#Roger e mosley series#

Cooper and as Milt Johnson on Showtime’s Rude Awakening. Post- Magnum, he starred opposite Nell Carter on the CBS sitcom You Take the Kids, as Coach Ricketts on ABC’s Hangin’ With Mr. in The River Niger (1976) and, as football player Puddin Patterson Sr., in Semi-Tough (1977), starring Burt Reynolds. He later worked with John Wayne in McQ (1974) with James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson and Louis Gossett Jr. Mosley made one of his first onscreen appearances in 1971 on an episode of CBS’ Cannon, then had small roles in The New Centurions (1972) and Hickey & Boggs (1972). The director invited Mosley to visit the studio the next week. I know people who are eating ketchup sandwiches to survive. Mosley got up and shouted: “You have the audacity to tell us to eat ketchup sandwiches for our art. Jacques at the Mafundi Institute, a community arts school in Watts, when a director from Universal came to lecture the students on self-sacrifice and said, “I know actors who had to eat ketchup sandwiches.” He was a wrestler in high school and a swimming coach in the neighborhood.Īs recounted in a 1976 People story, Mosley was studying acting under Raymond St. 18, 1938, Roger Earl Mosley was raised by his mother, Eloise, in the Imperial Courts project in Watts. That’s not what I want Black kids to see.”īorn on Dec. “They keep writing for me to smoke and drink, but I won’t do it,” he said in a 1982 interview in Ebony. “I never get high, smoke or drink on the show or in real life. Mosley also made his character a graduate of Grambling State University, a lover of books and poetry, and a guy who didn’t party. They decided Tom would be broke, and I would be financially well off - except I was always bailing him out.”

as the owner of a struggling helicopter business, but Mosley refused to “be the only Black person in Hawaii and be broke,” he said. Mosley in real life was a licensed private helicopter pilot (something the producers discovered after he was hired, he said) but not allowed to fly on the series.Īt the start, the writers had T.C. A show with Tom Selleck always fails, and you’ll be fine.’ So here’s what you do, Roger: Sign up for the show, go over to Hawaii, they’ll treat you good for the 20 days it will take to shoot the, you’ll get a lot of money, and then you come home. Tom Selleck has made about five pilot shows … and none of them has sold. The Los Angeles native was busy making movies at the time and didn’t want a job on a television show, but his agent talked him into at least doing the Magnum pilot.Īs Mosley remembered it, his agent told him: ” ‘It’s starring this guy Tom Selleck. Selleck thought of Mosley from a prison film they had done together, 1973’s Terminal Island, and suggested him for the part. before the producers realized they needed a person of color in the main cast.

#Roger e mosley series#

was a buddy of Selleck’s Thomas Magnum from their days in Vietnam his character owned a helicopter charter company in Oahu called Island Hoppers, which came in handy on the series that aired from December 1980 through May 1988.Īccording to Mosley, Gerald McRaney was all set to play T.C. The likable actor appeared on 158 of the 162 episodes of CBS’ Magnum, P.I., created by Donald Bellisario and Glen A. Mosley also was a standout in blaxploitation films, playing the angry brother of the fresh-out-of-prison Goldie ( Max Julien) in the classic The Mack (1973) and starring in Hit Man (1972), Sweet Jesus, Preacherman (1973) and Darktown Strutters (1975).Īnd in The Greatest (1977), Mosley - a sturdy 6-foot-2 and 215 pounds in his prime - portrayed Sonny Liston and got whupped by Muhammad Ali.