Tom Selleck THE LAST OF THE BREED

The renowned film and television star reflects on his 50 years in Westerns and his hope that he will ride the range again on the silver screen.

- HENRY C. PARKE

A 1969 episode of the Western series Lancer opened with an unmustachioed but unmistakable Tom Selleck cheerfully harassing a one-handed lawman. It was just a bit, but it was a start for an actor who would become nearly the lone standardbearer for Westerns in the 1990s and 2000s, much as Clint Eastwood had been in the decades before, and John Wayne had before him. Coincidentally, later a clean-shaved Sam Elliot appears just long enough to have his horse stolen. “Sam and I were already good friends,” Selleck says. “Fox had a new talent program, like the old studio system; were in it. I’ve always said Sam was more formed in those days, [knowing] exactly what he wanted. I was still learning the craft.

“Other than a Muriel Cigar commercial, where I got on a horse for about three seconds,” it would be a busy but Westernless decade before Selleck would saddle up again. A miniseries based on Louis L’Amour’s The Sacketts was in preparation, about three brothers uniting after the Civil War. Two brothers had already been cast: Sam Elliot and Jeff Osterhage. Writer/Producer Jim Byrnes recalls, “Director Robert Totten wanted Buck Taylor for the part. Tom came in five times to read, and Bob still wanted Buck. I said to Bob, ‘This guy is going to be a star.’”