Bruce Boxleitner Movies

A proud old Southern woman struggles to keep her popular diner afloat in this interesting character study. The little cafe is a popular community meeting place and its closing would create a great hole in the town. Though her devoted daughters assist, their help is not enough. Unfortunately, the woman refuses to ask for outside help. In desperation, the woman decides that she needs herself a "sugar daddy," and so heads for Miami. There she meets all kinds of men, ranging from a mental patient to a wealthy but married Texan. Unfortunately, she cannot raise the money she needs. Somehow, the money is raised at the last moment and her restaurant is finally saved. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Originally titled D.A.'s Investigator, Kiss Me Kill Me stars Stella Stevens as Stella Stafford, "leg woman" for the LA district attorney's office. The case at hand is the murder of a young, highly respected schoolteacher. Stella is certain that she has the killer dead to rights--but this is before she learns the down-and-dirty about the murder victim's secret life. Supporting Ms. Stevens is an impressive guest cast, including Dabney Coleman, Pat O'Brien, Bruce Boxleitner and Robert Vaughn. First telecast May 8, 1976, Kiss Me Kill Me was the pilot for an intended TV series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Macahans is a two-hour TV movie utilizing characters originally created for the 1962 Cinerama extravaganza How the West Was Won. In his first post-Gunsmoke project, Zeb Macahan stars as frontiersman Zeb Macahan, who in the early 1860s returns to Virginia to visit his family. It takes only the slightest encouragement for Zeb's brother (Richard Kiley) to agree to bring his family along with Zeb on another westward trek. Eva Marie Saint, the brother's wife, isn't keen on leaving her cozy Southern household, but neither is she anxious to be in Virginia when the Civil War breaks out. Narrated by William Conrad (who had coincidentally starred on the radio version of Gunsmoke) and jam packed with action, The Macahans served as the pilot for the subsequent James Arness TV series How the West Was Won, which ran from 1978 to 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Capitalizing on her sudden Three's Company-engendered superstardom, Suzanne Somers topped the cast of this innocuous made-for-TV comedy. Somers is cast as Mattie, a backwoods girl with big-city ambitions. Mattie is in love with fellow mountaineer Jack (Bruce Boxleitner), but she also craves stardom as a country-western singer. Things come to a head when Mattie is given her big showbiz chance in Las Vegas. In the course of things, Somers belts out a duet with co-star John Rubinstein, "You Made a Believer Out of Me." Happily Ever After first aired September 5, 1978. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

James Coburn is "The Baltimore Bullet", a legendary pool player who's seen better days. Coburn "adopts" aspiring pool champ Bruce Boxleitner, teaching him practically everything he knows. As we know it must, the plot requires Coburn and Boxleitner to face each other in the climactic winner-take-all match. As much fun as Baltimore Bullet is, the film can't help but be dwarfed by the 1986 Hustler sequel The Color of Money. Ronee Blakely proves an appealing heroine, while several real-life pool greats (Willie Mosconi, Irving Crane, Steve Mizerak etc.) show up in cameo roles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The 1955 film version of John Steinbeck's East of Eden will always be popular because of the presence in the cast of James Dean. Even so, the film covered only a small portion of the original novel. For those Steinbeck completists who prefer a more thorough treatment, we submit for your approval the TV miniseries adaptation of East of Eden, which first aired February 8, 9 and 11, 1981. This eight-hour dramatization begins in the years following the Civil War. Braggadocio union officer Cyrus Trask (Warren Oates) is the father of gentle, loyal Adam (Timothy Bottoms) and hellraiser Charles (Bruce Boxleitner). Enter the bewitching, mean-spirited Cathy Ames (Jane Seymour), who leads both brothers on and causes an irreparable rift between them. Eventually, Adam marries Cathy, taking her and their twin sons to a 900-acre farm in California's Salinas Valley. Cathy rebels against this cloistered existence and runs off to work in a house of ill repute. In Part Three, we finally meet the "James Dean" character: Cal Trask (played by Timothy Bottoms' brother Sam), who can never hope to come up to the standards of his "good" twin brother Aron (Hart Bochner) in the eyes of his father. Cal's "bad" reputation obscures his good intentions, but by film's end he is compelled to reveal to brother Aron that their mother had not died as father Adam has claimed, but in fact has become a hard-bitten bordello "madam". Adapted for television by Richard Shapiro, East of Eden was part of ABC's informal "Novels for Television" series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Made for television, I Married Wyatt Earp was based on the autobiography of Josephine Marcus "Josie" Earp, second wife of the fabled lawman. Born into a middle-class Jewish family in San Francisco, Josephine (played by Marie Osmond) headed to the Wide Open Spaces in hopes of becoming an opera star. Along the way, she crossed paths with Marshall Wyatt Earp (Bruce Boxleitner), to whom she was married for 27 years. Befitting its legendary subject, the teleplay stretches the truth a mite, depicting Josephine as a witness to the Gunfight at the OK Corral in 1881. In truth, she did not become Mrs. Earp until 1908. Also expanded upon for dramatic purposes is a reported romantic triangle between Josie, Wyatt, and corrupt sheriff John Behan (John Bennett Perry) -- not to mention a wholly fabricated episode depicting the heroine as being a "fast gun" in her own right. Ross Martin makes his final movie appearance in the role of Jacob Speigler. Filmed in 1981, I Married Wyatt Earp was eventually aired by NBC on January 10, 1983. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The perfume business is dramatized in this soap opera-like made-for-television movie. Based on the novel by Meredith Rich, Genie Francis (who played the infamous Laura on General Hospital) stars as Tiger Hayes, a woman who decides to start her own fragrance company. Typical soap dramas abound in this two-part movie, which was the pilot for a short-lived television series. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide

The humdrum life of suburban divorcee and mother Amanda King (Kate Jackson) is radically and permanently altered when secret agent Lee "Scarecrow" Stetson (Bruce Boxleitner), fleeing from Russian spies, runs into Amanda at a train station, hands her a mysterious package, and disappears into the crowd. Thus begins Season One of the lighthearted adventure series Scarecrow and Mrs. King. Despite her complete lack of experience in the realm of espionage, Amanda proves so adept at her new "hobby" that she and Lee will be teamed up again and again and again--much to the confusion of Lee's superior at The Agency, Billy Melrose (Mel Stewart), and to the dismay of Lee's usual partner, sexy female spy Francine Desmond (Martha Smith). Meanwhile, Amanda has a high old time keeping her undercover activities a secret from her mischievous young sons Philip (Paul Stout) and Jamie (Greg Morton), and especially from her nosy mother Dottie (Beverly Garland), who though charmed and impressed by "Scarecrow" is completely at a loss to determine the exact nature of his relationship with her daughter! In subsequent adventures, Lee and Amanda pose as husband and wife, never dreaming that the pose will become reality by the time the series reaches its fourth season; Amanda goes through her paces with a prominent ankle bandage, reflecting a real-life injury suffered by Kate Jackson on the set; Martha Smith shows up in the dual role of Francine and defecting Hungarian official Magda, resulting in twice as much trouble for Amanda; and mom Dottie blithely tools around town carrying an unidentified package, never realizing that a pair of Eastern Bloc spies have targeted her for assassination! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Suburban divorcee and part-time espionage agent Amanda King (Kate Jackson) is no longer merely a talented amateur as the tongue-in-cheek adventure series Scarecrow and Mrs. King enters its third season. Instead, Amanda has finished her training and is now a full-fledged operative for the top-secret organization "The Agency", making her not only the partner but the equal of seasoned spy Lee "Scarecrow" Stetson (Bruce Boxleitner). Amanda's promotion enables her boss Billy Melrose (Mel Stewart) to get over feeling guilty about dispatching her on life-threatening missions; it also infuriates sexy female spy Francine Desmond (Martha Smith), who is rather sweet on Stetson. One of the season's best episodes, "We're Off to See the Wizard", not only explains (at long last!) how Lee got his nickname "Scarecrow", but also won an Emmy Award for best musical scoring. Elswhere, Kate Jackson's former costar on The Rookies, Sam Melville, makes the first of a handful of appearances as Amanda's ex-husband Joe King in "The Wrong Way Home", while the guest-star cast of "Dead Men Leave No Tails" includes Nancy Boxleitner, the sister of star Bruce Boxleitner). And in "Reach for the Sky", Myron Natwick is introduced as Dr. Smyth, the shadowy top man at The Agency. When all is said and done, however, the season's most important episode is "All the World's a Stage", in which, after years of exchanging chaste kisses in the line of duty, "Scarecrow" and Mrs. King share their first real kiss--and it's a doozy!!!! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In any other circumstances, the biggest news occurring in the fourth and final season of Scarecrow and Mrs. King would be the promotion from recurring to regular player of Raleigh Bond in the role of T.P. Aquinas, the chief source of top-secret information for peripatetic espionage agent Lee "Scarecrow" Stetson (Bruce Boxleitner). Instead, this tidbit is eclipsed by several far more significant developments, beginning with the two-part season opener, in which Lee tells his fellow spy Amanda King (Kate Jackson) something the audience has known for years--that he is in love with her. Typically, this admission is made at a time when both Lee and Amanda are up to their necks in danger, and the situation hasn't improved much in the subsequent episode "Night Crawler", in which , while trapped by Arab kidnappers, Lee asks Amanda to become his wife. The couple is finally married in the appropriately titled "Do You Take This Spy?", but for reasons of security they have to keep their wedding a secret--even from Amanda's children and her inquisitive mom Dotty (Beverly Garland). Sadly, the marriage of "Scarecrow" and Mrs. King marks the beginning of the end of the series, and not simply because that the air of sexual tension and anticipation has been dissipated. In the middle of the shooting schedule, Kate Jackson had to undergo cancer surgery, and thereafter a slow and tortuous recovery. As a result, Amanda King is virtually written out of the series that bears her name in the title. The scripters contrive to have Amanda shot and wounded while on her honeymoon, obliging Lee to carry out his next few missions in the company of his former partner, Francine Desmond (Martha Smith). Although viewers understood the circumstance that required Kate Jackson to be absent from most of the final episodes, they dolefully concluded that "Scarecrow" without Mrs. King was H2 without the O, and the series was quietly cancelled. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The made-for-TV Return of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer was so named for two reasons. For one, this 1986 production appeared after two previous "Hammer" TV movies and a brief weekly series. For another, star Stacy Keach was returning to American television after a British prison term for possession of narcotics. Keach settles into the Hammer role as though he'd never left, taking on the assignment of protecting the young daughter of a movie star (Lauren Hutton). The child is kidnapped right under Mike's nose, and while trying to retrieve her, Hammer discovers that there's a lot more to the case that either the movie actress or the authorities have told him--including a Deep Dark Secret that reaches back to the jungles of VietNam. As with the Mike Hammer series itself, Return of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer seems to owe more to Ross ("Lew Archer") McDonald than to Spillane. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide