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Yes, we promised for the tenth time, we know
Georg Stanford Brown spells his name without the
e. We will not put an e on it. But when, we
asked , do we get to interview him?
“We’ll go to the set,” replied a cheery ABC
publicist. “The Rookies is in production. We can
talk to George between scenes. He knows we are
coming.”
Great. Off we went. We arrived at the set at 11
A.M. We emerged five hours later. By that time,
we’d interviewed Georg Stanford Brown – kind of.
The Rookies is in its second season on ABC. It
had reasonably well in its first season. It had
shown a “new breed” of policemen at work –
young, dedicated, concerned about right and
wrong. Some of the scripts had been rather
unbelievable, but, overall, we liked the show.
We were eager to meet Georg.
We’d heard rumblings during the summer that the
three young rookies – played by Georg, Michael
Ontkean and Sam Melville – thought they ere
being underpaid. Production had been hailed for
one day. We hoped the dispute had been settled
and everyone was happy again.
We watched Georg, Michael and Sam rehearse a
scene several times. During a pause, Michael
came by and said hello. He looked taller.
Obviously he’d lost weight since we’d met him
the year before. Then Georg came over and said
hello. Someone standing nearby said it was good
to see him at work. His eyes flashed. “I don’t
like to fight. I just like to be honest,” he
said as he departed.
We settled down in vacant directors’ chairs and
watched the rookies go through the scene
again…and again…and again. Nobody seemed to know
what Georg had meant by his passing statement.
At one point, there was another break. Interview
time? Georg came by and said, “I’ll be right
back. I have to change my clothes.” Then he
disappeared. We amused ourselves by talking to
one of the technicians. We never were sure
whether he handled the lights or the camera, but
he told a couple funny stories.
Valuable interview time was passing. Twenty
minutes later, Georg reappeared. His costume
change had consisted of changing his shirt. It
was time to go back to work. Each time he passed
after that, he’d say, “I am sorry, I am sorry,”
as he dashed off. At one point, something was
being changed on the set. Georg sat on an
exercycle and starred into space. Finally he
said he had a few minutes.
We knew Georg had done some movie and TV work,
but he’d never been one of the leads on a TV
series before. How had the first year gone? Had
it been fun, exciting, difficult?
He looked at us without expression. “It was fun,
exciting, a drag,” he replied. “It was terribly
difficult. It took a lot out of me. That’s what
the year was like. This year will be fun,
exciting…” We began to be sorry we’d asked that
question.
According to ABC, Georg was born in Havana, Cuba
and lived there until he was seven years old. In
1950 he moved with his mother, father and sister
to New York City. He was, also according to the
ABC biography, graduated from William Howard
Taft High School.
“That’s not so,” said Georg. “I quit school at
16. It was boring. During my last year at school
I cut 44 days one semester and 54 days the next
semester. They came to me and said, “Are you
happy here? Do you want to leave?” I said I’d be
delighted to leave.
“So I quit and hung around street corners. When
I was 17 I auditioned for a scholarship to go to
the Institute of Vocal Arts. I won the
scholarship, but I didn’t go. I took off – and
ended up here in Los Angeles.”
Right then a young man in a print shirt and
brown pants sauntered up, shook hands with
Georg, and the two wandered off. Georg appeared
to be carrying on a heated discussion with him.
Apparently, this was his business agent. Georg
reappeared when he was called back to the set.
His business agent came over to us, sat down
nearby, and said “Who are you?” We decided not
to interview him.
Finally Georg came back. In response to a
question, he said, “I am involved with my
family, myself, trying to relax. I used up too
much energy last year. I want to learn. I want
to concentrate. While the show was out of
production I went to Mexico for three weeks with
my family,, then my wife and I went to Spain,
Morocco, Paris, London…It was fantastic.
“I don’t know what I want to do. I don’t think
in terms of my career. I take it as it comes in
terms of work. I want to do other things. Now I
get up, play the same character, express so many
attitudes that aren’t my own. In a series like
this you don’t really know where the character
is going. When you do a play or a movie, you can
see the whole character and where it’s going.
The business part of all this also takes a lot
of the joy out of it.”
Once again, Georg was called back to do the same
scene again. We’d seen two different scenes
during the five hours – and we were beginning to
know each one of them backwards and forwards.
On our way out, we saw Gerald O’ Loughlin, who
plays Lt. Ryker in the series. He was sitting
off at the side studying his lines. He
brightened and gave us a friendly smile. “Thanks
so much!” he said cheerfully. For him, there
still seemed to be plenty of joy in having a
role in a weekly TV series.
By
Peggy Herz
Transcribed by Christos Spirou for use on The
Rookies Online:
http://www.therookies.gr
For entertainment purpose only. No profit or
copyright infringement intended.
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