Well, it happened again--while on YouTube, I stumbled upon a Jack Kelly performance I hadn't yet seen. It's in A Double Life. Unfortunately, it's not the 1947 feature film starring Ronald Colman. Nope, this is the 1978 pilot film for a short-lived NBC series called Sword of Justice.
The late Dack Rambo stars as "Jack Cole", a "millionaire playboy" who was unjustly imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. But, Cole put his time in the stir to good use. No, he didn't raise birds or earn a law degree. He learned how to become a crook. Not to worry, though: once out of the joint, Cole uses his newfound bad skills for good.
In A Double Life, Cole puts the squeeze on the murderous mastermind (a slightly pre-Dallas Larry Hagman) behind a scheme involving counterfeit wine.
I slogged through 11 segments of A Double Life on YouTube and found the three where JK briefly appears as "Walters", a surly security guard at the winery.
In the first segment, he comes in at about 1:00. As you'll see, he wears a laughably large hat. And, although his character is generally a grouch, JK does get in a funny line near the end of the clip:
In the segment below, JK comes in about 2:23 and yells at one of the winery workers (who is actually Cole's undercover operative):
Finally, JK wraps up his appearance starting at about 4:11:
Since Sword of Justice aired in early 1978 and was produced by Glen Larson, I wonder if perhaps Walters was working undercover, too, and was actually Harry Hammond of the Justice Department who became the boss of the Hardy Boys later that year... ;-)
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There is apparently no end to the forgotten post-Maverick appearances Kelly made on various television series. (I was particularly floored by the secret agent series in which he played the lead for the "Bob Hope Chrysler Theatre," something I still can't believe got completely past me at the time.) I just wish Warners had made the Maverick theatrical movie decades earlier than they finally did and Kelly could've had the sort of franchise revival that the other Kelly, DeForest Kelly, received. Of course, DeForest really deserved it since his formerly flourishing career was wiped off the face of the earth by "Star Trek" in the most thermonuclearly damaging case of type-casting since George Reeves in "Superman." Of course, that stems from DeForest Kelly looking nine years old in those "Star Trek" pajama tops.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the clips you found, Bartista.
ReplyDeleteWishing you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
-Janet T.