Denton County Living Well Magazine July/August 2020 | Page 12

JULY/AUGUST 2020
SPOTLIGHT
Continued, from page 9
he had never been 23,” said Selleck
to writer Mary McNamara for
the Los Angeles Times in 2011.
What appeared to many like overnight
success for Selleck was a long
time in the making. “The luckiest thing
that happened was that I didn’t get
a real job until I was 35,” said Selleck
to AARP in 2015. During the
years of ho hum roles, he sought out
acting classes to hone his craft.
“When I was 25, I looked 35 but sounded 15.
There are a lot of very good actors who make it as
younger leading men but don’t graduate––because
the audience won’t accept them as grown up.”
Accept Selleck as a grown up, the public did. At the peak
of his Magnum popularity, Selleck was earning well over
$1 million annually, an astronomical sum in the 80s.
Meanwhile, he made Oahu the
destination du jour of that decade.
According to a 1985 Chicago
Tribune article by Ron Miller, “One
can’t land on Oahu without knowing
that this is Tom Selleck’s island.
He grins from posters everywhere––
in the airport souvenir shops, in the
booths at fast-food joints, on the
sides of hot-dog stands. The tourist
brochures given away in boxes
along Waikiki Beach rank him up
there with King Kamehameha.”
At the height of the show’s popularity
and his fame, Selleck abruptly
stepped away from the spotlight
and retreated to his ranch in Hidden
Valley, California, with his wife
and daughter. He wanted a quieter
life away from the prying eyes of
the media and obsessive fans.
“I knew intellectually what it would
mean in terms of being a public
person, but until you’ve lived it,
there’s no way to understand it.
I had a feeling of, ‘I don’t think
I’m cut out for this,’” he said.
10 DENTON COUNTY Living Well Magazine | JULY/AUGUST 2020
Tom Selleck
Quick Takes
• He auditioned with Steven
Spielberg and George Lucas for
the lead in Indiana Jones
• He had a hip replacement
in 2013. To recover, he built
a bridge on his ranch as
an unconventional form of
physical therapy
• He sometimes gets saluted
by real NYPD officers when
walking down the street
• He’s a veteran of the California
Army National Guard
• One of his earliest roles was
on The Young and the Restless
• He earned an Emmy
nomination for his role
on Friends
ABOVE: Selleck is best known as portraying Hawaiibased
private investigator Thomas Magnum on the 1980’s
television show Magnum, P.I.
According to the People interview, Selleck’s self-imposed
hiatus from Hollywood was extended by the
disappointing scripts that would come his way. “I put
up with the articles that said, ‘he’s disappeared, he’s
done.’ And you do get done, I’m well
aware of that. It was a big lull, but it
put a lot of things in perspective.”
He spent the ensuing time tending to
his ranch and horses, while he and his
wife raised their daughter, Hannah.
His wife, actress Jillie Mack, whom he’d
met in 1984 after spying her backstage
after her performance in Andrew Lloyd
Webber’s musical Cats, initially wasn’t
keen on moving the family to a ranch.
But, according the 2015 AARP article,
she views it differently in hindsight.
“It’s the best place to raise a child,”
she said. “It was such the wisdom of
Tom. He knew he needed to buy back
his anonymity, to replenish the soul.”
The wide open spaces also helped
to strengthen the pair’s happy union,
which is 33 years strong. “There’s
a lot of yin and yang in us. I’m
kind of quiet. She’s got this joie
de vivre. I don’t know what our secret
is, but I’m happy,” he said.
After recharging his star wattage,
Selleck was back for more success. He
starred in the 1987 movie 3 Men and
a Baby and its sequel, 3 Men and a