Tom Selleck
A thousand dollars for “Magnum” employees
© ddp / INSTAR
When the studio declined, Tom Selleck stepped in. The series star distributed his bonus to the crew of the series “Magnum”.
Tom Selleck, 79, paid every “Magnum” employee a $1,000 bonus after the studio reportedly refused to cover it during the show’s final season. The actor reveals this according to “The Hollywood Reporter” in his just-published autobiography “You Never Know.”
Bonus for the star, not the crew
The series, which ran from 1980 to 1988, had reduced its budget surplus every year during that time. The actor explained that he had asked for a bonus if the crew managed to make savings. According to Selleck, the studio did not want to discuss bonuses for the crew under any circumstances so as not to set a “dangerous precedent.” This made him “angry”.
Selleck then used his influence as a star of the series to demand a bonus for himself. And those responsible agreed, as “The Hollywood Reporter” continues to report on the book. “That really made me angry,” Selleck said. He apparently didn’t mention the amount, “but it was considerable,” he wrote.
Tom Selleck didn’t put the money in his own pocket afterwards: he had “thousand-dollar checks made out to every regular member” of the team in both Hawaii and Los Angeles. “When the checks came, I got a photo of our LA crew standing on a bleacher with big grins,” he wrote. “The caption read: ‘Thank you Tom, what a great gesture.’ That made me happy.”
“Magnum” made Tom Selleck a star
Tom Selleck became known worldwide in 1980 as the Hawaiian private detective Thomas Magnum in the crime series “Magnum”. He also appeared as Dr. for ten episodes from 1996. Richard Burke can be seen in the cult series “Friends” as the friend of Monica Geller (played by Courteney Cox, 59). He has been playing Frank Reagan in “Blue Bloods” since fall 2010, and the series’ final season airs this year.