Richard Crenna: Acting in Character

Richard Crenna reprises his role as New York City detective Lt. Frank Janek in the CBS mystery thriller “Murder Times Seven.”

This marks the fourth time Crenna has played the crack internal affairs cop. He originated the role of Janek in the CBS miniseries “Doubletake.”

Crenna began his career on radio as a child actor. His big break came in the late ‘40s, when he appeared as the nerdy Walter Denton on Eve Arden’s hit CBS radio series, “Our Miss Brooks.” He repeated the role when “Miss Brooks” moved to tellvision in the early 1950s. Crenna also starred in another long-running comedy series, “The Real McCoys.”

As a dramatic actor Crenna starred in such films as “The Sand Pebbles,” “Wait Until Dark” and “Body Heat.” He won an Emmy five years ago for his work in the TV movie “The Rape of Richard Beck.”

Crenna talked about his long career and latest project with Susan King.

This is the fourth time you have played Lt. Janek. Why hasn’t a series been created for you as Janek?

After the success of the first couple of shows, the natural inclination was to make it a weekly series. I have been reluctant to do that for lots of reasons. First of all, I want to live for another couple of years, (he laughs) and secondly, I think that doing them as we do them, there is a uniqueness to it.

We are going to do two every year. I think it becomes not exactly an event, but it is like an old friend returning. You leave and kind of leave them wanting more. I think the kind of show we do in terms of its formula would not lend itself comfortably to a weekly exposure because we try to do unique stories-somewhat bizarre and off-center. The thing I have liked about them is that while we deal with rather bizarre subjects, they have been dealt with very tastefully. We all believe that the imagination is far more graphic than what is put on the screen.

In this movie, your ex-partner is murdered.

He’s someone with whom I had worked and that triggers an investigation that uncovers a network of corruption. We always like to bring in some bit of morality. This will probably be the last of the Janeks where he is working in internal affairs, primarily because I really want to do the upside of law enforcement.

We have dealt with, by the nature of his work as an internal affairs officer, corruption in the police department. We are not ignoring the fact that exists, but I asked that they put a disclaimer at the end of the film to kind of give credit to the thousands of honest law enforcement officers in the U.S., so it’s not like we are taking cheap shots at cops all the time.

Though you appeared in the two popular comedies “Our Miss Brooks” and “The Real McCoys,” you primarily have done drama since playing Capt. Collins in the 1966 film “The Sand Pebbles.” Do you think producers and audiences have forgotten you do comedy?

Actually, they have. I have had people say to my agent, “Will he do comedy?” I didn’t have that problem with “The Flamingo Kid” (1984) because I had been around Garry Marshall most of my career and also Carl Reiner when I did “Summer Rental” (1985) with John Candy. Outside of the Hollywood people who came up through TV, the newer people are unaware that the majority of my career has involved comedy.

How did you get the part in “Sand Pebbles”?

Robert Wise had wanted me to play the part of Collins, and I was doing the series “Slattery’s People.” When the series was canceled, my agent called him up and asked if he had cast Collins yet. It was the one role that was not cast. I went over that afternoon and 10 days later I was in Taiwan. It was fate.

I wouldn’t have been in “The Sand Pebbles” if “Slattery’s People” had gone on. It was a little angel looking over me. Those things happen in a career. Sometimes you are in the right place at the right time and sometimes you are in the wrong pllce at the right time.

I’ve played a lot of roles in my younger career that could have typecast me. Walter Denton certainly could have killed a lot of careers and also Luke McCoy. There are a lot of very good actors who have been strongly identified with TV roles who just never had a chance to prove they can do anything else.

TV actors today are finding great success in features. But it must have been difficult to make the transition from the small screen to the big one in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

There was a real presumption that anybody who could be seen for free, no one would pay to go see him in a motion picture. I was fortunate that Robert Wise gave me the opportunity to do “The Sand Pebbles” because that opened the door to features. Right after that I did “Wait Until Dark.” I was a nasty guy in that.

I have never been identified with a particular kind of role. I have played as many villains as good guys. I have been blessed by the fact the (movie) industry primarily has never really figured out what I do.

Are you and Sylvester Stallone planning to do any more “Rambo” movies?

I have been told we are going to do another one. I enjoy doing all of them. They are hard work, but fun films to make.

“Murder Times Seven” airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on KCBS. It may be preempted if the American League championship series goes to a seventh game.