TV Guide February 5, 1983

This Actor Must Stick to His Guns - or Give Up His Agent

Meet Bruce Boxleitner, the handsome, competent, but very unknown actor... "When it all comes down to it, what am I in this business for?...I want recognition, I'd like to experience it...Fame is a lure. Posters, all that stuff, that'd be neat."

Meet Kitty Boxleitner, his wife. "I'm aware of the pitfalls fame can cause, but it's something we want because it represents success...So we're going for it."

Meet Jay Bernstein, Boxleitner's super promoter and personal manager. Bernstein, you'll recall, also carved out Farrah Fawcettt's star. "Maximized her potential," as he puts it. Made her the face of the 70's. A media sensation. Suzanne Somers, Kristy McNichol, Linda Evans, Donna Dixon and may others followed, but can Bernstein ever create another start as big as Farrah?

"Bigger," he says.""I've compared myself in my mind to Muhammad Ali, who keeps coming back. I want to keep winning. I cannot rest on my laurels. I'm compelled to keep going."

In the dream factory called Hollywood, the Boxleitners and Bernstein came together by chance--and that was all it took. They met a year and a half ago at a party in Malibu (where else?). Bruce says he was there reluctantly; he's not big on parties. But Kitty--the former Kathryn Holcomb who played his sister in ABC's How the West Was Won, and has since retired to rear their two-and-a-half-year-old son--thought it would be smart for Bruce to get out and be seen. It seemed that nobody in Hollywood knew who he was much less how to pronounce his name. So off the couple went to the party.

Bernstein was at the party that night because much of his business style is derived from his highly visible profile. He wears fancy jewelry and carries a walking stick for purely aesthetic reasons.

As Kitty, a sweet and pretty blonde, recalls: "We met Jay and it was instant clicking. You could feel the electricity that went through. Jay told Bruce what Bruce and I had been discussing for a whole year--that even though he had been working consistently, his career was stagnating, and in this business if you stagnate you die. Bruce felt frustrated. Bruce is a man of action and there was no action. Jay put his finger on it right away."

Indeed, although he had just finished making the high-budget Disney movie "Tron", Bruce was discouraged. He felt the movie's special effects would take star billing, and he was right. No matter how big the movie became, Bruce knew "it wasn't going to be Shakespeare for an actor." Deep down, he was hoping to find someone with "the juice, the know-how "to give his career the direction it lacked.

Raised in Mt. Prospect, Ill., Bruce moved to Los Angeles 10 years ago via Chicago, where he trained and performed theater. He went on to work steadily in episodic TV (Police Woman, Hawaii Five-O) and miniseries (The Last Convertible, East of Eden) and he even appeared in a movie with James Coburn, "The Baltimore Bullet." When Bruce made the TV-movie, "Happily Ever After" several years ago with Suzanne Somers, he saw Bernstein for the first time on the set. "My God", Bruce remembers thinking of the man with the walking stick. "If only one day I could get somebody like that."

Years later, there was Bernstein, in Malibu, staring at him from across the room. The next day, Bruce, Bernstein and Larry Thompson, an entertainment attorney, producer and Bernstein's management partner of three years who has a reputation for driving a hard bargain, met and formalized a deal to handle Bruce.

Many months later, as her husband is toiling away as the star of Bring Em Back Alive, a CBS series based on the life of animal adventurer Frank Buck, Kitty reflects. "Bruce always would have worked," she says. "But now Jay is making him a star, and Larry is making us very rich." (More than two million dollars richer last year, estimates Bernstein.)

Thompson and Bernstein had their own reasons for wanting Bruce to join their stable of stars, which includes Cicely Tyson, William Shatner, Catherine Hicks and 15 others. Thompson and Bernstein both grew up far from the Hollywood axis--Bernstein in Oklahoma City, Okla.; Thompson in Clarksdale, Miss,--yet both were transfixed by the heroes who lit up the Saturday afternoon movie screens, heroes such as Alan Ladd, Clark Gable, Tyrone Power and Gary Cooper.

But who's a kid going to look up to today? they wondered. "It's hard to look up to sports figures because too many of them are negotiating contracts or selling automatic garage-door openers," Bernstein surmised.

"I have a feeling," reasoned Thompson, "that based on the fact that the American public, in an economic depression, voted in as President an actor who rode in on a horse playing John Wayne, combined with the fact that the hottest thing on TV is Tom Selleck, and Harrison Ford is the biggest male box-office star, that we're about to embark on an era, not of beautiful blondes, but of all-American heroes."

"I think we got beautiful-womaned out," concurred Bernstein. "I was probably a part of that, with so much of the blast of Farrah Fawcett, but I also think we'll see very little of the Ôordinary man'"--meaning actors like Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino and Richard Dreyfuss.

"The American public doesn't want social messages. They want high adventure," echoed Thompson. "And the networks are going to be looking for more Tom Sellecks."

No wonder when Bernstein saw the sandy-haired, green-eyed, tall, muscular Boxleitner smiling down on him in Malibu that he said to himself, "That's the guy."

Little did Bernstein know then that Bruce's own experience as an idolater would stand in good stead as the guy millions could potentially idolize. "Bruce loves John Wayne," Kitty reveals one day over a tuna melt. "We own lots of Wayne's movies...Bruce took me to a 48-hour Western film marathon before we were married. I had to grow to learn to love John Wayne." So much so, in fact, that when he died, "we were very sad," Kitty says. And shortly after his death, the Western art collection that fills the Boxleitner ranch house outside Los Angeles, was enlarged by the addition of a 3-foot bronze statue of the Duke that sits proudly in the living room.

All his life Bruce wanted to play John Wayne-type roles. Good guys, with values. "He suffered through the decade of the anti-hero," says his wife. "I don't want Al Pacino's career," says Bruce. "I've always been rooted in history. I prefer parts that get you into costume."

Off screen, John Wayne's image isn't far behind either. Bruce rides horses, collects antique guns, but more to the point, "Bruce believes--this sounds so corny--in our country," says Kitty. "He loves the West. He believes in the institution of marriage and being a father and raising children with good values."

"He's got a wholesome quality," says Frank Cardea, co-executive producer and co-creator of Bring ÔEm Back Alive. "Wholesome is definitely the word."

A lot of people in Hollywood think Bruce also has the makings of a star. "What he has is old-fashioned star appeal," says TV critic Rick DuBrow. "I could see him in the studio days being groomed for romantic leads."

"He has the talent and charisma both" says producer Michael Viner, whose wife, actress Deborah Raffin, worked with Bruce in The Last Convertible. "We're both very big fans of his."

"I am a firm believer it will happen for Bruce--he's a wonderful actor," says casting agent Mike Fenton.""But his visibility hasn't gotten there yet. If you had a Christmas parade on Hollywood Boulevard, you'd have to hang a sign around his neck."

Indeed Bruce hopes his longed-for visibility will come from Bring ÔEm Back Alive, but as it struggles in the ratings, that is questionable. CBS recently kicked the show out of its Tuesday night time slot in hopes it will draw a bigger audience on Saturday evening. ("It was dying a slow death," Bernstein admits. "Here we have a chance to win.")

It took Boxleitner just nine months from the time he joined his new management team till the show went into production. During the gestation, Bernstein saw to it that Bruce only took parts in keeping with The Image. "You never saw John Wayne in a tux or Cary Grant on a horse. I told Bruce that when roles came in for him, even though they may be good acting roles, we were going to ask him to turn them down unless they were heroic."

When a choice part as a Nazi in "Inside the Third Reich" came along, Bernstein said, "No villains." When the lead in the TV-movie, "Happy Endings," a broad romantic comedy, was offered by the network, Bernstein told him, "Pass."

This was hard for Bruce as first. "I think every actor who turns down a role has a natural fear," he says. "It takes so long for the good ones to come along." Nevertheless, he too was keen on building The Image, and went along with Bernstein.

Bruce only took issue with him once, over the part of a rich, playboy race-car driver in the TV-movie, "Bare Essence." Bernstein told him to "grab it"; Bruce wondered why anyone would want to look at him while Linda Evans and Genie Francis (as mother and daughter who were both objects of the race car driver's affections) were on the screen. Besides, where were the guy's values? Bernstein insisted the character was a great romantic hero, and Bernstein won. "Clark Gable didn't want to do "Gone With the Wind", Bernstein smiles.

Bruce jumped when it came to Bring ÔEm Back Alive, a series set in pre-World War II Singapore, in which he'd play the hero week after week, and in costume (jodhpurs and pith helmet), no less. Here was the good guy with the values, the barefisted hero who never hit a man when he was down. Frank Buck stalked wild animals to bring back alive to zoos and circuses around the world, and in the TV version he only wields his gun as a signal, never as a weapon. In short, Frank Buck "stands for everything that is right," declares producer Cardea.

Yet the series offered Bruce more than mom-and-applie-pie heroism. It offered him a piece of the action. Thompson arranged for Bruce to own a percentage of the show along with Bernstein and himself. "I believe an actor deserves a piece of the rock," explains Thompson. "Actors for too long have been treated as children who wear makeup and have merely to be told, ÔBe there at 7, know your lines and stand on the mark.' If an actor has ownership, he has a vested interest to stay. Why would he leave a show he had part ownership in to become an employee for another producer?"

Since all three regard their relationship as a "partnership," it is also less likely that Bruce would shed Bernstein and Thompson...should he suddenly decide their visionary services are no longer needed, as Bernstein's most celebrated clients--Farrah and Suzanne--did once they felt they had outgrown their need for him.

"We're businessmen," says Bruce. "They can't go and dump me, and I can't throw some star fit and walk off. It's not like Larry and Jay are the Svengalis and I'm the puppet. If something upsets me, I can come out and say it and believe me, I can be an ornery S. O. B."

When Bernstein decides to "go for the distance" with a client, he makes a point early on to learn all he can about his or her "strength and weaknesses." In Boxleitner's case, Bernstein relies on Kitty to test the waters for sensitive matters. He speaks to her on the phone several times a day. "Jay and I discuss everything, so when Bruce comes home I fix him dinner, get in the Jacuzzi, give him a Scotch and say, ÔBy the way, this is what we discussed today.' I'm the relay person, but Bruce makes the decisions."

The more "control" Bernstein has over a client, the more successful he says that client can be. What kind of control? "I'm not trying to run the religious part of their life or anything I'm not qualified to do. But when people get successful, all of a sudden their best friend, their loved ones, their lawyer, their business manager, their father, their next-door neighbor--everyone starts to advise them and I just become one of the throng."

Some people say Bernstein takes control by preying on a client's insecurities, but Bruce insists that isn't so. "He's never overstepped his bounds," says Bruce. "With this whole TV-ratings game, a lot of people have been saying a lot of things and whispering in my ear...Jay's the one voice in the jungle leading me through the quicksand, and boy, there's quicksand everywhere."

Turning to the merchandising of Bruce Boxleitner--the Frank Buck pith helmet, the truck, the animal compound--Bruce shrugs, "That's all very innocent to me. Merchandising is a reality today. If you don't want to be a star because you don't to be sold in a toy store, fine. My kid at Christmas [got] Tron toys and a Frank Buck zoo. Have I sold my soul to the devil? Who knows?"

It seems unlikely. Even detractors of the flashy Bernstein style admit the man has something. "Jay is 99 per cent jerk and one per cent genius, but it's that one per cent that's dazzling," groused one critic.

Actor Steve Gutenberg, a former Bernstein-Thompson client, thinks an actor should only put so much stock in his personal manager, no matter who it is. "He's there as an adviser to your fate, not as a master. That's the secret. Only you are the master of your fate, and if you forget that you're in trouble."

Says Bruce: "This is only one stage. The series is only a small part of the game plan. If it doesn't work, we'll just go on. We''re gonna keep going."

Thanks, KarenS!