 |
|
|
In Step with DAVID JAMES ELLIOTT
|
|
|
In Step with DAVID JAMES ELLIOTT
by James Brady, Parade, February 9, 1997
In friendly golf, when you flub the first tee shot, they give you a free one, what they call a mulligan. There are very few second chances in the hard bottom-line world of network TV. But a dramatic series called JAG, about the Judge Advocate General's office, just got its mulligan.
NBC dropped the series last spring after a full season. Within hours, interested phone calls were coming in from both ABC and CBS. CBS made the deal, and last month the hour-long drama about Navy and Marine Corps lawyers was back on TV, Fridays at 9 p.m. EDT, starring David James Elliott as Lt. Cmdr. Harmon Rabb, this time with a beautiful new co-star, Catherine Bell.
"We've got a stronger cast and new writers and a great lead-in to Nash Bridges [the Don Johnson cop series]," David James Elliott told me. They also tested a whole batch of actresses before settling on Ms. Bell to play Marine Maj. Sarah (Mac) MacKenzie. "When they got down to a shortlist, we [he and Ms. Bell] read together," David said. "I get a vote, but the most important vote was Don Bellisario's [the executive producer]."
JAG wins strong support from the military. "We have no end of technical advisers," David told me. "We have a 22-year veteran of the Marine Corps, a master sergeant, who's on the set every day. And a former top gun who's now an admiral. We shoot on Navy and Marine Corps bases, like El Toro [the Marine air station in Southern California]. The Marines are great."
So great that, even though David is a Canadian citizen, he tried to enlist in the U.S. Marines while still in his teens. "I'd just seen Apocalypse Now," he recalled, "and went down to the American consulate and told them I wanted to join up, and they said, 'Great, now fill this out, and we'll put it through and get back to you.' 'How long will that take?' I asked. 'Oh, about a year.' So there went my dreams of going overseas the very next day with the Marines. But, as my brother said, 'Look, you're six-four--if you joined up, they'd never send you to war. They'd put you out in front of some monument or building in Washington on guard duty.'"
Besides JAG, David will have another opportunity this summer, a big bucks feature film remake of the old Zorro yarn, starring Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas as the old and young Zorro, and David as the capitano. But if JAG decides to film additional episodes, Zorro may just not fit his schedule.
Nice quandary to be in.
************************* Brady's bits:
Like a lot of kids, David grew up thinking music rather than acting, and he was singing in his own rock band in his teens. How serious was that? "As a matter of fact, I quit high school and lived for a while in a halfway house," he said. "But finally I realized I could rely on myself but not on the other guys [in the band], they were so volatile." About that time, David first read King Lear and became enthusiastic about theater. Admitted to Ryerson Polytechnic Institute in Toronto, he did so well that the Shakespeare Festival at Stratford, Ontario, took him on. Next came a starring role on the Canadian TV series Street Legal. Roles on Doogie Howser and China Beach followed. He was a recurring character on Knots Landing and Melrose Place. What was that like? "A great deal of fun," said David. "At first, I was a little reticent. It's a cartoon of sorts, and you can draw your role with broad strokes." But it was the one-shot role as Carl the moving man on Seinfeld that really opened doors, he said. Right now David is excited that his wife, Nanci, will be a guest star on JAG. What sort of role? "She plays an assassin." Oh.
Personal:
Born Sept.21, 1960, in Toronto. Married to Nanci Chambers, 1992-; one daughter, Stephanie, 3.
Television: Includes Street Legal, 1985-88; Fly By Night, 1991; The Untouchables, 1992-94; Knots Landing, 1992; Seinfeld, 1994; Melrose Place, 1994-1995; JAG, 1995-96, 1997-.
TV Films: Include Golden Gate, 1994; Degree of Guilt, 1995; Big Dreams & Broken Hearts: The Dottie West Story, 1995.