Long hours in the jungle have taken their toll on Bruce. His head is clogged and he's sneezing thanks to a nasty cold, but the sniffles haven't dampened his spirit one bit. "I can't complain. It has been a wonderful year," says the handsome star of Bring 'Em Back Alive, who toplined Tron and Bare Essence in '82. For a fellow who grew up idolizing Clark Gable, Cary Grant, and Gary Cooper, playing an old-fashioned hero like Frank Buck is a dream come true. "I had a very vivid imagination. I always wanted to be in the movies, though I didn't know how to go about it," says Bruce, the son of a Mt. Prospect, IL accountant. An average student and athlete, he discovered an area in which he could shine when he tried out for and was cast in a play in his sophomore year of high school. Encouraged by his drama coach, Bruce got his stage training at Chicago's Goodman Theater after graduation. Despite parental doubts, he had "this burning desire and kept chasing the rainbow," and it took him to New York (for one struggling year), regional theater, and finally to Hollywood in 1972. Since his five-line TV debut on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Bruce has appeared in movies and miniseries like The Gambler and East of Eden, but his favorites are The Last Convertible and How the West Was Won, which holds special meaning for him—he's been married for nearly six years to Kathryn Holcomb, who played his sister in the series. "We were involved with others at the time, but were together on location a lot," he recalls. Friends first, they didn't start dating for a year, but "one thing led to another."

Bruce, who has three younger sisters (the youngest an aspiring actress), says he was "always comfortable around women, but he wasn't the town romeo. "I was nerdy, pimply, with two left feet," he laughs. Bruce is obviously a late bloomer, but he modestly shrugs off compliments, "these people don't see me till I have my makeup on!" Nevertheless, he gets letters by the boxload, and is heartened by positive fan response, despite he series' ratings struggles. "Even Magnum started out slow," he points out. He enjoys doing romantic scenes and would next like to do a love story like An Officer and a Gentleman, but Bruce's on-screen smooching has no effect on his marriage to Kitty. Wed in the yard of their first home, they now share a sprawling ranch with horses, dogs, cats, and their son Sam, 2 1/2. "He's a mimic, a little actor already," observes Bruce. "He points and says, "Sammy on TV.' He thinks everybody's daddy is on television." Kitty, whose acting career has been on hold (she plans to return to it soon) brings Sam to visit his dad at work. "He loves the animals. We have a chimp his age and they have lunch together." Bruce wouldn't mind if his son followed in his footsteps, but he's not about to push. "He may grow up and be bored with it. Some actors' children rebel very radically, and that scares me," Bruce admits. Like other parents, he's trying to find a balance between being a disciplinarian and a loving, caring father, but he has special concerns about Hollywood, where kids grow up faster. "And I don't want him to feel he's better than other people because his parents are actors. Finding time to be with my family is the hardest part," says Bruce, revealing that he and Kitty nearly split up under the strain of two careers in their second year of marriage. "She's my strength," he says of her now.

Their ranch is a refuge from Hollywood's pressures. "I'm a country boy at heart," says Bruce, who spent a lot of his youth on his grandfather's farm. While others turn to drugs for escape, Bruce saddles his horse and rides into the mountains to clear his head. A western lore and history buff, he's have fit right in as a pioneer, he imagines, and thinks he'd have liked living in the Hollywood of the '30s and '40s. Still, the present is treating him well and the future, which includes a CBS TV movie and film possibilities, looks very promising indeed!

Thanks, Claudia!