Tom Selleck

Thomas William Selleck, born January 29, 1945, in Detroit, Michigan, is an American actor best known for playing private investigator Thomas Magnum in the television series Magnum, P.I. Raised in Sherman Oaks, California, after his family moved to Los Angeles in 1948, he attended Grant High School and Los Angeles Valley College before transferring to the University of Southern California to play basketball and baseball. Majoring in business administration, a drama coach suggested he try acting, prompting him to drop out in his senior year and study at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. He also served in the California Army National Guard from 1967 to 1973, attaining the rank of sergeant.

Selleck made his initial television appearances on The Dating Game in 1965 and 1967, subsequently appearing in commercials for products like Pepsi-Cola, Right Guard, Close-Up, and Revlon's Chaz cologne. He began his acting career with small roles in films such as Myra Breckinridge, Coma, and The Seven Minutes, as well as television programs like The Rockford Files. His interest in firearms and the outdoors led to cowboy roles in Western projects, including The Sacketts in 1979 and Concrete Cowboys.

His major breakthrough arrived in 1980 when he was cast as the lead character in Magnum, P.I. Due to his series contract, he had to decline the lead role in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Magnum, P.I. aired until 1988, earning him five Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, winning the award in 1984. During the show's run, Selleck also starred in feature films including Lassiter, Runaway, and the 1987 box-office hit Three Men and a Baby.

In the 1990s and 2000s, Selleck continued working across film and television. He starred in the Western Quigley Down Under, as well as films like Three Men and a Little Lady, Mr. Baseball, and In & Out. On television, he portrayed Dr. Richard Burke in Friends, earning an Emmy nomination in 2000, and had roles in The Closer, Boston Legal, and Las Vegas. In 2001, he starred in a Broadway revival of A Thousand Clowns, and in 2004, he portrayed General Dwight D. Eisenhower in the television movie Ike: Countdown to D-Day.

Starting in 2005, Selleck portrayed lawman Jesse Stone in nine television films based on Robert B. Parker's novels, also serving as a producer. In 2010, he was cast as NYC Police Commissioner Frank Reagan in the CBS series Blue Bloods, which ran until 2024. Outside of acting, Selleck has served as a spokesman for the National Rifle Association, co-founded the Character Counts! organization, and provided commercial endorsements for brands including AT&T and American Advisors Group.