doing the hero stuff,� he says, �but I don�t want people to
think I�m some cartoon hero, either. It�s just necessary to broaden a
bit.�

So he�s starring opposite Barbara Hershey in �Passion Flower,� a *noir*
treatment of lust, betrayal and murder, not unlike the film �Body Heat,�
or any of James M. Cain�s stories. The movie includes several love
scenes - some of which are said to be pretty steamy by television
standards. In fact, Boxleitner was called on to play so many sequences
without a shirt, he requested that his rowing machine be shipped to him
overseas.

The role is such a departure for Boxleitner that �he was extremely
reluctant at first,� to take it, says producer Doris Keating. �He read
the script, and Jay Bernstein called me up and absolutely tore into me.
He said, �Doris, how dare you send me a script like this? I�m about to lose my client.��

Before any damage was done, Boxleitner's wife persuaded him to reread
the script with a more open mind. �At first, he really didn�t think the
character had any decent values,� Kitty recalls, �but I felt differently,
so he gave it another try. On the second reading, he decided this was
it.�

It�s not unusual for Boxleitner to depend on his wife for this type of
direction. She talks to Bernstein by phone at least twice a day, trading
up-to-the-minute news that could affect her husband�s career. In fact,
the three have become so close over the years that the Boxleitners named
his manager a godfather to both their children. �I guess, in that way at
least, they�re stuck with me for life,� says Bernstein, some of whose
previous manager-client relationships have been notoriously brief.

Only time will tell if �Passion Flower� catapults Boxleitner�s career to
a new level or turns off his more conservative fans, but don�t expect
Boxleitner to change much in either case. �He doesn�t have any
pretenses,� says Doris Keating. �Here he is, one of the best looking men
in the business, and he doesn�t even realize it. It�s a pleasure to see
how well balanced he is.�
He also uses his own name. His grandfather would have wanted it that
way.

�

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