Actor-Author-Scriptwriter Jim Rosin Discusses Jack Klugman, His Books,and Playing an Alien in "Buckaroo Banzai"

One of the highlights of my attendance at the 2014 Western Film Fair was meeting Jim Rosin. He started in show business as a supporting actor in TV series such as Mannix, Cannon, T.J. Hooker, and Quincy, M.E. He subsequently wrote several teleplays for Quincy and later penned a number of informative and entertaining nonfiction books on classic TV series. During the convention, Jim took a break from autographing his books and talked with me about his career and books.

Café:  One of your most interesting acting credits is in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, which became a big cult film. When you were making it, did you think it would ultimately become as popular as it did?

The closing credits of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai.

Jim Rosin: Not really. When I was filming my scenes, it was a very hot day. We were shooting at a power plant in south L.A. and I had to wear a mask because I played an alien, a Lectroid. It took them about an hour to put the mask on me. I remember being very hot and it was claustrophobic. When I did the scene as John Yaya, where I didn't have to wear the mask--boy, that was a joy. That's what I remember most about the filming. It was really an interesting movie. I think they shot it in about 60 days for a budget of about $18 million. It really became a cult movie when I was living in New York. Every Saturday, for years after, theaters would show The Rocky Horror Picture Show followed by The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai. Peter Weller, a very dear friend who later played Robocop, was Buckaroo Banzai. The cast also featured Chris Lloyd, Jeff Goldblum, Ellen Barkin, and Robert Ito who played Jack Klugman's lab assistant Sam on Quincy, M.E. Jamie Lee Curtis was Buckaroo's mother, but I think her scene with Buckaroo as a boy was deleted from the opening. The film was a combination of action-adventure and sci fi...with a hero who was also a musician with a band. It was unique and different. They were going to do a sequel, but perhaps the boxoffice receipts didn't warrant it because they never came out with a second film. But, at the end of the first, you see the name of the second Buckaroo Banzai film. I have fond memories of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai.

Café:  You appeared on three classic TV series: Banacek, Mannix, and Quincy, M.E. Who was the best detective of those three?

JR:  I don't know. George Peppard was very good as Banacek. He was cool, able to deduce things, and came up with all those Polish proverbs. It was a well-written show. Jack Klugman as Quincy was also very methodical, unique, and very determined to find out the answer to any problem. Mike Connors (Mannix) was a very nice man; I liked working with him. All three of those characters had a tenacity to get to the truth to find out who the guilty party was. It's hard to delineate who was the best. They were all great and I enjoyed working with all three actors.

Café:  You wrote three episodes of Quincy, M.E. Which one was your favorite and what was the inspiration for it?

JR:  I have a soft spot for "A Test for Living," which is about an autistic child. Jack (Klugman) had done a telethon to raise funds to care for autistic children. When we talked about doing a show, we chose that subject and worked on it together. It was a very worthwhile story line that required a lot of research. Jack sent me out to UCLA to talk with doctors and read books, so I had a huge investment in coming up with the script for that episode. Also, Jack's participation in it was meaningful. Lloyd Nolan, who played the psychiatrist, had a son who was autistic. We did another telethon after the show aired. So, all those things put together made for a very memorable experience for me.

Rosin, Klugman, and Henry Beckman in the 1983 episode "On Dying High."

Café:  What was Jack Klugman like?

JR:  Jack was a very good-hearted man. Very intense. He had a great work ethic. He was very demanding. He had high standards of excellence. You had to be on your toes when you worked with him. As a young actor and writer, I learned a great deal from him and he was very good to me. I was very fortunate to have an association with Quincy, six episodes as an actor and three as a writer. I'll never forget it. The fact it was on for seven years was a testament to him. He fought the studio and the network to do socially relevant material and ultimately he was right, because people responded to it. He really was a very diligent, hardworking, top-flight professional who would involve himself in every facet of the show. The end result is that it was on for 148 episodes.

Café:  You were that rare dual threat--an actor and a writer. Which came first?

With Piper Laurie at the Western Film Fair.

JR:  I started out acting first and then I wrote a play in L.A. In between acting jobs, I was first a bartender in Beverly Hills and then a cab driver. I wrote a play about an actor who drives a cab in Beverly Hills. It was a comedy-drama that Jack read and that ultimately brought me to Quincy. It ran at a theater in Hollywood for about six weeks. That's how I got started writing. I subsequently did some Quincy shows and some soap opera episodes. And I recently completed a screenplay. But I always loved being an actor. The more things you can do in the business, the better off you are because the competition is so keen. If you have a talent for directing or writing, it's very good to explore them because it's harder to depend upon one area because of all the people trying to do the same thing as you.

Café:  You have also written a number of books about classic TV series such as Naked City, Adventures in Paradise, Wagon Train, and Route 66. How did you get into doing that?

JR:  Well, I started doing some books on sports and Philly music. Then, I started thinking about writing about classic TV shows that I grew up with, ones that were popular and enjoyed by millions of people. The first one I did was Route 66, because, to me, that was a wonderful show. It had a great premise of two young men driving in a Corvette convertible all over the country, never knowing what was down the road or around the bend. I knew Marty (Martin Milner), who I worked with on Adam-12 several times. He was great and George Maharis was outstanding. There was a chemistry between them and a contrast. So, I felt I had to do a book on that show. When you combine the aura that they projected on TV, the Corvette, the sense of adventure, the different town every week, the people stories, the backdrop of America--it was just a tremendous show.

Café:  What about some of your other books?

JR:  Herbert B. Leonard, who produced Route 66, also did Naked City. It featured the same approach; it was filmed in New York with a stark look. It was not about police procedure, but more about the ordinary denizens of New York. After the book on Naked City, I wrote one on Wagon Train because I wanted to do a Western. Ward Bond and Robert Horton were great together. Again, it was a series about people. In fact, The title of every episode was a person's name--"The Horace Best Story," "The Malachi Hobart Story," and so on. It had wonderful actors and was about their characters' experience along the prairie from Missouri to California. I loved Adventures in Paradise because it was pure escapism. It took us to a part of the world where we never went. James Michener said it best that we all go to work, wake up, go to work, wake up, we drive the same route back and forth--then we turn on the TV and see Gardner McKay on the Tiki in Tahiti in this exotic part of the world. It was a great source of entertainment and Gardner McKay was very good on the show. He was an expert sailor who had sailed across the Atlantic. The other two books I did were two Quinn Martin shows because I had worked on some of his series. The Invaders starred my dear friend Roy Thinnes, who gave a very believable, honest, edgy portrayal as David Vincent, trying to prove to a disbelieving world that aliens were among us. Quinn Martin wanted to do a show about paranoia. It ran for only two seasons, but everyone loved the show and it was different for the time. The other Quinn Martin series, The Streets of San Francisco featured one of the prettiest cities in the country as a backdrop. Karl Malden and Michael Douglas were a fine team. I think Karl saw Michael as his son, because he and Kirk Douglas were close friends. Michael grew immensely on the show and was very willing to learn. He really put his feet to the ground and absorbed all these things about acting and production. After the fourth season, he produced One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and became an Academy Award-winning producer. John Wilder, another friend of mine, produced it for three years and wrote some of the episodes. Quinn Martin just had a great organization. When you put everything together--the backdrop of San Francisco, the chemistry of Karl Malden and Michael Douglas, the writing, the guest stars, the breezy music score--it was just an excellent series.

Café:  I'm a huge Route 66 fan and have read varied accounts as to why George Maharis left the show. Based on your research for your book, what was the reason?

George Maharis and Martin Milner.

JR:  I know why he left and in my book, he talks about it. There's a misconception that he left because he wanted out of the show, was getting movie offers, and wanted to be a movie star. That wasn't true. Geroge Maharis left because he contracted hepatitis. He missed four episodes at the end of the second year. He came back for the third season because Herbert Leonard said: "If you don't come back, we might not get renewed." The show could not stand alone with Marty. George Maharis was a very vital part of Route 66. And when he left, he proved to be irreplaceable. The show only lasted another season. His replacement, Glenn Corbett, was a competent actor and a handsome guy, but he was too much like Marty Milner. He didn't have the edge that George had. There was a stark contrast between George and Marty. Their characters were sometimes at each other, which heightened the drama of the show. They didn't always see eye to eye. Yet, there was a bond and chemistry. George was not someone you could replace. Unfortunately, when he came back for the third year, he was promised he would only work so many hours a day because the doctor said to take it easy. He came back in three weeks after having hepatitis. He had a relapse midway through the third season. He went to the doctor, who told him he needed to walk away from the show. He didn't work for a year. It took him that long to recuperate. There was acrimony between Bert Leonard and him. The press made something out of it that wasn't there. George regretted leaving the show because he enjoyed it. He and Marty had a great relationship--it's another misconception that they didn't get along. They were two different individuals, but there was never a bad word between them.

Café:  Lastly, do you have any upcoming projects or appearances that you want to share with our readers?

JR:  I did a book on Philly music history, Philly Pop, Rock, Rhythm & Blues. It's dear to my heart because I'm a Philadelphian. It covers the rock'n'roll and R&B eras of Philly from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s--with all the great performers from the golden years of the rock'n'roll and the doo-wop era, then the R&B era that came after. I have a lot of commentary from the performing artists. I have some discographies and biographies. I've got Hall & Oates on the cover and Gamble & Huff on the back. I love the book and thought I owed it to Philly because it's got such a wonderful music history. I scratch my head as to why the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame is in Cleveland and not in Philadelphia--with no disrespect to Cleveland, which is a nice town. There are so many performers both nationally known, as well as local and regionally known, that came out of Philadelphia, South Philadelphia in particular.

Café:  It's been great talking with you, Jim.

JR:  Thanks, Rick.


You can order Jim Rosin's books at his website: www.classictvseriesbooks.com. He will be appearing at the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention in Hunt Valley, Maryland, September 18-20, 2014.

The Invaders: "The Ivy Curtain"

The first season of The Invaders ranked with the best sci fi on television in the 1960s. The premise was a canny mixture of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Fugitive (only in reverse).

Roy Thinnes stars as architect David Vincent, who accidentally spies an alien spaceship landing on Earth when he pulls off the road late one night to get a cup of coffee at Bud’s Diner (which, from the looks of it, has been long out of business). Vincent quickly discovers that the human-looking aliens aren’t friendly—their mission is to make Earth their home. When his incredible story meets with the expected skepticism, Vincent sets off in pursuit of the Invaders, determined to collect evidence and thwart them whenever possible. Whereas Richard Kimble was the hunted in The Fugitive, David Vincent becomes the hunter in The Invaders. It’s no coincidence that executive producer Quinn Martin and producer Alan Armer were driving forces behind both shows.

One of the finest episodes during Season 1 is “The Ivy Curtain.” It opens with an airplane malfunctioning in-flight during a thunderstorm. During the subsequent emergency landing, a large piece of cargo falls on top of one of the executives on board. The pilot rushes to help his passenger—but despite a huge gash in the executive’s arm, there’s no blood…no wound…no pain. The passengers surround the pilot like a pack of wolves ready to pounce on their prey. The title credits roll.

The focus then shifts to Vincent, who has arrived in a small New Mexico town on the heels of William Burns. The narrator (a Quinn Martin staple) informs viewers that Burns is an educator and business administrator—who has been on “planet Earth for less than a year.” Vincent trails Burns to Midland Academy, where the architect is captured by the aliens.

Vincent quickly escapes and learns that Midland Academy is one of several training camps for new alien visitors to Earth. They take college-like classes where they are taught the “language of emotion" (they even practice simulating fear). In one classroom, alien students are hooked to a computer that downloads Earth’s historical data into their brains (wish I’d had one of those machines in college!). The most intriguing “course” has young aliens learning how to blend in at a simulated (but still groovy) 1960s dance joint. In between doing The Twist, the teen Invaders huddle around tables and spout hip dialogue designed to inspire human anarchy.

The rest of the plot takes a more conventional approach in examining the failing marriage between a pilot (Jack Warner) and his restless wife (Susan Oliver). Yet, even this subplot is well-played by the guest stars, especially Oliver who convincingly portrays a woman who loves her husband, but needs more excitement than he can provide.

The best Invaders episodes, though, spotlight the menacing aliens. They are typically suave, intellectual villains who have ingrained themselves into the fabric of humankind. They are executives, doctors, educators, scientists, and politicians. It’s hard to tell them apart from the good guys—even their henchmen seems to dress like CIA agents in black business suits, sunglasses, and shoulder holsters.

Roy Thinnes anchors the show with an appealing presence and the requisite passion to stop the alien invasion. Still, he lacks the depth of character that David Janssen brought to The Fugitive (e.g., no one gained more mileage from a crack of a smile).

Apparently, though, the producers of The Invaders worried that Vincent’s one-man mission would prove wearisome as the series progressed. In Season 2, Vincent found and joined a group of fellow alien hunters called The Believers. It was an interesting concept that failed to live up to its potential except for a handful of episodes. Or, perhaps, The Invaders was just running out of fresh ideas as do all TV series. Still, at its best—as in episodes like “The Ivy Curtain”—The Invaders was a fascinating, sometimes thought-provoking TV series that lived up to its intriguing premise.

On the Road Again: The Great “Road” TV Shows of the 1960s

What’s a “road” TV show? Well, it’s a TV series where the protagonist travels from place to place—sometimes because he’s being chased, sometimes because he’s chasing someone (or something), and sometimes because he’s trying to find meaning in life. A TV series where the hero has a home base, such as Paladin’s San Francisco hotel in Have Gun Will Travel—doesn’t count. No, in a “road” show, the hero has to be constantly on the move. It also doesn’t count if traveling is a part of the protagonist’s job, as in Wanted: Dead or Alive, where Josh (Steve McQueen) goes to various places tracking down his quarry as a bounty hunter. Now that we’ve defined the genre, here are my picks for the most memorable “road” shows of the 1960s:

1. The Fugitive (1963-67). David Janssen spent four seasons on the road as Dr. Richard Kimble, a physician wrongly convicted of killing his wife. Kimble escapes during a train crash and tries to find the elusive one-armed man who may have killed his wife. Barry Morse is the only other regular, portraying Kimble’s “relentless pursuer” Lt. Philip Gerard. A clever updating of Les Miserablés, the series benefits from brilliant writing, Janssen’s low-key performance (his slight smile is understated acting at its finest), and consistently strong guest stars. This may be one of the first TV series to intersperse a continuing storyline with stand-alone stories: some episodes focus on Kimble trying to prove his innocence; others focus solely on the characters that Kimble meets along the way.

2. Route 66 (1960-64). Stirling Silliphant created this “road” show about two young men driving across America in search of “something”. The protagonists are college-educated Tod Stiles (Martin Milner) and street-smart Buz Murdock (George Maharis). They take to the road when Tod’s businessman father dies unexpectedly and leaves a pile of debts. Once Tod pays them off, all that remains of his inheritance is his father’s Corvette. Shot on location throughout the U.S., Route 66 is a portrait of the country in the early 1960s—the big cities, the rural towns, the motels, the factories, and the docks. Silliphant wrote the majority of the scripts, which often sounded like stage plays—but very good ones. Tod and Buz frequently took a back seat to the guest stars’ characters; in fact, in some episodes, the two stars were downright peripheral to the plot!

3. The Invaders (1967-68). Architect David Vincent (Roy Thinnes) accidentally sees a flying saucer land and learns that aliens are plotting to take over the world. Unfortunately, no one believes David. It doesn’t help that the aliens glow orange and disappear when they die! For its first half-season, this reverse variation of The Fugitive (both were exec produced by Quinn Martin) benefits from inventive stories (e.g., in the episode “The Mutant”, Suzanne Pleshette is an alien who feels emotions…unlike the majority of her race). In the second and final season, Vincent linked up with other believers to form an organization to fight the alien intruders and the show became less interesting (though there were still a few standout episodes).

4. Run for Your Life (1965-68). Ben Gazzara played Paul Bryan, a successful lawyer who learns that he has a terminal illness and only two years to live. He quits his job and goes on the road to live life to its fullest. This TV series was spun off from the episode “Rapture at Forty-Two” on the anthology series Kraft Suspense Theater. Gazzara received Emmy nominations for two of the series’ three seasons. Martin Milner from Route 66,guest starred on a couple of the episodes. Roy Huggins, who created The Fugitive (and many other shows), produced Run for Your Life.

5. The Loner (1965-66). Rod Serling created this "adult Western" that downplayed action in favor of human interest stories. Like The Twilight Zone, the series had a social conscience, this time in the form of hero William Colton (Lloyd Bridges), a former Union officer searching the West for a meaningful existence. This wasn’t the first Western about a drifter nor the last. Nick Adams played an ex-Confederate soldier roaming the West in The Rebel (1959-62), which featured a title tune sung by Johnny Cash. In the late 1960s, Walter Brennan and Dack Rambo looked for Dack’s father (who abandoned his son as an infant and became a gunfighter) in The Guns of Will Sonnett.

Honorable Mentions: Then Came Bronson with Michael Parks (in a role not unlike Buz on Route 66) riding his motorcycle throughout the country; The Immortal with Chris George as a race car driver being pursued by those who want his blood—literally, because it contains antibodies that prevent aging.

Five Best Science Fiction TV Series of the 1960s

1. Star Trek (1966-69) – Gene Roddenberry’s brainchild is certainly the most successful series in the history of sci fi television, spawning five spin-off TV shows (don’t forget the animated one) and three film series…thus far. That’s pretty good for a TV show that wasn’t a big hit when it first aired. But Trek earns its spot at No. 1 because of the rich futuristic world created by Roddenberry. He may not have originated some of the innovative concepts (e.g., teleportation, a federation of planets), but he wove them together to create a believable future of hope and humanity. And, despite William Shatner’s occasional forays into the hammy side of acting, the cast helped create immensely likable characters that carried some of the weaker episodes.

2. The Outer Limits (1963-65) – Leslie Stevens and Joseph Stefano (who wrote the screenplay for Psycho) were the creative talents behind the best sci fi anthology of the 1960s (maybe of all time). The concept was that each show would stay within the confines of the science fiction genre and feature a “bear”—Stefano’s nickname for a scary monster. The scripts weren’t as consistently strong as The Twilight Zone and the show’s budget often worked against some of the high-end concepts. But when The Outer Limits was good, it was very good—with several classic episodes like “Demon With a Glass Hand”, “Soldier” (both penned by Harlan Ellison), “The Inheritors”, “The Zanti Misfits”, “The Architects of Fear”, and “Z-z-z-z-z”.

3. The Invaders (1966-67) – Larry Cohen (It’s Alive) is credited for creating this series, but it bears a strong resemblance to executive producer Quinn Martin’s earlier hit The Fugitive. The premise of The Invaders is simple: architect David Vincent (Roy Thinnes) learns that aliens are planning to take over the Earth, but no one will believe him. He travels from place to place trying to thwart the aliens and convince people to believe him. It doesn’t help that the aliens glow orange and disappear when they die, thus destroying all evidence (in some episodes, aliens commit suicide to avoid capture). The first season of 17 episodes contains most of the series’ high points. In season 2, Vincent linked up with a group of other alien fighters called “The Believers” and the show faltered a little. But at the top of its game in episodes like “The Mutant” and “The Organization”, The Invaders was quite good.

4. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964-68) – Television critics harped on Irwin Allen’s series for its “monster of the week” approach, but that criticism actually applies only to the last two years of the show. During its first two years, Admiral Nelson (Richard Basehart) and the crew of the submarine Seaview battled enemy spies and natural disasters as well as outer space aliens and monstrous denizens of the deep. Even when things got a little silly (e.g., an evil puppeteer), the always reliable Basehart was on hand to lend credibility to the proceedings.

5. Doctor Who (1963-1989, 2005- ) – The longest-running sci fi series in the history of television has evolved from a low-budget serial directed at kids to a sophisticated series aimed at a broad audience. The Doctor is a Time Lord, who travels through time in a machine called the TARDIS (an acronym for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space). When William Hartnell, the actor who originated the role of Doctor Who, decided in leave in 1966, the writers came up with an ingenious revelation: as a time lord, Doctor Who could “regenerate” himself when near death…thus paving the way for the character to be played by another actor. As of 2009, there have been ten Doctor Who’s, with another regeneration scheduled for 2010. (Note: Peter Cushing played Who in two theatrical films.)

Honorable mentions: The Jetsons, Jonny Quest, My Favorite Martian, Lost in Space, and Stingray.

31 Days of Halloween: Child Rearing Rears its Ugly Head in Larry Cohen's It's Alive

Expectant mother Lenore awakens her husband, Frank, early in the morning. The excited couple gather their things and head to the hospital. Already with child, Frank is relaxed and confident. He even calms down another father-to-be, agitated with the cigarette and gumball machines. This all changes, however, when Frank witnesses one of the doctors, bloody, staggering out of the maternity ward and subsequently collapsing.

So begins Larry Cohen's 1974 horror flick, It's Alive. Cohen began his career as a TV writer, even creating the cult sci-fi series, The Invaders. After writing and directing a few blaxploitation films, including the popular Black Caesar (1973) with Fred Williamson, the filmmaker released his first movie of the horror persuasion. Cohen created dynamic characters in his movies and could make them seem like real people who are often forced into seemingly impossible situations. He wonderfully captures the anxiety and excitement of a pregnant woman going into labor at the beginning of It's Alive. Even if a viewer has never had such an experience, he/she can relate to what these characters are feeling. This makes it so much more meaningful and intense when the couple learns that their baby is mutated, a vicious beast that attacks when threatened.

Another Cohen trademark is taking the absurd and presenting it with a straight face. Cohen's films are low budget B-productions, but rarely come across as hammy. They may be tongue-in-cheek, but the films typically do not feel like the director is insincere. In his movie, God Told Me To (aka Demon), released in 1976, a cop is investigating murders committed by random people, all of whom claim, "God told me to." The Stuff (1985) is about an otherworldly substance that people find irresistible and delicious, unaware that it's actually a parasitic entity (the film's tagline was "Are you eating it... or is it eating you?"). Cohen inserts these silly B-movie plots into a world the audience feels it knows, making his films more enjoyable and, in the case of It's Alive, more terrifying.

Never one to shy away from satire, Cohen targets the media in It's Alive. Following the baby's birth and initial assault on the doctors, the police scan the hospital for the monstrous infant. Before Frank can even make it home, he hears a report on the radio concerning the attack, and he and his wife are both named. The media becomes obsessed, and reporters constantly harass the couple, leading to Frank's dismissal from his job in public relations. Frank is even asked to allow scientists the opportunity to study the baby, should it be taken alive. This is the film's best scene, as Frank essentially explains the movie's title (obviously a line taken from the cinematic version of Frankenstein). He states that he thought Frankenstein was the monster and did not realize that it was the name of the doctor until he read the book. People mixed the identities of the creator and the monster, much like the paparazzi's fixation on the mutant baby but treating the parents as freaks. This concept is perhaps more horrifying than the film's monster.

Throughout the film, Cohen plays with the idea of a monster in the form of something innocent. The baby hides inside a milk truck, but prefers the milkman over the milk. It also takes refuge in a school, playing with toys and killing the police officers who believe they have it cornered. Somehow the baby makes it home in a terrific and suspenseful sequence, as Frank realizes that all the milk and packaged meat is missing from the house. The film ends with an inevitable confrontation, showcasing a marvelous performance by John P. Ryan as Frank. The movie avoids a typical horror film ending, with a feeling of relief or a final shock. It's bittersweet, almost as if it were a drama (which, in many respects, it is).

Unfortunately for pregnant couples, mutant babies continued being spawned in the sequels, It Lives Again (1978) and It's Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987), both written and directed by Cohen. A remake starring Bijou Phillips was recently made. It is set for release straight-to-DVD tomorrow, Oct. 6th.