What I’ve Learned: Tom Selleck

Tom Selleck, 79, has been an actor for more than five decades. His memoir, You Never Know, is out now. He spoke to Esquire in May in New York City. Here is Selleck in his own words.

I was playing baseball in our little neighborhood. I got ahold of one and it broke a window. We all scattered and ran to our houses. My mom found out about it. I said, “Are you going to tell Dad?” She said, “No. You’re going to tell Dad.”

He wasn’t one to fly off the handle. He said, “Thank you for telling me. I’ll see you in the morning.” In the morning, he took me down the block to the Rockwell house. He said, “Knock on the door and tell him.” Mr. Rockwell answered. I said, “I’m the one who broke your window.” He said, “Thank you for telling me.”

We went in the house and measured the window, and then my dad took me to the hardware store and bought all the stuff to replace a window. We replaced that window.

I played forward on the USC basketball team, riding the pine.

I didn’t think a lot of things through then. I was on academic probation every year, always on the edge, almost ineligible once.

I think I still have the school record for shooting percentage. A thousand percent. I was two for two, over two years.

You were deferred from the draft if you were in college. I had signed a contract at 20th Century Fox, and I was in their new-talent program. I didn’t have a student deferment anymore. So I was either going to be drafted or I’d volunteer for the Army.

I enlisted in the California Army National Guard and did six years. I’m proud to be a vet.

After my six months of active duty, I drove down from Fort Ord in Monterey. I wore my uniform because I wanted to have it on when I saw my folks. It was a very difficult time in the country. Military veterans weren’t treated very well. The country was going in a different way, and I didn’t agree.

Silver Screen CollectionMagnum, one of Tom Selleck’s most iconic characters, sitting in a Ferrari 308 and wearing a custom-made Hawaiian shirt in 1985. “I couldn’t go to a clothing store and buy a Hawaiian shirt,” he said. “They didn’t fit. So I got them made by a young lady named Squeak.”

My first television role was in a TV western called Lancer. Nobody remembers it.

When my family saw me on Lancer? My big brother Bob, who was playing with the Dodgers in the minor leagues, watched it and got very quiet. He said, “That was nice.” Then my parents called, and my dad was very quick. He said, “You were great. I’ll put your mom on.” My mom got on and said the thing I heard from her the rest of my life: “You were great, Tom.”

The original script for Magnum was horrible. The guy was too perfect, like James Bond.

Jim Garner gave me the best piece of advice I may have ever gotten. Jim was driving me back from the Rockford Files set. He knew me pretty well and asked, “What’s wrong?” I said, “The studio’s assigned a script to me, and I hate it.”

Jim was a very humble man. He said, “You don’t have any power, but if they want you for this part, you will never have more power than you do at this moment.”

That’s what I did. I took a stand and said, “No.” The studio said, “Who the hell do you think you are? You’ve never even been on the air.” But they got a new writer, and he wrote a great pilot.

If it didn’t work, I don’t think I ever would have worked again. The studio would have seen to that.

My dad said, “Risk is the price to pay for opportunity.”

The network loved Don Bellisario’s pilot for Magnum, but they said we had to get rid of Vietnam as a part of the history for the character. Don and I said no. That was a fight. Eight years later, we got a call from the Smithsonian. I thought they wanted to put my shirt next to Archie Bunker’s chair or something. I gave them a shirt, a Detroit hat, and the ring.

At the ceremony, they read the citation: This was the first show that recognized Vietnam veterans in a positive light. I was floored.

I always liked the traditional Hawaiian shirt.

I couldn’t go to a clothing store and buy a Hawaiian shirt. They didn’t fit. So I got them made by a young lady named Squeak. I found her in Manhattan Beach. She made a whole bunch of shirts for me.

Bellisario called me and said, “The studio wants to change the title. They want to call it Magnum P.I.” I said, “That’s a horrible title.” I had been in Hawaii for a while during the actors’ strike at the time, and PI is a derogatory term for a Philippine islander.

I have vowed to never call it that. The show’s called Magnum.

George RoseTom Selleck and Ted Danson in 1988. The prior year, Three Men and a Baby, which starred the two of them as well as Steve Guttenberg, was the top-grossing movie of the year.

I had done the Magnum pilot, but it hadn’t sold yet. About a month later, I got a call from my agent, and she said, “Spielberg and George Lucas want to see you for a role in a movie called Raiders of the Lost Ark.” I figured I was the last guy on the list. I went because I got to meet Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.

When I got home, the phone was ringing. They said, “You have a callback for Raiders of the Lost Ark.” I guess that went well, because I got another phone call: Steven Spielberg wants you to come back to the office. I go back, and Steven and George are sitting there. They said, “We want you to play Indiana Jones.”

I had never seen a script. They said, “Here’s a script. Go to my office and read it. Tell us what you think.” I got to about page eight, where the boulder is rolling down the hill after Indiana Jones, and I just said, “Oh, shit. This is really good.”

I told them I had already done a pilot. They said, “We’re surprised you’d tell us that, because most actors would lie.” I said, “Well, I don’t know any other way to do things.” They said, “We’re not worried. We got cards to play at Universal.”

They held that offer for about six weeks, and the more they stayed with the offer, the more CBS wanted Magnum. While I could have done both, CBS said no. They didn’t want a movie star doing a series. “He’ll quit the series.” I never would have done that, but I can’t really blame their thinking.

So, Raiders went away.

That was a big disappointment. But it wasn’t like Magnum was a consolation prize. The fact that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas wanted me, and that I could do this kind of stuff—big-time iconic leads—was a great sense of security and confidence.

I can watch it and have no pangs whatsoever. Maybe one what-if. But most of the time I’m just a good audience.

Three Men and a Baby was the number-one movie at the box office on Thanksgiving weekend, Christmas weekend, and New Year’s weekend. Steve, Ted, and I didn’t work for a lot of money in that movie, but we had a real percentage of the gross.

Friends called me up. They told me this idea with Courtney Cox, about an older guy, they have an affair. I had to go on blind faith, because there was no script.

After the third show, during a table reading, Lisa Kudrow said, “Oh, that’s right, you’re gone. I wish you could stay.” I said, “Well, nobody asked me.” The producer heard that. They didn’t think I’d consider it, because they weren’t paying me phenomenal money, but the work was great, and suddenly, I think it was three more. Then we did three more.

Tom Selleck’s Most Iconic Style Moments

We did the pilot for Blue Bloods in Toronto. The first scene we were ever going to shoot was family dinner. This family who loves each other is going to sit down and have dinner together. I had met Donnie and Lynn, I think, for a day. I met Bridget the night before and Will the day of. We were all kind of nervous.

We have plastic forks and knives painted silver for the dinner scenes. I got a chicken cutlet one day and I broke two forks in the middle of my close-up, and I really got pissed. It was not my finest hour on Blue Bloods. I took that cutlet and threw it like a Frisbee across the room, which I have never heard the end of since.

What’s the future of Blue Bloods? CBS will tell you it’s ending. I think they’re going to come to their senses. I certainly wish they would. I’m going to do whatever it takes. Tell your friends.

Remember: It’s Magnum.

Read more of the iconic Esquire series What I’ve Learned:

What I’ve Learned: Stephen KingWhat I’ve Learned: Sheryl CrowWhat I’ve Learned: Kareem Abdul-JabbarWhat I’ve Learned: José AndrésWhat I’ve Learned: Fathers