The landscape of police dramas in the 70's was expanding to include African-American cops and private eyes. Richard Roundtree, for example, reprised as Shaft in a short-lived series of TV-movies for CBS, and thus was the first African-American to headline his own crime drama, after we'd seen African-Americans in supporting roles in The Mod Squad (Clarence Williams III), which had ended its run, and Ironside (Don Mitchell), which was 2 years away from finishing. There were African-American cops in supporting roles on Adam-12 and the sitcom Sanford & Son.
James McEachin, who had played a police officer on Dragnet, landed the lead in Tenafly, which was added to the NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie, rotating with Faraday & Company, Banacek, & The Snoop Sisters.
However, Tenafly lasted just five movie-length episodes, and only the pilot is readily available. Don Bexley (Sanford & Son) appears in a small role as a pawn shop owner. Jose Ferrer and Ed Nelson (ex-Peyton Place) are the main guest stars.
Tenafly came from the pens of Columbo creators Richard Levinson & William Link, so you'd think this would've been a winner. However, viewers simply were not ready for a police drama with an African-American lead.
Edit, 10/27/23: Had to change the video. We have just an 8 minute sample clip.
Since you didn't mention it:
ReplyDeleteHarry Tenafly's very efficient secretary Laurie was played by Rosanna Huffman - aka Mrs. Richard Levinson.
If memory serves, she turns up in the other four episodes, every bit as perky and efficient as she is here ...
... I guess this was her hubby's way of making up for having killed her off in that Columbo episode (the one with Ross Martin) ...
Anyway, now you know.
DId she also land small roles on, say, Murder, She Wrote or Ellery Queen, too?
ReplyDeleteWell, let's look it up, shall we ... ?
ReplyDeleteIMDb credits Rosanna Huffman with 87 (eighty-seven) appearances of varying sizes, on many series and TV movies, over a long career - and not limited to shows that her husband worked on, either.
Specific to your query, RH made at least 7 (seven) Murder, She Wrote episodes (different characters each time), and turned up in the Ellery Queen/Jim Hutton pilot (in the radio show at the start), as well as at least one segment of the weekly show (I'll just leave it to you to look them up - why should I have to do all the work?).
I'll just call your attention to one Murder, She Wrote, which was Jerry Orbach's first appearance as Harry McGraw: "Tough Guys Don't Die" from Season One.
Rosanna Huffman plays the widow of Harry McGraw's partner, whose murder sets up the story.
In the same story, Harry has a motherly-type secretary, who's played by Margery Nelson - Mrs. William Link!
All part of the fun - and more fun if you know!
(Hey, you did ask ...)
I'll pull up her file. I think I have that Ellery pilot......!
ReplyDeleteAbout James McEachin:
ReplyDeleteBefore he became an actor, he had been a cop in real life, in Hackensack, NJ.
He didn't always play cops, but if you check the lists, he sure played a lot of them.
One of James McEachin's longest running gigs was in the Perry Mason TV movies in the '80s-'90s; he was Lt. Brock ("Tragg" in all but name) in over a dozen of them.
After the Mason movies ended, McEachin started phasing out his acting career, moving into writing novels; he's now 92 years old, pretty much retired - and good for him.
As I noted, he'd done a few episodes of Dragnet (2nd series), so TIL he had real life experience to prep him for the role.
ReplyDelete