Magnum PI
Season 5 SABC3 (*193) 12:00 Action
Tom Selleck jokes that he’s only got a career because he played Navy SEAL-turned-private investigator Thomas Magnum in Magnum PI (1980-1988), which returns to SABC3 today as part of the channel’s ’80s action revival (see more on p29). “But it wasn’t all fun in the sun,” says the 73-year-old. “It was hot, humid and sand really does get everywhere!” Being filmed on location isn’t the only thing you need to know!
Production company CBS chose
Hawaii because they were going to lose millions of dollars if they closed their island studios that were built for the original Hawaii Five-O (1968-1980). If Hawaii Five-O had continued, Tom’s show would’ve been set in Southern California as originally planned.
It was so popular that props and
Tom’s famous Hawaiian shirt and SEAL ring were donated to the Smithsonian Museum Of American History.
As for his famous red Ferrari, that
almost never happened. At 1.95m tall, Tom was too big for the Porsche that was chosen and since the car brand refused to customise one for him, the show got a roomier Ferrari instead.
Magnum’s landlord Higgins has a
prim-and-proper British accent but actor John Hillerman (who passed away in November 2017) was from Texas and based his voice on work by Sir Laurence Olivier in 1965 Shakespearean film Othello.
The show almost ended after sea
son 3 when Higgins’s dobermans were fired to save budget. Tom threatened to quit, so the dogs stayed on.
Action writer Tom Clancy (1992’s
The Hunt For Red October) wrote a number of scripts for the series as well as the unmade movie script in 1989.