Making the Leap from Small Screen to Big Screen

Television has long provided both a training ground for would-be film stars and a second life for former film stars. The road from little screen to big screen has been travelled successfully by the likes of Steve McQueen (Wanted: Dead or Alive) and Clint Eastwood (Rawhide). Other TV performers have achieved spotty silver screen success (e.g., Chevy Chase)… and then there were those who never should have given up a good television gig (e.g., David Caruso in NYPD Blue, Hugh O’Brien in Wyatt Earp). Below are three actors who left hit series, at the height of their popularity, to take a crack at movie stardom.
By 1963, George Maharis had played the cool, likable Buz Murdock for almost three seasons on Route 66. During that time, he had earned an Emmy nomination for playing Buz, scored a Top 25 hit record with “Teach Me Tonight,” and was generally regarded as a TV heartthrob. He left Route 66 in the middle of the third season, stating that the constant traveling was causing health problems (the series was shot on location throughout the U.S). The producers claimed it was just an excuse to try his hand at movie stardom. Whatever the reason, it was moot—Maharis’s film career never took off. The Satan Bug, despite being an entertaining thriller about a germ warfare and global blackmail, was a flop. Quick, Before It Melts (1964), The Happening (1967), and other efforts tanked, too. By 1970, Maharis was back as a TV series regular in the short-lived detective series The Most Deadly Game.

James Garner was so popular as easygoing Bret Maverick in the 1957-62 Maverick TV series that he starred in films while concurrently acting in his hit show. Admittedly, Darby’s Rangers (1959) and Cash McCall (1960) weren’t huge successes (though the latter is a fun flick). Still, Garner had greased the proverbial skids by the time he left Maverick in 1960 after a contract dispute with Warner Bros. He quickly racked up impressive performances in The Children’s Hour, The Great Escape, The Americanization of Emily, Support Your Local Sheriff, and many others. NBC lured Garner back to television in 1971 for Nichols, which was basically a reworking of Support Your Local Sheriff. When the show flopped, NBC decided it was because of the offbeat lead character, so the original Nichols was killed off and Garner then played his twin. That didn’t work either and the show was cancelled after a year. Garner rebounded nicely, returning to television three years later as private eye Jim Rockford in The Rockford Files, which ran for six years and earned Garner an Emmy. Post-Rockford, Garner returned to the screen in some of his biggest hits, Victor/Victoria and Murphy’s Romance. Few stars have floated back & forth between the small and big screen so effortlessly.

Pernell Roberts had it made in the early 1960s. As Adam Cartwright, he was arguably the most popular star on TV’s powerhouse Western family drama Bonanza…but Roberts was unhappy. He famously argued that Adam, the eldest Cartwright son and an architect, wouldn’t call his father “Pa”. At the height of his popularity, Roberts left Bonanza in 1966 to focus on the stage, music (he had recorded an album in 1962), and theatrical films. He starred in the famously panned stage musical Gone With the Wind (originally titled Scarlett) with Lesley Ann Warren. He made a couple of forgettable, low-budget foreign films (e.g., Four Rode Out). Mostly, he stayed busy by guest starring on a number of TV series such as Gunsmoke, The Big Valley, Mission: Impossible, and Ironside. Finally, in 1979, he found success again as the title character in the belated M*A*S*H spinoff Trapper John, M.D.

OK, Café patrons, what other TV stars tried to make the leap from TV to film—either successfully or unsuccessfully?