Bruce Forsyth in a Little Bit of Luck, a Little Bit of Grief

[runawayselleck]

Hi everyone,

I have always been a big Magnum PI fan and like a lot of people in the UK, was probably very suprised when Bruce Forsyth appeared in this episode.

I decided to write to him once to ask him his memories of being in the episode, and if he would like a copy of it! His reply was quite interesting and I thought you would like to know.

He wrote:

Dear Ben

Thank you for your letter and the very very nice things you said about me. Yes, Magnum was a good show and I did see quite a few episodes. I am only too pleased to answer your four questions so here goes:

1: A friend of the director suggested me for the part and I was really excited to accept, although very disappointed that it was such a small part.
2: It was filmed in Hawaii, which was where my wife and I spent our honeymoon in 1983, and strangely enough, she had just become pregant during that trip
3: No, we did not meet Tom Selleck, which was another disappointment. Larry Manetti, who played Rick was not very sociable, and I do not think he was well liked by the production team. I think...he was a miserable bugger!
4: Yes, I have seen the episode I was in, and thank you very much but I do not want a copy of it mainly because of my appearance being so small.

Thank you for saying I was excellent but when you go all that way to do so little it does seem futile. Nethertheless, thankyou for your interest and I hope this has enlightned you on the whole visit.

Good luck with everything

Yours sincerely

Bruce Forsyth.

I received this letter in 2003 and will always love it, mainly for it being the only Magnum related autograph where Larry Manetti is called a miserable bugger!

Thought I would share

[Steve]

Wow what a great response to your questions. Interesting to hear a guest stars memories of their experience, especially his memories of Larry! Thanks for posting..........

[Louise]

I wouldn't take much notice of what Bruce Forsyth said about Larry, the man has an ego the size of a small planet! Maybe Larry just didn't like him and wanted to avoid him

For those of you in the US who don't know who BF is - he is something of a legend in British show business and was very popular in the seventies as a game-show host. His career had a revival about ten years ago when he got the job as the host of Strictly Come Dancing (Dancing with the Stars as you know it in the US). But there are many people (on the Strictly forums) who can't stand him and either hit the mute button when he is on, or they record the show and fast-forward through the bits when he is on. He tries to make the show The Bruce Forsyth Show - telling really really bad "jokes", interrupting the judges etc., and he quite often stumbles over his words from the autocue and gets people's names wrong - last year he called one of the dancers Pasta instead of Pasha. It's embarrassing to watch.

I think it's quite telling that, in his letter, he complains about the part being so small and says that going all that way for a small part was futile. I suspect he though the whole episode should be about him!

[Styles Bitchley]

For those of you in the US who don't know who BF is - he is something of a legend in British show business and was very popular in the seventies as a game-show host. His career had a revival about ten years ago when he got the job as the host of Strictly Come Dancing (Dancing with the Stars as you know it in the US). But there are many people (on the Strictly forums) who can't stand him and either hit the mute button when he is on, or they record the show and fast-forward through the bits when he is on. He tries to make the show The Bruce Forsyth Show - telling really really bad "jokes", interrupting the judges etc., and he quite often stumbles over his words from the autocue and gets people's names wrong - last year he called one of the dancers Pasta instead of Pasha. It's embarrassing to watch.

Thanks Louise. That's helpful.

Interesting comments from him nonetheless. I'm sure the experience of being on the show was different for everybody. Larry seems by most other accounts to be great guy, but we all have our off days. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.