For a kid just 26 years old, the chance to co-star in a TV series should have been a dream come true. Aside from the money and the opportunity to learn his craft, there's the fame to consider. Kent McCord considered all these things, but he still wasn't happy.
The trouble was the role. He was going to have to play a cop. "I just don't like cops. I never had much trouble with them--just the usual kid-cop experiences, like being stopped and being asked where I was going--but they always seemed to be rousting people for no good reason. They never seemed to be around when you needed them, and always around when you didn't want 'em."
McCord sits puffing on a cigarette, looking even younger than his years. With his hair cut short for his role as rookie policeman Jim Reed on Adam-12, he looks like an escapee from a 4-H club.
When I ask about the faint remnants of a small tattoo on his hand, he grins sheepishly. "I grew up in a tough, predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood," he says by way of explanation. "You do it yourself with a needle and a thread dipped in ink. I burned out one of the tattoos on my hand, but I've still got a 'K' on my left arm."
Tattoos and teen-age gangs don't jibe with his boyish good looks. And, according to his Baldwin Park High School counselor, Sam Kerman, "Kent was a pretty good kid. Never any real problem. His only trouble was that he was a little lazy--in class and on the football field." He wasn't too lazy, though--at least on the gridiron--to win a scholarship to the University of Utah. At the time he carried 235 pounds on his 6-foot-2 frame. He subsequently dropped 50 pounds: "I decided not to play football when I transferred to USC, so who needed all that weight?"
At the University of Southern California, he became friends with Rick Nelson. That led to bits on Ozzie and Harriett. Which, in turn, led to Kent's decision to forsake his plans to become a phys-ed instructor and to devote himself to acting on a full-time basis. In 1965 he got a contract at Universal. The most important thing he did in the first couple of years was a Dragnet called "The Big Interrogation," which employed, in addition to regulars Jack Webb and Harry Morgan, only, Kent. According to producer Bob Cinader, "When it came to casting Adam-12, it took us 10 seconds to make our decision. Jack [Webb] had a real thing about Kent."
Says Adam-12's executive-producer Jack Webb, "He's perfect. He's the right age, the right physical type--he's a composite of the younger police officer. Kent, I think, has all the attributes of a big star; he's all man, but he's got a boyish charm, and he's good-looking without being pretty. And, like Martin Milner, he's a professional. They're totally devoid of any prima-donna tendencies." Or, as Kent's co-star, Milner, sums it up: "He's a pussy cat."
Back on the set, I asked the pussy cat at what point he had begun to modify his antipolice feelings. "It was Cinader's idea that Marty and I ride in patrol cars for a while. I spent 14 nights riding around in a prowl car with a young officer named Mike Watters. It changed my attitude. I got to see the other side of the picture. You see, I had real qualms about glamorizing cops on the show, but riding around on patrol that way helped me get over that. A policeman, you discover, has to put up with a hell of a lot of abuse. A man in any other line of work would nail a guy who laid that kind of abuse on him. I know I would."
I met Officer Mike Watters at the Hollywood division. He's 25, has four years on the force and could double for Milner. He had noticed McCord's initial antipathy to police. "Well, the first time we met we struck it off pretty good, but I did feel he was a little antipolice. But on the second night we went out on a drunk call, and the drunk tried to kick Kent in the face. I think that's when his attitude started to change--when he began to really see what we're up against. The first night I was apprehensive about what would happen if we got into a situation where I had to protect myself and him. But after the first night I got over it because he did everything right. I started to think of him as a partner, who'd do what he could to protect me--even though he didn't carry a firearm. The funny thing was that most people just accepted him; in fact, when we'd stop for coffee, people would see us--me in uniform, Kent in civvies--and ask him questions."
Apparently the experience went to Kent's head. When his home was burgled, he started to stake out his own neighborhood. "Since they left suits but took the stereo, my guitar, my bow and arrows, some Levi's and all my velour shirts, I figured they were young guys. One day I saw a guy walking down the street, and he was wearing a pair of my Levi's, which I recognized because of a torn back pocket, and one of my velours. I followed him home. He had most of my stuff in his closet, but it turned out he was only keeping it for a friend of his, who by that time had already been thrown in jail for something else."
McCord recovered his goods but had to take precious time off from Adam-12 to testify in court. Groans Cinader, "I wouldn't mind if he got shot--that would be good publicity, at least. But cracking his own cases just wastes our time. I won't even let Kent or Marty ride around in prowl cars anymore; with my luck, they'd wind up as witnesses in a case and I'd have to close the set for a week."
About the show, McCord admits, "I get impatient to see a development in the character of Reed. I want him to have more self-assurance in police matters. On the other hand, I talk to officers and they say it's just right, and that they were like Reed when they were rookies."
But then they can't entirely appreciate the scope of his predicament. McCord not only has to portray a rookie, he is a rookie. As Milner points out, "Kent's come a long way this season. He's much looser now than he was in the beginning. You have to realize that he's probably done more acting this year than he did in his entire career up to this show."
McCord lives in a modest frame house off Hollywood Boulevard, with his wife of six years, Cynthia, and his 5-year-old daughter, Kristin. The morning I paid a visit, his wife, a model, had already gone downtown to work. Kent, with an afternoon call, was lounging in a sweater, Levi's and moccasins. A Donovan record was spinning on his recovered stereo.
Away from the set he seemed more relaxed, and more eager to air a few grievances. "Universal is getting to be a drag. There should be some desire to take creative chances, but there's none at the studio. I expect Universal to build a bridge to the L.A. zoo any day now, so people could tour both at the same time. I wouldn't be surprised if they got out of film making altogether, and just kept the actors around for the tourists to gawk at."
When I wondered if that meant he regretted being tied down to a seven-year studio contract, he replied, "I've been lucky. I've been an actor for eight years and I've never been out of work. But seven-year contracts are ridiculous; they're not worth the paper they're written on. Contract or no contract, if you're not producing, they'll drop you flat. "There's no bitterness in his voice. He's just a young man noting the facts of TV life.
"The show's been fun. We get out on the streets a lot, and I enjoy working on location. But I get terribly frustrated with the police restrictions--like, for instance, you can't put your hands in your pockets, so you wind up looking like a totem pole. But things have loosened up a little, and now we're getting to do it more like it really happens--rather than by the book. I think it's a mistake that we don't have more violence in the show. In the 15th episode I finally get to fire my gun. And, oh yes," he adds sarcastically, "I did get to shout at a lady once."
While he feels that he's brighter, more mature and quicker to learn than rookie Reed, rookie McCord admits, "We're really very much alike. I was married at 19, he was married at 20. I haven't been in the Army and Reed has, and that's probably the only real difference between us." It's a big difference, though, for although McCord was never drafted, he lays it on the line in these terms: "I wouldn't have gone to Vietnam. I discussed it with my wife and I told her I'd go to prison if that were the only alternative. She agreed with my decision."
He's high on Milner and Cinader but confesses that he gets nervous around Webb. "I don't believe there's a situation now that can be thrown at me that I can't handle--especially after working with Jack. He's a hard man to work for because he has such definite ideas and he makes such large demands of a performer. You've got to stand open and vulnerable as an actor, and if you're shot down, you stop standing open, you turn into a mechanic."
I told him what Mike Watters had said of Adam-12: "I think the show definitely helps police recruitment. It shows that cops are people. I think if it runs a long time it will make a lot of younger people, who might not otherwise thought of it, consider law enforcement as a career."
McCord nodded. "I know, judging by the fan letters, our largest audience seems to be among 10-to-15-year-olds. I don't want to be a propagandist for anything but my own feelings, and, hell, I don't want to be a cop. But I'm an actor and it's just a job. As Bob Cinader said when he hired me, 'We don't buy your mind; your thoughts are your own.'"
McCord may not be overjoyed at the prospect of being typecast as a clean-cut young police officer or having to keep his peace medallion tucked inside his police shirt or having to wear his hair cut short, but there's at least one consolation. Every night, Mike Watters drives by and shines his light on McCord's house--just to make certain the bad guys aren't after his velours again.
