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A lot of people think I always seem to be giving it to actors like Lee Majors and Bruce Boxleitner. "Just because they are good looking and you're not," writes Joseph Klahn of Valley Stream. "You should stop destroying careers and help people get into show business. I want to get into show business, too, because of my good looks."
In the first place, it's not true that I'm biased against pretty faces. I never hold a person's appearance against him. Take Pierce Brosnan. He's a superb actor, despite his incredible good looks, and I was one of the first critics to go wild about him.
And if there was any doubt in my own mind about the false charges, it was dispelled by my reaction to Jon-Erik Hexum, who made his debut as a major actor in "The Making of a Male Model" on ABC Sunday night.
Now here is a guy I was prepared to scoff at. Here was the Jack Scalia of 1983. Jack who? You must remember the Jordache man -- or at least his pants -- winner of last year's Howdy Doody Prize in wooden acting. His performance in "The Devlin Connection" gave my eyeballs splinters.
Not only was Hexum a gorgeous hunk who always seemed to forget to put on his shirt when the cameras were around, but he was said to be Joan Collins' boyfriend. What a sitting duck. I was going to have a field day with my machine gun. I do have a tendency to use atomic weapons in a fight against mosquitoes.
Jon-Erik Hexum is the surprise acting find of the year. In spite of the trashiness of the project -- note the way the announcer in the promos all week emphasized the word making -- a new male star was born.
He's not exactly the new Pierce Brosnan. But this one is Sir Laurence Olivier compared to Jack Scalia.
First of all, Hexum makes a good appearance on screen. And as Dorothy Larkin of Bay Shore has noted, "Dustin Hoffman, Walter Matthau, they can act. But they cannot satisfy one's appeal for beauty. Appreciation of all art is with the eye. Actors like Scalia are a feast for the eyes. Ah, if he could only have learned to speak the King's English."
Most people born with Hexum's physical handicap of extreme beauty -- the hunks-- have three expressions in acting on TV: front, left and straight ahead. But Hexum can act. He's not just another pretty face.
He plays a cowboy-pilot in Nevada who is discovered by Joan Collins, the head of a male-model agency who promises to make him a star. In the papers and promos, the show sounded like the usual sex exploitation film, the TV version of a male strip joint. But it was surprisingly sensitive in its treatment of the problems top models face (here today, gone tomorrow). And Hexum was the principal reason the show had some legitimacy. He displayed a range of emotions beyond what we've come to expect from bodies on TV. He appeared to be thinking, which violated all the rules of modeling and TV. "You're not paid to think," a photographer says in one of the movie's moments of truth.
As the terse western man of few words, he had a strength of character that was reminiscent of the early Gary Cooper. Maybe it was just his cowboy hat.
I would want to wait for another picture or two. But there is something definitely about Hexum. I mean he actually held his won with Joan Collins in some scenes. And she is invincible when it comes to over-acting and stealing scenes.
Much of the talk about the show in the papers was about the way Hexum seems to have gotten his big break. The say he is Joan Collins' "friend." If it's true, then my compliments to Collins for her taste in acting.
Usually they seem to cast TV movies in Hollywood with computers. They have list of names everybody recognizes and loves. It's a very limited list. Or they are lists of specific agent's clients. It's almost impossible for new people to break in. This system has given us some of the world's worst acting.
The second major method of casting is the casting couch in the producer's office. This may be a third way -- the star's casting couch.
But in this case, whatever the method, the public benefits. Who would have heard of this guy without Joan Collins advancing his cause? She is a true patron of the arts.
And speaking of pretty faces, did you see Brandon Tartikoff as the host of "Saturday Night Live"? Tartikoff, another guy I make fun of because of his good looks, was pretty super as a performer in the season's premiere of "Saturday Night Live."
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