The “namby-pamby” 1981 performance that cost Ted Danson a role in a Steven Spielberg movie: “Ah, no”
Steven Spielberg did eventually cast Ted Danson in one of his movies when he awarded him a small role in Saving Private Ryan to finally make up for the disappointment the actor had suffered over a decade and a half previously, when he was convinced he’d embarrassed himself out of another.
By the end of 1982, Danson was one of the most recognisable faces on television, with Cheers premiering in September of that year and propelling him to household name status as the face of what would soon become the single most-watched show in the United States.
Three months beforehand, though, he could have played the lead in one of the year’s highest-grossing releases, not to mention a classic of its chosen genre and one of the most notorious pictures in Hollywood history, after its name became closely associated with bad luck, misfortune, and tragedy.
At the time, Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat was Danson’s only noteworthy big-screen appearance, but he was getting his reps in on television. Like any self-respecting jobbing thespian, he guest-starred in several of the most popular shows of the period, including ‘Don’t Say Goodbye’, the 15th episode of Magnum PI‘s first season.
Airing in March 1981, the sitcom stalwart was on villain-of-the-week duties as Stewart Crane, playing a character that he described as “a murderous, wimpy husband.” It was a one-shot appearance, but not too long after it had aired, Danson went to audition for Spielberg and convinced himself that his lacklustre work opposite Tom Selleck and his formidable moustache cost him a shot at big-screen stardom.
“Here’s my memory of it,” he told Selleck. “Steven Spielberg was casting Poltergeist. We had a meeting, and he was very interested in me; this is what I was told. Then he saw the episode that you and I shot, and he saw this weak, kind of namby-pamby husband getting the shit kicked out of him by tall, handsome Tom Selleck.”
Presumably, Danson had put himself forward for Steve Freeling, the patriarch of the horror flick’s central family, eventually played by Craig T Nelson. Poltergeist would recoup its budget 12 times over at the box office, leading to decades of rumours that Spielberg had been more than its co-writer and producer, and gave rise to the curse that’s plagued the franchise ever since.
As far as he was concerned, though, a combination of playing a “namby-pamby” character on Magnum PI, as well as an overhead shot that revealed to Danson that he had “an actual, full-on bald spot,” conspired to rob him of the chance to work with the highest-profile director of their generation.
“You, with no bald spot, were kicking the shit out of me,” he sighed. “And I think Mr Spielberg went, ‘Ah, no.'” Whether that’s true or not, Saving Private Ryan did at least go a long way to righting that wrong, at last giving Danson the opportunity to appear in a Spielberg flick.
