Here Comes the Sun: Tom Selleck and more

[Music] welcome I'm Lee Cowen and this is Here Comes the Sun a closer look at some of the people places and things we bring you every weekend on Sunday morning Tom cel's 14-year run on cbs's hit drama blue buds might be coming to an end more on that later in the show but his big break came back in the 80s when he and that iconic mustache starred as Magnum PI as he recalled to Tracy Smith it was on that show he got one of his most unique requests from a guest star among its biggest fans Frank Sinatra who once told Magnum co-star Larry manetti that he'd like to be on the show and Larry comes to me and says Frank wants to do the show and he said but um he wants to be asked so you have to call him and he wanted to do it right away so I said well we're going to have to write it for you what what do you want to do he said oh I don't care just make sure I get to beat somebody up that was his condition yeah um that's Frank later in the show Tom celic un seeking good roles rather than just Glitz and glamour you say flat out in the book I don't I don't want to be famous I want to be a good actor I yeah and I started I look i' I've always been somewhat private and um by the time I got Magnum I realized uh Magnum was a long journey which you find out in the book it was a very melancholy time for me I was stuck in Hawaii the actors were on strike I had to give up Raiders and but I knew even if Magnum wasn't successful when it finally got on the air um and it got cancelled my whole life would change and I I I did not welcome that and so I've been blessed all along I've been blessed by a lot of failure then we meet Italian sculptor yakobo Yago cardo our Seth D got a behind the- scenes look at the artist's most ambitious project yet a six ton more than 16t sculpture and while some have called him a young Michelangelo cardo says he wants his work to be considered incomparable he's unveiling humankind and making headlines with his contemporary approach to this classical art form you've been called the Young Michelangelo please don't say that what why do you not like I don't want to be the next you know someone I want to be the next myself that's all coming up right here and here comes the sun as we alluded to at the top of the show Tom celik has spent more than a decade portraying head of the NYPD Frank Reagan on cbs's Blue Bloods the series finale is expected to air later this year but celic told our Tracy Smith he isn't quite ready to turn his badge in quite yet watch your step there's no h it is a little steep on the highest hill at Tom celix California Ram it's hard to beat the Panorama I tell you for a guy who values his privacy you couldn't pick a better spot than this thank you at 79 you could say the actor is very familiar with the view from the top hey come on don't overthink this guys you're as tough as they come for the past 14 years celic is starred in the hit CBS show Blue Bloods as the head of the NYPD and the head of a strong and often headstrong family I knew that you and Dad would be for that rule even if it wasn't actually a rule but the rule does make enormous sense the show is set to end this year but there's been some push back on that most notably from celic himself is Blue Bloods ending well that's a good question I will continue to think that CBS will come to their census we're the third highest scripted show in all of broadcast we're winning the night all the cast wants to come back and I can tell you this we aren't sliding off down a cliff we're doing good shows and still holding our place so I don't know you tell me it's not the first time Tom celic has been at odds with the powers that be in a career that's been long and [Music] legendary in his most famous role in the80s the character Thomas Magnum wore a Detroit Tigers baseball cap that's a nod to the town in which Tom celic himself was born long before Magnum and the mustache he was an athlete at the University of Southern California and after a less than Stellar academic career he found work in ads people are switching to band basic selling products like band basic and Baro Safeguard doesn't need heavy perfume to Maser good morning good morning he smells just the way a man should smell clean yep that's Terry gar and Penny Marshall back when they were all young and struggling you told yourself early on going to auditions and interviews you would literally say to yourself in the car you're good enough Tom I'd say you're enough but that's thank you maybe that good would have helped but I didn't think of that but you're Enough Tom you'd say that to yourself I did I did but little of what he did in his early career was ever enough not the soap opera gig I could use a little transfusion this for me or the six TV Pilots he made and then he was signed to do Magnum PI and around the same time celic was offered another role from Steven Spielberg Stephen said here's the script go read it tell me if you like it CU we want you for Indiana Jones so I got to about page eight in Steven's office and I just went oh this is really good but in a story that's become Legend he was forced to turn down Raiders of the Lost Arc for Magnum in a long awaited Memoir celic shares the details of what he calls the world series of disappointments and how he quickly made peace with it you can make yourself a victim or just smile and say that's really ironic and you chose to smile I had a good job coming up a job I would have dreamed of uh r are not Magnum PI debuted in 1980 on CBS about a former Navy SEAL and Vietnam vet turn private investigator the studio wanted to lose the Vietnam element back then the wounds of the war were still fresh but celic and his producer fought hard to keep it in and the show was a hit among its biggest fans Frank Sinatra who once told Magnum co-star Larry manetti that he'd like to be on the show then Larry comes to me it says Frank wants to do the show and he said but um he wants to be asked so you have to call him and he wanted to do it right away so I said well we're going to have to write it for you what what do you want to do he said oh I don't care just make sure I get to beat somebody up that was his condition yeah um that's Frank the Magnum PI guest shot was Sinatra's last acting job we got a money but it was only the beginning of Tom celix reign as an 80 sex symbol that smile that Swagger that mustache in private however celic was Smitten by British actor Jilly Mack whom he first spotted when she was in the London production of cats I got checked out by some of the cast Never Jilly one of the cast members told her at half time he says you know who keeps staring at you Tom cich and uh I don't know how to clean this up she just said who the's that um she didn't know who I was from Adam which to me was the greatest thing in the world they married in secret in 1987 just before Magnum entered its final season they've been together ever since by that time celic says he was burned out but he knew he'd helped create something that was more than just a TV show when Magnum ended we got a call from the Smithsonian and they said uh we want to honor Magnum we need some artifacts and they took my hat and my the ring I wore the team ring in Vietnam and U my Hawaiian shirt the red one and we went back there and they read the citation they gave us credit for being the first show that showed Vietnam veterans in a positive light so fight was worth it he said it was for him these days he spends most of his non-working time on his Ranch and it's not hard to see why you know hopefully I'll keep working enough to hold on to the place seriously that's an issue if you stopped working always an issue if I sto working yeah am I set for life yeah but maybe not on a 63 acre ranch happily he likes his job and after 60 years in front of the camera Tom celic knows he's enough so bigger picture when you look down the road what do you see hopefully work as an actor you never lose I don't lose anyway the sense that every time I finish a job it's my last job do you still have that sense I like the fact that there's no excuses you just go to work and you do the work and I have a a lot of reverence for what I call the work and I love it and uh I'd like to keep doing it after the break an exclusive excerpt from Tracy Smith's chat with Tom celic something you can only see right here on here comes the sun stay with us failure is your friend if you make friends with it as promised here's more with Tom celik and Tracy Smith your dad yeah when you came to him and said Dad I want to leave USC and do this acting program yeah here's this man who had worked all of his life and just wanted you to have a job and and had helped you get into college but he said to you you should do it because you don't want to have wh ifs I went to him he didn't know about my academic problems but uh I told him I was offered uh this contract and uh my brother Bob played professional baseball and he had signed with the Dodgers Tommy lorta signed him and uh he thought for a minute because I had to quit a job I was uh in a management training program for United Airlines they didn't know about my academic record either he just thought for a minute and he said I think it's like your brother Bob he said it's a kind of opportunity that's considered special and if you don't try it you may get to be about 35 and wonder what if it was kind of and he said but you got to call your boss and quit your job I was hoping he'd call but no that's not my dad and um I I started to leave thanks Dad and I just heard him he wasn't talking to himself and he wasn't really talking to me and he said uh just don't let him change you so he had taken a risk in giving that advice but he gave it fully um without any caution but he knew he had uh been selling real estate in California in LA and he knew the Hollywood stories and everything and obviously it was a concern and I guess that's where that came from but he didn't say it for me to hear I just heard it do you think you honored his advice just don't let him change you yeah as much as I can or could yeah you say flat out in the book I don't want to be famous I want to be a good actor I yeah and I started I look i' I've always been somewhat private and um by the time I got Magnum I realized uh Magnum was a long journey which you find out in the book it was a very melancholy time for me I was stuck in Hawaii the actors were on strike I had to give up Raiders and but I knew even if Magnum wasn't successful when it finally got on the air um and it got cancelled my whole life would change and I I I did not welcome that and so I've been blessed all along I've been blessed by a lot of failure failure is your friend if you make friends with it um because that's the teacher and I had I was well equipped for that not my academics that's kind of pitiful but the sports I played um I played Sports I wanted to be an athlete I wanted to be a professional baseball player and all the teams I played on were losing teams our high school teams um in junior college at SC we kept losing to Lou elender Who became Kareem Abdul Jabar um you you become very familiar in sports with failure you can have successes or failures in one um sit down so and I that was another serendipitous piece of luck to make me understand um The Journey as an actor I never really questioned it up next we meet what you might call the ultimate Rockstar welcome back sculptor Yo's Timeless technique combined with an active presence on social media has made his work more accessible to younger generations and earned him Legions of fans including none other than whoopy Goldberg Seth D met the man behind the hammer and the Chisel this marble baby sculpture called look down meant to draw attention to the vulnerability of the unhoused was installed in New York while the Italian sculptor may not yet be a household name in the US the woman who helped get it here is everybody started out as this baby this journey involving whoopy Goldberg takes us to Naples in a sprawling Shipyard Studio a wonderful place the perfect place where I can make dust noise we're 37-year-old sculptor yakobo cardo better known in his native Italy simply as Yago is working on his most ambitious project yet carving away 20 tons of marble to create what'll be a 6 tonon more than 16t tall sculpture it's nerve-racking you can't make any mistakes well you can maybe I made 100 mistakes you'd not think that looking around his Studio the artist has sent a piece to the International Space Station he exhibited at the Venice Bal at just 24 years old and won a medal for an earlier version of this hello m' there he is the pop a bust of Pope amerus Benedict the 16th initially wearing his cloak a piece Yago says he never really liked there were no one piece of freedom in that portrayed so you decided to take the Pope's clothes off well when the pope decide to retire it was an incredible excuse to go back to the world unveiling what behind the humankind he's unveiling humankind and making headlines with his contemporary approach to this classical art form you've been called the Young Michelangelo please don't say that why why do you not like I don't want to be the next you know someone I want to be the next myself one key Implement he uses is social media to expose his process a technique that cens old he draws dots as reference points on a fullscale plaster cast you have pixel right more pixel more quality definition then moves a frame from the cast fitting it into the same place in the marble the tool pinpoints how deep to carve now I'm here and now I go go close you see you miss this Al cm it's in those final details those last Mill of course imagine your face my face every millime matter in those last millime he's created masterpieces some displayed in his church turned Museum in Naples sen neighborhood it's home to his narcissus his take on Venus we are so connected with this idea that there is an age to be Venus but that's that's not true it's a myth and it's where Yago welcomed a group of teens who'd beaten up that marble baby in a Naples Piaza in 2020 not long after he finished work on it in a studio in New York I says listen guys with the same chisel and Hummer you can broke something or you can build something and then he whips out the tools and I thought okay this is this is how you show them that story of embracing the teens piqued the interest of whoopy Goldberg usually you think of you as the celebrity in this case you're the fan I am a huge fan she was touched by the humanity of the whole thing there is a lot of heart in the midst of it and I want us to see our better selves in these art pieces so I wanted it to be here because I think New Yorkers get it having this baby returned to New York kind of completes a circle maybe it's just a step baby needs to grow as Yago grows he'd like to create a new Museum maybe in the US he prefers to speak through his sculptures etching and evoking emotions that may not always need to be explained it's like when you try to explain a poetry poetry does many way to understand a poetry like love for example you follow in love if you try to explain at that moment maybe you destroy the Poetry okay maybe shut up okay and F I'm Lee Allen thanks for joining us we'll see you right here next time and Here Comes the Sun [Music]