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RICHARD CRENNA 1926-2003 |
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Crenna kept surprising us
with amazing versatility
By RON MILLER
of TheColumnists.com
Maybe you never noticed, but actor Richard Crenna could
play just about any kind of role the movies or television could
come up with--and knock your socks off doing it.
Yet hardly anybody ever paid attention to the great leaps he
often made in his long and luminous career that finally ended
Jan. 17 with his death at age 76 after a long battle with cancer.
Consider this: In 1955, he was still playing squeaky-voiced, gawky high school boy Walter Denton on CBS' "Our Miss Brooks," but by 1964 he had made a smooth transition to a leading man role--legislative minority leader James Slattery in CBS's "Slattery's People," a one-hour drama about an idealistic state legislator that was way, way ahead of its time. In between, he'd managed to play yet another wildly-different part--hillbilly Luke McCoy in the popular sitcom "The Real McCoys," which ran six seasons, first on ABC, then on CBS.
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in his first TV leading man role in 'Slattery's People.' |
By 1976, Crenna was playing a political columnist in CBS' romantic sitcom "All's Fair" opposite a young and perky Bernadette Peters. Already behind him: Playing the romantic lead to Julie Andrews in the big budget musical "Star!" (1968); a gunboat commander in "The Sand Pebbles" (1966); leading cowboy roles in a pair of Louis L'Amour westerns, "Catlow" (1971) and "The Man Called Noon" (1973); the killer menacing blind Audrey Hepburn in "Wait Until Dark" (1967); an astronaut in "Marooned" (1969) and one of the soapy physicians in "Doctor's Wives" (1971).
When I asked Crenna about his ability to dodge the type-casting bullet during a 1983 interview, he put it bluntly: "My versatility is the reason I've survived. If I'd fallen into a niche, it would have been a disaster. I played several characters that could have been the end of the line for any good actor."
So, how did he avoid playing
squeaky-voiced goofballs or cornpone characters after his long-running
success in such roles in "Our Miss Brooks" and "The
Real McCoys"?
Crenna always explained that he just gambled he'd get something
different and routinely turned down parts that might have cashed
in on the popularity of his prior characters. (If he lost out
on a role, it didn't bother Crenna much. He also had a busy career
as a TV sitcom director.)
He also believed the role
of handsome, idealistic and romantic Jim Slattery in "Slattery's
People" permanently buried his unromantic image from the
two sitcoms he'd done earlier. Even though the series wasn't
a big hit and didn't have a long run, his new image as a leading
man stuck.
"After drinking lye, it was the club soda that washed everything
down," he told me.
And I personally think his relaxed attitude about billing also was a big help. Crenna would turn down a leading role for a better character part.
"I've never thought
of myself as a star," he explained over breakfast in 1986.
"I consider myself a working actor."
And I might add he was a regular guy. Crenna was so down to earth
and easy to be with that I always felt like an old friend whenever
we got together, not a reporter looking for a story. In fact,
I felt so familiar with him at that breakfast meeting in Encino
that I risked his wrath by pointing out to him that he'd just
walked through a busy restaurant with his fly unzipped.
"Omigod," he said, quickly zipping up. "That's something I don't usually do when I'm going out for French toast."
In his late 50s and early 60s, Crenna took on a great deal of presence and authority as an actor. It was as if he'd re-invented himself all over again. It led to his casting as the murder victim in Larry Kasdan's acclaimed film noir "Body Heat" in 1981, a role that he actually turned down because he thought the sexual content was too heavy and feared it might be viewed by his fans as a porno film.
"On paper, it made 'Deep Throat' look like 'Annie,'" he said.
He also wasn't sure he trusted Kasdan, a writer who was just turning to directing, to handle the picture well. But Kasdan asked to meet with him, assured Crenna he was the only person he could see playing the role and won him over. It earned Crenna rave reviews and opened up a whole new avenue for him--playing cops and detectives.
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One of the best of those roles was that of New York police detective Frank Janek in the 1985 CBS miniseries "Doubletake," based on William Bayer's best-seller "Switch." It was a colossal ratings performer and CBS brought Crenna back over and over again to play Janek in a series of new TV movies and miniseries.
He also was playing a cop in ABC's "The Rape of Richard Beck" (1985), the harrowing film in which his macho character has to cope with the psychological problems of being sodomized by a gang of toughs. It earned him an Emmy award.
Crenna's instincts generally were pretty good and the supporting parts he took often glowed, even if his name was below the title. But I remember him really disliking one of his smaller roles, even though it was in a huge hit film that brought him back to play the same part in two sequels. That role was the Green Beret officer, Col. Trautman, who was Sylvester Stallone's mentor in the three "Rambo" films. Crenna didn't like his performance or the role.
After completing the first film, "First Blood," Crenna remembered coming home from work disgusted and telling his wife, "Aw, Jesus, I'm gonna have to leave town when this is over!"
He says both he and Stallone were astonished when "First Blood" became a monster hit. "I thought it was a giant turkey while I was doing it," he told me.
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through much of the 1980s. including this role as a deputy chief in the three-hour 1987 NBC movie, "Police Story: The Freeway Killings" |
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Though his billing never was a major concern with Crenna, I think he was pleased to see his name on an equal line with that of movie legend Burt Lancaster when they co-starred in the NBC miniseries "On Wings of Eagles" (1986). In that film, Crenna played Texas millionaire H. Ross Perot.
When I look back over Crenna's career, I fondly remember two of his best performances in films that aren't talked about so much anymore. One of them was in Garry Marshall's "The Flamingo Kid" (1984), in which Crenna played a beach front "big operator" who's having a negative influence over young Matt Dillon. (There's a great inside joke in that film when Crenna is switching channels on the TV and quickly goes past himself in "The Real McCoys.") The other role was that of the stepfather to Jon Voight's kids in "Table for Five" (1983), a heart-tugging family drama that was a box office flop. (I think Leonard Maltin and I were the only critics who gave it unabashed raves.)
Though diagnosed with prostate cancer a few years ago, Crenna continued to work after only a brief hiatus. When the cancer returned and attacked his pancreas, he was working regularly as Tyne Daly's love interest in CBS' "Judging Amy."
My memories of Dick Crenna are all good ones. I've never met anyone who worked with him and didn't love him. He was a family man whose career was wholly devoid of scandal. On that day we breakfasted in 1986, he had been busy installing a waterfall in his backyard and was anxious to get back to work at it. But he didn't want to break up our interview unless I'd had all the time I wanted with him. That was Crenna.
Heck, the guy didn't even get pushed out of shape by the occasional bad reviews, though he seldom saw any.
"I've been around long enough," he told me, "I think I've earned the right to be lousy once in a while."
©2003 by Ron Miller. The photos from 'The Real McCoys" and "Slattery's People" are courtesy of CBS. The photos from "Police Story: The Freeway Killings" and "A Fire in the Sky" are courtesy NBC. The "First Blood" photo is courtesy Canal+D.A. The "Man Called Noon" ad is courtesy MN TEX Ent. Inc.
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