“I didn’t have the slightest interest in becoming an actor,” says the 79-year-old in an interview with dpa.
As a high school student in Los Angeles, he played basketball and dreamed of a career as a professional athlete. The good-looking giant then ended up in front of the camera via commercials. After many small TV and film roles, his breakthrough came in 1980 with “Magnum.”
Image: CBS
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Image: CBS
Wearing colorful Hawaiian shirts and a red Ferrari, he hunted criminals for eight years in the holiday paradise of Hawaii as TV private detective Thomas Magnum. Selleck became an internationally celebrated star and lost his reputation as a sex symbol. “The show was also really well received in Germany,” says Selleck. Apart from a short commercial that he shot in Hamburg, the actor regrets that he never had the chance to work there.
He still wears his famous “Magnum” mustache today, but he has given up most of his Hawaiian shirts. Those days are really over now, he says with a laugh. He auctioned off most of the outfits at charity auctions for a good cause. As a series star, he has been in front of the camera as Police Chief Frank Reagan in “Blue Bloods – Crime Scene New York” since 2010. The final episodes are scheduled to air in the US this fall. Selleck regrets the end of the series, but retirement is not an option for him yet. “I want to work, I’ve spent my whole life acting,” says the 79-year-old.
