Just getting started
James Brolin continues to shine as an actor and director.
JAMES Brolin, at 77, is still directing, still starring and still producing. And to hear him tell it – as I did recently in an extended conversation – he’s just beginning.
As you may have heard, this Hollywood legend has a famous son (Josh) and spouse (Barbra Streisand). But enough about them. What about him?
He stars in Life In Pieces – entering its fourth season most likely in early 2019 – which is his first regular series role in nearly 20 years (since Pensacola: Wings Of Gold).
He’s developing a film, which he’ll direct, on Ruby McCollum, a black woman in Florida convicted in 1952 of the murder of a white doctor whom she said had raped her and forced her to have his child.
It’s a story of race, gender and sexual violence, also a departure for Brolin, who – ready for this? – hit stardom nearly 50 years ago as young Dr Steve Kiley on the long-running series Marcus Welby, M.D.
A star of many movies as well, Brolin was in the faux Long Island 1979 thriller The Amityville Horror.
Why are you doing this interview? There’s no pretext, no new series, no movie. What gives?
We( Life In Pieces) don’t get a lot of press and just this week some people said, we just discovered your new show, and I said, “Well, this is going to be the fourth year.”
Speaking of which, your last starring role was at the beginning of the century. Why did you take so long to get back into the series grind?
One of the things I’ve found in the past is, after you do a series, you need a five-year cooling-off period before people can forget your old character and get ready for the new one.
Not that I’ve had choices – I did two pilots that didn’t sell and knew making them was going to be a risk but I needed to pay the rent.
Your son, Josh, has had some luck, I’ve heard. What advice did you give him about avoiding the Hollywood piranhas?
I told him in the beginning, the first thing I’ve ever told anybody, is start your own university of filmmaking – study acting, directing, editing or whatever your interest, and become your own graduate student, then graduate magna cum laude.
You go study until you can’t stand it anymore, and Josh did just that.
Directing or acting: Which do you love more?
Directing. Always have. I was making pinhole cameras when I was 10 years old and had a darkroom, too. I’ve directed now over 30 hours of television.
It’s been – if you can believe it – 42 years since Welby left the air. Do you ever find yourself having to explain what the show was or who Steve Kiley was?
When you ask kids what do you think of Godfather the original, and they say, “What’s The Godfather?”, then you realise they wouldn’t even bother to deal with Marcus Welby. But a lot of seniors will come up and say, “We just love it.”
Would you ever play Kiley again?
It has been suggested that I do Steven Kiley M.D. as a series. We’ve talked about it back and forth. But if I were to do it, I would do it as if he hadn’t been bought by the drug companies and use it to teach nutrition and how to live longer, healthier lives.
But I wouldn’t do it for another 10 years.
Wow! Steve Kiley, M.D. 2028 starring the one and only James Brolin?
Could be. I started working out with Laird Hamilton three years ago and it’s changed my physical being and mental outlook.
You know I do have to ask, did you ever even go to Amityville when you were shooting The Amityville Horror?
Oh no, we shot a lot of that in Toms River , then we moved to the stage at MGM, which is now Sony, and did a lot of interiors in the basement . ... It was a laugh every day. – Newsday/Tribune News Service
Life In Pieces Season Three airs every Monday at 9.05pm on Foxlife (Astro Ch 711).