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Life After Melrose Place
by Michael Idato, Australia, 1996
Three months later, when the script was finished, he was politely informed he was too young for the role and sent out into the dog-eat-dog world of Hollywood.
The 190cm-tall actor quickly landed a guest spot on China Beach, followed by a made-for-television movie with Heather Locklear. Going good? Wrong. Going very, very bad.
"I realised I had lost the whole reason I had become an actor in the first place," he explains. "I started taking acting classes again and changed my perspective."
From there he settled down into a two-year role on the syndicated series The Untouchables, occasional work on television movies and recurring roles on the great soaps of their respective decades - the '80s classic Knots Landing and the '90s masterpiece Melrose Place.
Elliott is the star of the new drama JAG, in which he plays Lt. Harmon Rabb Jnr., a disgraced fighter pilot turned US Navy lawyer assigned to the office of the Judge Advocate General (known as JAG, in Navyspeak).
Executive producer Donald Bellisario, whose credits include Magnum PI, explains, "The very first time I met with (Tom) Selleck for Magnum, I was struck by more than his good looks, his sense of humour, and I knew immediately that he would be perfect for the role.
"It was the same with David James Elliott. We were sitting in my office and, out of nowhere, he let go of his Canadian reserve and displayed that same sense of roguish humour."
"But it wasn't until he flashed that smile of his, which I think is going to become famous on television, that I just sat up and went, "Oh my God, this is the guy."
Bellisario says he created JAG because the kind of television he likes to watch - dramatic, action-adventure programs - have all but disappeared from the airwaves.
"I don't do sitcoms," he says. "I don't do urban neurotic dramas and, although politics, ethics and morals are reflected in the heroes I create, my main objective is always to entertain."
During his recent Australian visit, JAG star David James Elliott found himself in strife while at a photo shoot. David was to wear a black suit, but he only had white socks. The ever-resourceful actor asked a passing journalist to loan the black socks he was wearing. The red-faced journo declined, but not because he didn't want David wearing his sweaty socks. "I had on a pair of socks with the The Single Guy written all over them. I was too embarrassed to let anyone see them," he laughs.
Our thanks to Karlene Galway for submitting these.
