Roger E. Mosley (1938-2022)

[Zoneboy]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv...um-1235194403/


Roger E. Mosley, who portrayed Theodore “T.C.” Calvin, the helicopter pilot and buddy of Tom Selleck’s character on all eight seasons of the original Magnum, P.I., died Sunday. He was 83.

Mosley died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of injuries incurred in a car accident in Lynwood, California, thee days earlier, his daughter, Ch-a, told The Hollywood Reporter.

On the big screen, Mosley was at his most memorable as blues and folk singer Huddie Ledbetter (“The Midnight Special”) in the period piece Leadbelly (1976), directed by Gordon Parks. In his review, Roger Ebert wrote that Mosley played the part “with great strength” and called the film “one of the best biographies of a musician I’ve ever seen.”

Mosley also was a standout in blaxploitation films, playing the angry brother of the fresh-out-of-prison Goldie (Max Julien) in the classic The Mack (1973) and starring in Hit Man (1972), Sweet Jesus, Preacherman (1973) and Darktown Strutters (1975).

And in The Greatest (1977), Mosley — a sturdy 6-foot-2 and 215 pounds in his prime — portrayed Sonny Liston and got whupped by Muhammad Ali.

The likable actor appeared on 158 of the 162 episodes of CBS’ Magnum, P.I., created by Donald Bellisario and Glen A. Larson. T.C. was a buddy of Selleck’s Thomas Magnum from their days in Vietnam; his character owned a helicopter charter company in Oahu called Island Hoppers, which came in handy on the series that aired from December 1980 through May 1988.

According to Mosley, Gerald McRaney was all set to play T.C. before the producers realized they needed a person of color in the main cast. Selleck thought of Mosley from a prison film they had done together, 1973’s Terminal Island, and suggested him for the part.

The Los Angeles native was busy making movies at the time and didn’t want a job on a television show, but his agent talked him into at least doing the Magnum pilot.

As Mosley remembered it, his agent told him: ” ‘It’s starring this guy Tom Selleck. Tom Selleck has made about five pilot shows … and none of them has sold. So here’s what you do, Roger: Sign up for the show, go over to Hawaii, they’ll treat you good for the 20 days it will take to shoot the [pilot], you’ll get a lot of money, and then you come home. A show with Tom Selleck always fails, and you’ll be fine.’

“Well, 8 1/2 years later … “

Mosley in real life was a licensed private helicopter pilot (something the producers discovered after he was hired, he said) but not allowed to fly on the series.

At the start, the writers had T.C. as the owner of a struggling helicopter business, but Mosley refused to “be the only Black person in Hawaii and be broke,” he said. “And they reversed. They decided Tom would be broke, and I would be financially well off — except I was always bailing him out.”

Mosley also made his character a graduate of Grambling State University, a lover of books and poetry and a guy who didn’t party.




“They [the Magnum writers] keep writing for me to smoke and drink, but I won’t do it,” he said in a 1982 interview in Ebony. “I never get high, smoke or drink on the show or in real life. That’s not what I want Black kids to see.”

Born on Dec. 18, 1938, Roger Earl Mosley was raised by his mother, Eloise, in the Imperial Courts project in Watts. He was a wrestler in high school and a swimming coach in the neighborhood.

As recounted in a 1976 People story, Mosley was studying acting under Raymond St. Jacques at the Mafundi Institute, a community arts school in Watts, when a director from Universal came to lecture the students on self-sacrifice and said, “I know actors who had to eat ketchup sandwiches.”

Mosley got up and shouted: “You have the audacity to tell us to eat ketchup sandwiches for our art. I know people who are eating ketchup sandwiches to survive. We need somebody to give us a break.”

The director invited Mosley to visit the studio the next week.

Mosley made one of his first onscreen appearances in 1971 on an episode of CBS’ Cannon, then had small roles in The New Centurions (1972) and Hickey & Boggs (1972).

He later worked with John Wayne in McQ (1974); with James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson and Louis Gossett Jr. in The River Niger (1976); and, as football player Puddin Patterson Sr., in Semi-Tough (1977), starring Burt Reynolds.

Post-Magnum, he starred opposite Nell Carter on the CBS sitcom You Take the Kids, as Coach Ricketts on ABC’s Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper and as Milt Johnson on Showtime’s Rude Awakening. He also appeared in the movies Heart Condition (1990), Unlawful Entry (1992), Pentathlon (1994) and A Thin Line Between Love & Hate (1996).

Survivors also include his wife, Antoinette (“Toni”) — they were together for nearly 60 years — son Brandonn; grandson Austin; and Rahsan, among his many nieces and nephews

Ch-a wrote on Facebook: “We could never mourn such an amazing man. He would HATE any crying done in his name. It is time to celebrate the legacy he left for us all. I love you daddy. You loved me too. My heart is heavy but I am strong. I will care for mommy, your love of almost 60 years. You raised me well and she is in good hands. Rest easy.”

[Dude111]

Very sad

[ponytail]

I loved Roger's TC. A clean living, fun all-around good vet. So sad to hear.

I always loved it when he told Magnum -

"You owe me for this Thomas! "

"i know TC, I know."

[TSMIV]

T.C. was my second favorite character on the best show ever.

[Lee]

Rest in peace, Roger

[Sgt. Saunders]

Yes, Mr. Mosley was terrific as T. C., Thomas Calvin, on “Magnum, P.I.” I loved it when T. C. would call the “slightly” stuffy Jonathan Higgins, “Higgy-Baby” to annoy him.

With Mr. Mosley’s death, there are only a few of the “Magnum, P.I.” actors still alive, Tom Selleck, Larry Manetti, Jean Bruce Scott and Kathleen Lloyd.

Requiem aeternam, Mr. Mosley.

[AB]

Rest in peace.

[TMC]

Top Five Roger E. Mosley Episodes of Magnum, P.I.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

“Thicker Than Blood” was the very first T.C.-centric episode and it’s just kind of nonsensical. T.C. owes a debt to a guy who saved his life in Vietnam, and despite the guy being a junkie, T.C. flies him no questions asked and gets arrested for smuggling drugs. The whole thing was a nonsensical plot to load T.C.’s helicopter with drugs while he was away from the chopper, figuring when he was arrested, they could then buy his chopper at auction and get the drugs. It’s really a ludicrous episode, but it was T.C.’s first spotlight episode, so I figured I should mention it.

“Past Tense,” from Season 3, is the second T.C.-centric episode, but it’s mostly an all-action episode. Not a whole lot of Mosley actually acting.

“Under World,” from Season 5, is an interesting one in that it is ALL about T.C., but Mosley is unconscious throughout most of the episode, so I can’t really count it for Mosley. Good episode, though. We learn so much about him in this episode.

5. “Missing Melody”

Mosley co-wrote this episode, which introduced a whole family for T.C., with his kids visiting him in Hawaii, only for his daughter, Melody, to be kidnapped (the timeline doesn’t make ANY sense). Shavar Ross (Dudley from Diff’rent Strokes) played T.C.’s son, Bryant. T.C. gets some nice emoting scenes, but in general, it’s a pretty run of the mill episode, but obviously important for the character overall, especially the introduction of his ex-wife, Tina, with whom T.C. reunites with in the series finale.

4. “Round and Around”

A buddy of T.C.’s from pickup basketball is murdered interrupting a robbery and T.C. vows to avenge his friend (who was played by Mosley’s stunt double), while also trying to repair a rift that had occurred between his friend and his teenage son (played by Larry B. Scott, who played Lamar in Revenge of the Nerds. So it’s weird seeing him as some tough kid here). T.C. has a brutal fight at the end with the two junkies who led to the death of his friend (amusingly, the stunt double did most of the fighting, so it is like the dead guy resurrected himself to avenge his own murder). There’s some good “you can’t get too caught up in revenge” stuff in the episode.

3. “A Sense of Debt”

A sort of wacky episode where Magnum is out of town, so T.C. is driving the Ferrari and he accidentally injures a bareknuckle fighter and so T.C. is forced to substitute for the young man to help keep gangsters from injuring the man’s adorable daughter (played by a young Shannen Doherty). The guy T.C. has to fight, amusingly enough, is Donald Gibb, Ogre from the Revenge of the Nerds films (how weird is that?). A true spotlight episode for T.C., though, as he gets to be the hero all the way through. He event gets to the one who owes Higgins money at the end of the episode!

5. “Did You See the Sunrise?”

The best episode of the whole series, the Season 3 opener, “Did You See the Sunrise?,” was also a standout episode for T.C., as an old Vietnam War buddy of the gang, Sebastian Nuzo (played by James Whitmore Jr.. I wish I could say that it was Timothy Busfield or Anthony Edwards or Robert Carradine or Curtis Armstrong or even Ted McGinley) shows up, warning them that Ivan, the sadistic Soviet Colonel who tormented them when the group were prisoners of war in Vietnam, was back in Hawaii to hunt them down. As it turned out, Nuzo was actually an enemy agent the whole time and Ivan had brainwashed T.C. back in Vietnam, preparing him as a sleeper agent. Nuzo was there to activate the brainwashing and send T.C. to kill a Japanese prince visiting Hawaii (after Magnum’s Navy intelligence buddy, Mac, was killed when Magnum’s car was rigged with a bomb, in an attempt by Ivan to get Magnum out of the way of his plan).

Mosley got to do some heavy duty acting not only in the torture scenes set in the past (Ivan throws around the N-word a few times, which really wasn’t necessary of the show, frankly. Shows were waaaaay too willing to use the N-word back in the day), but also as he tries to break free of the brainwashing. The episode, of course, is best remembered for Magnum’s cold-blooded revenge on Ivan at the episode’s end, where he asks Ivan if he saw the sunrise this morning, and when Ivan says that he did, Magnum kills him (I love that Magnum just flat out committed murder at the end of this episode and it’s just never brought up again).

1. “Paradise Blues”

Of all of the T.C.-centric episodes, this Season 4 episode is by far the best, as it is hard to compete with Leslie freakin’ Uggams, as T.C.’s old flame from Vietnam (a once popular singer who met the young T.C. when she performed with the USO in Vietnam), who strikes up a relationship with T.C. again in the present day. Magnum doesn’t trust her, but for once, it is T.C.’s chance to be the guy who is blinded by love to the terrible situation that he is in. Ultimately, though, Uggams’ character proves that she really DID care for T.C. (even as she got him embroiled in a drug deal gone wrong) by sacrificing herself to keep a bunch of Detroit drug dealers from possibly killing T.C.

Okay, those are my picks for Roger E. Mosley’s best episodes of Magnum, p.i. Agree? Disagree? Let me know!

RIP, Roger E. Mosley.