Jon-Erik Hexum was marveling at life’s sudden turnabouts.
In the new movie “The Bear,” Hexum plays a star quarterback. And his real life college football career?
Hexum shrugged. “At Michigan state, I mostly filled up the Gator Ade.”
That’s no exaggeration. Hexum is now the star of a flashy new CBS series called “Cover Up.” But five years ago he was riding the bench for the MSU football team, getting fired by local radio stations and appearing in exactly in one school play.
People though of him as a pleasant chap with endless enthusiasm. He headed to New York to become a singing waiter. Presumably, nothing would come of him.
And now? He’s starring in his second TV series.
“cover Up,” which debuts at 9 p.m. Saturday on Channels 3 and 6, has Hexum play a spy who poses as a model. The camera dotes lovingly on him win white tux, in jungle fatigues, in high fashion or in barechested splendor.
In short, it’s the kind of show that could make him a sex symbol. “I’ll give it a try and see what happens,” Hexum said. “ I may like it.”
All of this success is something no one would have predicted a few years ago.
Hexum grew up in Tenafly, N. J., in modest circumstances. His mom was divorced and concentrated her money and attention on him. His big moment was leading the school band in the Rose Bowl parade. “I just loved performing.”
After coming to MSU - to attend the school’s liberal arts James Madison College - he was dazzled by some more spectacle. Hexum caught one football game and decided to try out for the team. He had not experience, but “figured I’d be a pro football player.”
His career went nowhere - teammates insist he never got into a game - but there was a fringe benefit. Hexum spent his time in the players’ weight room, building his now-famous physique from 160 pounds to 205.
Hexum was also blessed with a booming sub-bass voice. That got him several latenight disc jockey jobs as Klondike Jack or Jack Hexum, some of which he lost because of his flippant ways.
“He was obviously very talented,” Bryan Halter, the WJIM-AM program director, recalled later. “But he needed a sense of direction...He’s better off with what he’s doing now, where there’s a director right there.”
And in his senior year, he played the king in “Pippin,” after taking lessons from local voice teacher Kay Hickey. He’d never acted, but told Hickey he was going to be a star. “I heard that voice and looked at that face,” Hickey recalled later, “and decided if anyone could do it, he could.”
Looking at Hexum’s green eyes (?) seems to have an effect on many people. NBC casting chief Joel Thrum came away from his interview raving.
“His eyes had a clear, direct look,” Thurm said in 1982. “He has a presence I haven’t seen in an actor since I first met John Travolta.”
Soon Hexum was starring in NBC’s “Voyagers!,” despite his inexperience. “I had no idea what a close-up was,” he says now. “I didn’t know anything. I kind of lied my way into it.”
Now he has mixed feelings about the show and the working conditions. (“I had very little freedom.”) But at the time, “Voyagers!” was an obsession.
He took acting and singing lessons right in his trailer on the set. He worked 12-15 hours a day or more. “I was working all the time. I was literally sleeping in the studio.”
Hexum ended up losing his MSU girlfriend (Debbie Davis) and the show. But two weeks after “Voyagers!” was canceled, he landed the male lead opposite Joan Collins in the steamy TV movie “The Making of a Male Model.”
That was when the Hexum torso received its fullest exposure. “It was very exploitive and I’d protest. They said ‘So what? Take your shirt off.’”
He did and became a star. “Model” had sky-high ratings and a topless Hexum poster caught on.
Now Hexum sounds sheepish about his physique. “It’s not something that I focus my day on...It’s something that’s received, for some reason, an inordinate amount of attention.”
But his day was coming, Glen Larson, the slick producer of “Fall Guy” and “Knight Rider,” decided to build a show around Hexum.
The idea has a sophisticated photographer (Jennifer O’Neill) hire an Army veteran (Hexum) to investigate the death of her husband, a spy. The government asks them to handle other cases, posing as a model and photographer.
The result lets Hexum do it all. He can be glamorous, physical, witty or taciturn.
He could also spend all day running around the studio in fatigues, doing jungle warfare scenes for the opening credits. For a kid who loved parades, pageantry and make-believe, it was a joy. “I loved doing that. It was just plain fun.”