"Owwwww!"
Jon-Erik Hexum jabs his thumb high in the Hollywood sunlight, blood trickling
down to a rolled-up, ruffled sleeve. As he rushes past the cameras, they
halt, and go-fers scuttle forward with icepacks and bandages.
While Voyagers!, a new fantasy-adventure series on CTV and NBC, is based on accidents (time-travelers Phineas Bogg and Jeffrey Jones, played by Hexum and Meeno Peluce, venture into the past to correct historical accidents that would change the course of history), this one is not in the script. Hexum shouldn't have had his hand on the jamb, and Peluce needn't have slammed the door. They're already way behind schedule.
"That hurts!" winces Hexum, 25, as a medic spins a gauze cocoon around his thumb. "Football at Michigan State was dangerous, right? But not TV acting with a 12-year-old. Wrong."
When a crew member waggles a giant electric drill at him, offering to pierce the nail and "relieve the pressure," Hexum declines, laughing. "No time. We have to do the scene. Besides, Meeno may want to do the other thumb."
This Wednesday is "garbage day" in trade talk, as small scenes ("fillers") for two earlier episodes are being shot all over the 420-acre Universal complex. It has been hectic.
At 11 a.m., the din from swarms of motorcycle punks and stray helicopters from other shows in progress stopped the shooting over on New York St. (eight blocks of 19th-century brownstone facades). At noon, they had to shut down again on European St. -- England, circa 1850 -- when an overly inquisitive Japanese tourist toppled from the Universal GlamorTram down onto the cobblestones -- a mess of cameras, lenses and light meters.
Hexum and Peluce dispatch the scene in one try, and Hexum soon leans back in Peluce's mobile dressing room. "It's all true," he sighs in mock despair. "Everything. Meeno is only 12, and he already has more experience than I do. Makes more money. Even," and he gestures around him, "has a bigger trailer than I do, the ultimate sign of Hollywood status. And now this." He dabs at his thumb with an ice bag. "But I'm confident," he says. "Maybe even a little cocky."
Hexum is a handsome new face at Universal. In fact, he is new to show business, period. Before moving to Los Angeles in the fall of '81, he had little experience. Counting high school in New Jersey, college in East Lansing, Michigan, and summer stock in upstate New York, he'd been in a total of six stage productions. But once he moved West, things began to happen. Or almost happen.
NBC vice-president Joel Thurm auditioned him in New York in the spring of 1981, and liked what he saw. Thurm -- who's had an active hand in recent discoveries, including Diane Keaton and John Travolta -- recalls that day. "Bob Le Mond -- then Travolta's manager -- called and said he was sending over a fresh new star. 'Don't worry about his lack of experience,' he told me. Now, I've heard this before. But when Jon walked in, the women in the office all had these little smiles on their faces. I thought, 'My God, I hope he can read.' He had remarkable presence.
"It sounds preposterous, but he's a blend of rugged good looks and vulnerability, a cross between Travolta and the young John Wayne. And he could read. He did two scenes -- one from 'Bus Stop' and one for a pilot that late went unsold. When he left, it was absolutely silent in the booth until somebody said, 'He's got it. Let's grab him.'"
Grabbing him took a little longer than expected, but not by much. Thurm sent the audition tape to a friend, writer/director Randal Kleiser, who was then casting the film "Summer Lovers." Kleiser flew Hexum to Hollywood and was as impressed as Thurm. He mulled it over for a week, deciding at the last minute to go with the more experienced Peter Gallagher.
Shortly before reading for "Summer Lovers," Hexum had been cast (and un-cast) in "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas." The film was about to enter production when choreographer Tommy Tune was sent packing. His chorus -- including Hexum -- followed on his heels.
After those near misses, Hexum paused for some minor-league seasoning. "I had four nonspeaking roles on soaps," he says. "I opened a door on Texas. Then I got to move around on The Doctors. That was really exciting -- I delivered a refrigerator. Then two more. It was a brief career of standing around and looking menial."
When executive producer James Parriott (The Bionic Woman and the Sic Million Dollar Man) brought Voyagers! to NBC in 1981, Thurm again suggested Hexum. Phineas Bogg was conceived as a 40ish swashbuckler, an older British salt unhinged in time from the 17th century. Thurm explains, "But when Jack and Meeno did their final reading together, they were hot. Parriott saw what he had. He cast Hexum and rewrote the role for him."
On hearing Thurm's account, Hexum stretches his 6-foot-1, 190-pound frame back on the couch, shaking his head in amusement. "No way. It ws much harder than all of that. For two years, I put everything I had into making it. I was a long shot."
Raised by a single mother to two sons, Hexum did not know opulence in New Jersey. "I didn't have much when I came out here -- I still don't. I have two pairs of jeans, one pair of boots. My first apartment near the beach was about the size of this trailer. I shared it with a Mexican busboy and a Cambodian kitchen helper. I did every crummy job in LA. In fact, we finished taping the pilot on March 29, 1982, a Monday afternoon. The next night I was at work as a bouncer at a topless club on Sunset Strip.
"Every cent I made went into my career: dance lessons, voice lessons, the best promo photographs I could afford. Gas to drive all over town to see the manager, the agent. It's demeaning, and a lot of actors give up. But you have to do it."
A knock at the door interrupts Hexum, and he hurriedly dons a 1920's Boston Red Sox jersey for a scene in which he will outpitch Babe Ruth, discouraging him from a career as a pitcher, thus avoiding what would have been a frightful historical error.
Hexum and Peluce take their marks on New York St., and they do an action scene quickly and in good humor. Ignoring the old W.C. Fields adage that one should never work with kids or dogs, Hexum is willing to risk being upstaged by a pre-adolescent. Luckily, they work very well together. The tousle-headed Peluce, a veteran of six years (including Best of the West and The Bad News Bears), has a face and bubbliness that can steal a scene in a flash. But, if anything, Peluce's appeal forces Hexum to play his character more strongly.
As the two play through the take, Parriott explains their initial reservations about Hexum. "Jon and Meeno were great together on the first reading, and they've gotten even better. But Meeno just jumps off the screen at you, and frankly, we were afraid he'd eat Jon alive in their scenes. I'd written Phineas Bogg as an Errol Flynn type, but Hexum won me over. he's fresh and energetic, and has a young, self-deprecating comic sense -- the kind that characterizes a mature James Garner or Tom Selleck. Whatever happens to Voyagers!, Jon-Erik is going to be a star."
During a late-afternoon break, sprawled beneath a stand of oak trees on the back lot, Hexum munches an apple. "Nice to hear it, but --again--it wasn't that easy. First of all, I just don't like space fantasy. I'm not a 'Star Wars' or 'Tron' freak. I like shows about humans -- 'Ordinary People,' 'Kramer vs. Kramer,' that sort. When they told me about the script, I was lukewarm. Then I started reading it over while driving home, and I loved the role. It reminded me of Indiana Jones. I got so excited I sailed through a red-light, made a U-turn, and drove back to NBC. I think I scared Joel Thurm -- from cold to hot in less than an hour.
"Then they took their time casting. I kept pressing them -- 'Let me do it, let me do it.' Three different times, they said, 'NO.' But I kept pushing. Finally, we were down to four people for two roles. Meeno and I clicked, and that was it. But it was an involved process. I can't blame anybody, but I wasn't discovered sitting at a soda fountain. If anything, I probably wore Thurm and Parriott down. They just got sick of hearing the secretary buzz and say, 'It's Mr. Hexum, again.'"
Voyagers! itself is in the comedy-adventure genre of The Wild, Wild West, with just a tinge of the heroic bumbling that characterizes The Greatest American Hero. Parriott has a good track record, and the script are action-packed, fast-paced and liberally sprinkled with beautiful women, horses, and special effects (Red Baron-vintage aerial dogfights, antique auto races, pirate galleons, daring rescues and a variety of explosions are mixed in). High production values, as they say. It's all on the screen.
And the historical accuracy of the series is being monitored by co-producers Scholastic Productions, who are taking an active part in this, their first television venture. Voyagers! has a distinct educational aspect (Peluce appears at the end of each episode, urging that time travel is possible -- mentally -- for his viewers and shoudl be conducted in the local library), but it is not solely a kids' show. Ultimately, given all this, Hexum and Peluce are the key to the show's survival.
From one point of view, success is a long shot. Perhaps one new series in five lasts for a year or longer, and the majority fall by the wayside during or after the first 13 weeks. Pitted against 60 minutes and Ripley's Believe It or Not!, Voyagers! may have difficulty finding an audience. The fact that it is scheduled in the Classic Walt Disney slot -- Sundays at 7 p.m. -- is no longer a guarantee of a comfortable market share, especially if one believes the Disney-type audience has diminished, and that Mom wants to tune in more serious stuff after Dad has burned his mind out with seven hours of NFL football.
The last scene of the day is still another narrow escape for voyagers Bogg and Jones. Hexum's last line, "We made it, kid!" is punctuated by a loud explosion and an impressive orange fireball in the near background, from which he flees with Peluce in his arms. An apt end to this long day, the shooting drags on and on. After three explosions, dust hangs in the evening air. On the fourth and final "We made it kid!" the fireball atomizes a small tree, raining bark and grit down on the startled, fleeing pair. Cradling Peluce like a football -- never mind the mashed thumb -- Jon-Erik Hexum bursts past the camera, avoids a knot of admiring young women, and heads for the shelter of nearby oak trees. He hasn't made it yet, but he's off and running.