{"id":10845,"date":"2023-06-05T14:11:52","date_gmt":"2023-06-05T14:11:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=10845"},"modified":"2023-06-13T13:35:08","modified_gmt":"2023-06-13T13:35:08","slug":"robert-lansing-intense-and-unhappy-with-television","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=10845","title":{"rendered":"Robert Lansing, intense and unhappy with television"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

LONDON \u2013 \u2018Television is just awful,\u2019 Robert Lansing told me. \u2018I\u2019ve done a lot of it but not from choice. I\u2019ve done an awful lot of garbage; an awful lot of lousy things. I\u2019m not saying I\u2019m ashamed but I think my career is almost one-hundred percent ahead of me. I\u2019ve fouled up until now.\u2019<\/p>\n

By 1974 when I interviewed him for the Windsor Star, he had many screen credits, starring in TV series such as \u2018Twelve O\u2019Clock High\u2019 and \u201887th Precinct\u2019 and movies including \u2018The 4-D Man\u2019 and \u2018The Grissom Gang\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Lansing, who was born on this day in 1928, was in Detroit starring with Barbara Bel Geddes (left) in the Jean Kerr comedy \u2018Finishing Touches\u2019 for four weeks at the Fisher Theater following a hit Broadway run.<\/p>\n

A dynamic actor with a powerful forehead and intense eyes, he was shorter than he appeared onscreen, as most actors are, but still an imposing presence. His serious expression turned only occasionally to a broad, warm smile as he spoke in his hotel apartment about his decision to leave television.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d had a good run in the early Sixties as Det. Steve Carella in \u201887th Precinct\u2019 based on the crime stories of Evan Hunter writing as Ed McBain but he wasn\u2019t satisfied with it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u2018Not really. We had some of the elements Evan had but we didn\u2019t do them nearly so well,\u2019 \u00a0he said. \u2018The first mystery, which we never explained, was why Steve\u2019s wife was a deaf-mute. Gregory Walcott\u2019s part originally was a heavy, your token bad cop, but we made him a good cop.\u2019 (photo left, l-r , Norman Fell, Lansing, Ron Harper, Gregory Walcott)<\/p>\n

He had lasted just one season as Brig.Gen. Frank Savage (Gregory Peck\u2019s role in the movie) in a TV version of \u2018Twelve O\u2019Clock High\u2019 (below) and he had a sour view of the state of network television in general. \u2018Television hasn\u2019t changed,\u2019 he said. \u2018Most people who work in television are aware of this. \u201cAll in the Family\u201d is a cop-out. It\u2019s pretending to be grown-up. Archie Bunker uses the \u201cnice\u201d colloquialisms for his racism not the real bigoted bullshit. I don\u2019t know any actors off-hand who like television. Possibly Jim Arness (\u2018Gunsmoke\u2019), who\u2019s a marvellous guy, or Mike Connors (\u2018Mannix\u2019). No, not Mike, he wanted a big movie career. They\u2019re not doing it because they want to but television is a medium that cannot offend, not the the public or the advertisers, It\u2019s all rushed. You don\u2019t have the time to be better.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>He cited Peter Falk in \u2018Columbo\u2019. \u2018He has a constant fight to keep his show up,\u2019 Lansing said. \u2018Television won\u2019t get any better until people begin to realise that the screen in the corner is not free. Maybe the we can get into pay-TV and really start doing something.\u2019<\/p>\n

Lansing was almost as disillusioned anout the movie business as he was about television. Then in his late 40s, Lansing got into acting as a young man. Born in San Diego, he said, \u2018I was one of those Depression kids. We went all over. I was interested in acting since I was a kid. I did summer stock and so on, and finally Broadway. I got into pictures in 1951. I was a stand-in and stuntman for Dick Haymes in a picture called \u201cSt. Benny the Dip\u201d.\u2019<\/p>\n

He hadn\u2019t made a favourite movie yet. \u2018\u201cThe 4-D Man\u201d was fun and I thought \u201cThe Grissom Gang\u201d (below) was a marvellous picture but it didn\u2019t go anywhere,\u2019 he said. \u2018Robert Aldrich, who made \u201cThe Grissom Gang\u201d, is the finest director. I loved his last picture, \u201cEmperor of the North\u201d. But the industry is in an horrendous state. It\u2019s just \"\"<\/a>a part of what\u2019s happening in the United States. A year ago, there were about twenty-thousand actors in the Screen Actors Guild. Of those, about three-thousand were making above the poverty level. I wasn\u2019t on television last season and I won\u2019t be on next season. If I did all the things I was offered, I could earn a great amount of money but I don\u2019t want to any more. So you cut down your personal overhead, sell the boat, get out of Beverly Hills. I have three more months touring with this play and then I\u2019m going off to some island in the Pacific to sit down for a while.\u2019<\/p>\n

Lansing\u2019s screen appearances were sporadic after that with just three series, \u2018Automan\u2019 with Desi Arnaz Jr., \u2018The Equalizer\u2019 with Edward Woodward and \u2018Kung Fu: The Legend Continues\u2019 with David Carradine.<\/p>\n

He died of lung cancer aged 66 in 1994.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett LONDON \u2013 \u2018Television is just awful,\u2019 Robert Lansing told me. \u2018I\u2019ve done a lot of it but not from choice. I\u2019ve done an awful lot of garbage; an awful lot of lousy things. I\u2019m not saying I\u2019m … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,1263,2257,15,16],"tags":[5371,5370,5369,4970,1537,4971],"class_list":["post-10845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-interviews","category-memory-lane","category-recalling","category-television","category-theatre","tag-finishing-touches","tag-the-grissom-gang","tag-twelve-oclock-high","tag-87th-precinct","tag-fisher-theater","tag-robert-lansing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10845"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10865,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10845\/revisions\/10865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}