The early 70’s really saw a lot of movie stars trying for Television stardom. On September 29, 1971 Rock Hudson threw his hat into the ring with what was to become a successful run on McMillan and Wife. To a generation of people Mr. Hudson became better known for his TV series then his movies.
On the show Rock played Stewart McMillan. He was a San Francisco lawyer who was appointed to be the Police Commissioner. His wife Sally was a fan of mystery novels. The new Commissioner became directly involved in the cases and his wife, no matter how hard he tried to stop her, would help. It isn’t too amazing that this was a hit as part of the NBC Mystery Movie. Rock Hudson is a good actor but the supporting cast is even better. The lead actress was Susan Saint James as his wife. John Schuck was Sgt. Enright and Nancy Walker was Mildred his maid who also helped solve some of the crimes. At the time I had never seen the William Powel movies of the Thin Man but in hindsight the series played like the TV version of the Thin Man. Another successful attempt at this would be made with the TV series Hart To Hart.
McMillan and Wife was only on once a month as part of a revolving mystery wheel on NBC. The others, McCloud and Columbo, were spun off into weekly series. For some reason McMillan and Wife was not. Perhaps they kept it in rotation in order to be the anchor of the mystery series while they introduced other new series. This might give any other series that replaced McCloud or Columbo a chance to build up loyal viewers.
In 1976 Susan Saint James and Nancy Walker didn’t renew their contracts to the series. Normally this would have been the end of the series. However, Rock Hudson stayed with the show. Martha Raye was introduced as Mildred’s sister Agatha. Susan Saint James was not replaced. They killed her character off in a plane crash. The series name changed to McMillan. The last episode of the series aired August 21, 1977.
The series actually was over when Miss. Saint James quit. What the producers seemed to fail to realize is that her character was the audience. Through her we were able to be part of they show. Through her we followed the police investigation from beginning to the end.
Rock Hudson did make the transition from movie star to television star with this show. He tried for television stardom again. None of them matched the success he had with McMillan and Wife.
Instead of using a TV Guide cover as the photo I used a copy of the DVD box set of the series first season. Just thought I would give loyal readers of this blog a break from all the TV Guide photos.
1 comment:
Actually, I'm pretty sure McCloud and Columbo were never weekly.
As far as Mac, my wife's favorite part was that in a couple of different seasons, Sally was pregnant and they dealt with the pregnancy but the producers didn't want the couple to have a child so after she gave birth in real life, they just ignored it on the show as if it had never happened.
Post a Comment