From Little Screen to Big Time : A Look at the Early TV Roots of Famous Names

The young man with those full lips and brooding eyes standing on the stairs should look familiar to any “L.A. Law” fan. Yep, it’s People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” of 1987, Harry Hamlin, in his first TV role.

Seven years before he became a TV superstar as slick L.A. attorney Michael Kuzak on “L.A. Law,” Hamlin, then 27, played the lead in the 1979 “NBC Novels for Television: Studs Lonigan.” Just a few months before, Hamlin made his film debut in Stanley Donen’s “Movie, Movie.”

Based on the trilogy by James T. Farrell, “Studs” was the saga of an Irish-American family from the end of World War I through the Great Depression. Hamlin played the young Studs who becomes quite a stud, romancing the quiet Catherine (Diana Scarwid) and the lusty Lucy (Lisa Pelikan).

The past few years have been very good for Bonnie Bedelia. She starred as Bruce Willis’ strong-willed wife in both popular “Die Hard” thrillers and won rave reviews for her work as Harrison Ford’s troubled spouse in “Presumed Innocent.” Last year, she headlined the high-rated NBC miniseries “Switched at Birth.”

Probably very few people remember her portrayal of a Scandinavian immigrant wife struggling to survive in America in the 1974 ABC series “The New Land.” Loosely based on the acclaimed Swedish films “The Emigrants” and “The New Land,” the one-hour series only survived a month.

Poor David Letterman. He’s always complaining about his bad haircuts. Well, old Dave seems to have been plagued with “bad hair” long before he became the star of NBC’s Emmy-winning “Late Night With David Letterman.”

Check out this publicity still from 1978, when Letterman was a regular on Mary Tyler Moore’s short-lived CBS comedy-variety series, “Mary.” Though “Mary” was pulled from the CBS Sunday lineup after one month, it boasted an amazing cast of regulars. Dick Shawn, Swoosie Kurtz and “Batman” himself, Michael Keaton, were also members of Mary’s repertory company.

Most men think of twice Oscar-nominated actress Michelle Pfeiffer as a “bombshell.” In 1979, the struggling 20-year-old Orange County native played “The Bombshell,” the object of the fraternity house’s affections, on ABC’s “Delta House.” The sitcom, which was canceled after three months, was based on the 1978 hit film “National Lampoon’s Animal House” and featured cast members from the film.

Pfeiffer had even worse luck the next year with her ABC series “B.A.D. Cats,” in which she played Officer Samantha Jensen. It was yanked off the lineup after one month. But TV’s loss was filmdom’s gain. Two years later, Pfeiffer made her film debut in “Grease 2.”

This year, Tim Matheson was seen sparring with a miniature Sam Kinison in Fox’s ill-fated sitcom “Charlie Hoover,” and recently starred opposite Donald Sutherland in one of USA’s better movies, “Quicksand.”

Kurt Russell has starred in such box-office hits as “Tequila Sunrise” and “Backdraft,” and appeared in “Swing Shift” and “Overboard” with his longtime love, Goldie Hawn.

Back in 1976, Matheson and Russell were two former child actors trying to successfully make the transition into adulthood. Their NBC Western, “The Quest,” however, failed to do much for their careers.

The two played brothers searching for their long-lost sister, who had been kidnaped several years before by the Cheyennes. Though it was the only Western on TV that season, “The Quest” was history by December. It was no match for its competition, ABC’s “Charlie’s Angels.”

Last month, Molly Ringwald returned to her TV roots when she starred in the ABC movie “Something to Live For: The Alison Gertz Story.” Long before she became the teen-age darling of such John Hughes’ films as “Sixteen Candles,” “The Breakfast Club” and “Pretty in Pink,” Ringwald was a regular during the 1979-80 season of the long-running NBC sitcom “The Facts of Life.”

Ringwald, then 11, got the job as Eastland School for Girls student Molly Parker after appearing as an orphan in the Los Angeles production of “Annie.”

Anyone remember a baby-faced Bruce Boxleitner?

Before he became one of Hollywood’s busiest actors--he recently appeared opposite Kirk Douglas in CBS’ “The Secret” and co-stars on the big screen with John Goodman in the feature, “The Babe”--he got his break as Luke Macahan, a young fugitive from the law, in the 1976 ABC miniseries “The Macahans,” based on the 1962 film “How the West Was Won.” In February 1978, the Western saga, which starred James Arness as Luke’s uncle, Zeb, became a weekly series. It aired until April, 1979.

Three years later, Boxleitner headlined his own series, CBS’ short-lived “Bring ‘Em Back Alive.” He scored a big hit in 1983 when he teamed with Kate Jackson for CBS’ “Scarecrow and Mrs. King.”