Tom Selleck’s ’90s Western Proves He Should Have Been A Major Movie Star
BY WITN

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
When Tom Selleck was in college, he spent at least as much time playing basketball and baseball as he did studying acting. Tall and handsome, Selleck was a classic fraternity kid, dazzling people with his athletic prowess and good looks. It wasn’t until his senior year in college (he was studying business at USC) that he was told to give acting a shot. Selleck dropped out of school and began studying theater at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. Starting in 1969 and throughout the 1970s, Selleck made a handy career playing small roles and bit parts in dozens of TV shows and movies. He was on shows like “Charlie’s Angels,” “Mannix,” “The FBI,” “Taxi,” and “The Rockford Files.” He turned up in films like “Midway,” “Coma,” and “Concrete Cowboys.” Selleck was always affable and charming, and casting directors loved that about him. 

Selleck’s big break came in 1980 when he landed the title role in the successful tropical detective series “Magnum, P.I.” The series was silly, yes, but it was also eminently watchable, giving Selleck a chance to ply his talents. “Magnum” lasted for 162 episodes over eight seasons, becoming one of the more notable hits of its day. Shortly before it went off the air, Selleck also starred as the co-lead in Leonard Nimoy’s 1987 film “Three Men and a Baby,” a film that made $240 million on its $15 million budget. It was one of the biggest hits of the year. Selleck, it seemed, was poised to take over both TV and movies. 

But his follow-up leading-man projects were never quite as impressive. Case in point: Simon Wincer’s 1990 Aussie Western “Quigley Down Under” kind of came and went without much fanfare. In it, Selleck played the titular Quigley, a 19th-century American sharpshooter who is called to Australia.