Minneapolis Tribune TV week
October 31 - November 6, 1971

Cover story
By Irv Letofsky 
Staff Writer

Hollywood, Calif. As one of those rare Hollywood successes 
who doesn't have a business manager and handles his own 
checkbook, James Franciscus brings a certain wisdom to the 
acting profession.

At the Yale Drama School he first wanted to write, "but I 
discovered that it's too lonely a profession for me," he 
said. A Walt Disney talent scout saw him and put him in 
"Four Boys and a Gun."

In the interim between then and now, the fairhaired 
Missouri boy did "Naked City" and "Mr. Novak," two 
applauded series, and several films, including six in the 
last three years.

"After 'Novak,' I wanted to leave television," he said. 
"You just cannot discuss adult things, nothing relevant... 
The average network gives up at the 12-year-old mentality. 
It can have quality and maturity in dealing with themes; it 
can be oblique; it can be more subtle."

On this day he was stabbing into a monster salad in a back 
restaurant room at Paramount Studios and discussing his new 
ABC-TV series, "Longstreet," in which he plays a blind 
insurance investigator ostensibly in New Orleans (but 
mostly on the Paramount set).

"They tested some people for it and they talked to me and 
sent me a script and I liked it," he said with simple 
directness.

"And I love working with Stirling again," he added in 
regard to creator-writer-producer Stirling Silliphant, the 
brilliant dramatist from "Naked City," as well as "Route 
66" and the Oscar winning "In the Heat of the Night."

(You might recall the name from a proposed film for which 
he interviewed Minneapolis Mayor Charles Stenvig about a 
policeman who becomes mayor. No word yet on the disposition 
of that project.)

"I had some other series offered, but you always look for 
something different," Franciscus said. "There's never been 
a series about a blind person. There's never been a show -- 
or very few -- where week after week the story is basically 
about your point-of-view lead rather than your guest star.

"I don't know any more about Marcus Welby than I did from 
the first show. I don't know any more about Mannix than I 
did from the first show, or 'Hawaii 5-0'... but this show 
you learn more and more about Mike Longstreet, his growth, 
his failures, his successes...."

Whether or not "Longstreet" will suffer the same ratings 
anemia that killed "Mr. Novak" remains to be seen. 
Franciscus, alluding to the 15 million weekly viewers who 
favored "Mr. Novak" and lost, is not a devotee of the 
ratings system.

"I know that everybody says that's all we got and we have 
to make do, but we know there are better techniques that 
are possible and have been demonstrated.

"The fallacies of some of these rating techniques! You 
recall the FCC hearing (Federal Communications Commission) 
learned that the lady who was one of the Nielsen homes went 
out to dinner every Thursday night but her dog was alone 
and she left Ch. 3 on so her dog would feel that somebody 
was there.

"The conclusion was that that dog represented 500,000 
viewers."

After "Mr. Novak," Franciscus went into a partnership 
called Omnibus Productions, which subsequently made 
"Heidi," "David Copperfield" and "Jane Eyre" for TV and is 
completing the classic "Kidnapped" with Michael Caine, Jack 
Hawkins and Trevor Howard for theatrical release, possibly 
early next year.

But this type of diversion is not to be constituted as the 
usual type of arrangement to promote James Franciscus: "I 
mean why get yourself stuck with Jim Franciscus when you 
could get Bob Redford?" he told one reporter.

Do you want to get out of acting? "Acting is by far and 
above my first love," he said.

Although he spouted the usual cliche about his newest and 
most challenging role, Mike Longstreet might be.

Franciscus talked with blind people, read books, worked 
with guide dogs, stumbled around with a blindfold. He will 
wear sunglasses on infrequent occasions, "to give the 
audience a different look," but the added device of 
blindness is just another burden on acting the scenes, 
"like rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the 
same time."

***

The TV highlights for Thursday at 8:00pm Central read:

8:00pm -- Longstreet follows a tangled trail leading to the 
theft of a Rembrandt painting.  Tim O'Connor and Shelley 
Fabares on "Longstreet."  Ch. 9 (ABC).