Touch of Reality

If the producers of the film version of “The Fugitive” have their way, the villain known as “the one-armed man” will be played by . . . a one-armed actor.

Arnold Kopelson, co-producing with Keith Barish, feels that “having an actual one-armed person (play the role) could lend credence to the movie.

“The integrity of the movie” must come first, he adds, and “we may ultimately have to go with a non-handicapped actor . . . but we’re doing everything we can to find the right handicapped actor.”

For their search, casting directors Amanda Mackey and Cathy Sandrich have been working with such groups as the National Workshop for the Handicapped at the Mark Taper Forum, Access Theater in Santa Barbara and the non-traditional casting department of Actors’ Equity in New York. They’ve also put out casting notices encouraging disabled actors to contact them (non-actors are also being considered).

At this writing, only seven men have read for the role.

“I thought we’d get a lot more response than we have,” Mackey says. “We’re finding that many people who have lost a limb, particularly an arm, aren’t comfortable being in the spotlight.”

“The Fugitive,” which Walter Hill will direct for Warner Bros., is inspired by the ABC series (1963-67) that starred the late David Janssen as Dr. Richard Kimble (played by Alec Baldwin in the film). Falsely accused and sentenced to die for murdering his wife, Kimble escapes and spends his life on the run--while searching for the real culprit, a sociopathic, one-armed man played by Bill Raisch.

(Raisch, who died in 1984 at age 79, was one-armed; he lost his right arm after a shipboard fire in World War II aggravated a boyhood injury.)

The character was rarely glimpsed in the TV series, and Kopelson says it’s uncertain how big a part he’ll play in the big-screen version--the script is currently being revised by the project’s fourth writer, aiming for a late November start.