Early life

Selleck was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Martha Selleck (née Jagger), a housewife, and Robert Dean Selleck (d. 2001), who was an executive and real estate investor. His father was of English and distant German ancestry, while his mother was of English descent. Through an entirely paternal line Selleck is a direct descendant of English colonist David Selleck who moved to Massachusetts from Somerset, England in 1633 and through this line, Tom Selleck is the 11th generation of his family born in North America. Selleck's family moved to Sherman Oaks, California, during his childhood. Tom's siblings include brother Robert (born 1944), sister Martha (born 1953) and brother Daniel (born 1955). Selleck graduated from Grant High School, in 1962.

While working as a model, Selleck attended the University of Southern California on a basketball scholarship where he played for the USC Trojans men's basketball team. He is a member of Sigma Chi fraternity and a member of the Trojan Knights. While majoring in business administration, a drama coach suggested Selleck try acting. He then studied acting at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, under Milton Katselas.

Selleck served as a soldier in the 160th Infantry Regiment of the California Army National Guard from 1967 to 1973.

Career

Early work and Magnum, P.I.

Selleck's first TV appearance was as a college senior on The Dating Game in 1965, and again in 1967. Soon after, he appeared in commercials for products such as Pepsi-Cola.

He began his career with bit parts in smaller movies, including Myra Breckinridge, Coma, and The Seven Minutes. He also appeared in number of TV series, mini-series and TV movies. Selleck also had a recurring role in the 1970s as "too good to be true" private investigator Lance White in The Rockford Files. Lance was very trusting and always lucky, much to the annoyance of Jim Rockford, the show's star private eye played by James Garner. White would frequently say to Rockford, "Don't worry, Jim; clues will turn up," and then a clue would just turn up, much to Rockford's consternation, for whom obtaining clues required hard work and hard knocks. Selleck's character was based on one played in Garner's earlier TV series Maverick (1957) by Wayde Preston in the episode "The Saga of Waco Williams".

Selleck, an accessible but relatively untested actor, spent years receiving little interest from the entertainment industry. His big break came when he was cast in the lead role as Thomas Magnum in Magnum, P.I.. The producers would not release the actor for other projects, so Selleck had to pass on the role of Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, which then went to Star Wars alumnus Harrison Ford. It turned out shooting of the pilot for Magnum was delayed for over six months by a writers' strike, which would have enabled him to complete Raiders.

Film

Selleck starred in the 1979 TV movie Concrete Cowboys with Jerry Reed. He starred in a number of film roles during and after Magnum; among the most notable were as an acrophobic police detective in Runaway; as a stand-in father in Three Men and a Baby; and as an American 19th century sharpshooter in the Australian western Quigley Down Under, a role and film that he considers one of his best. Other leading roles include Three Men and a Little Lady; High Road to China; Lassiter; Her Alibi; An Innocent Man; Folks!; Christopher Columbus: The Discovery; Mr. Baseball; In & Out and The Love Letter.

Selleck is an avid outdoorsman, marksman and firearms collector. These interests led him to leading-man cowboy roles in Western films, starting with his role as cowboy and frontier marshal Orrin Sackett in the 1979 film The Sacketts, opposite Sam Elliott, Jeff Osterhage, and Western legends Glenn Ford and Ben Johnson. He followed The Sacketts with The Shadow Riders in 1982, then portraying a cat burglar in 1930s London in Lassiter in 1984. Quigley Down Under is probably one of his best known Western films, although he also won a "Western Heritage Award" for his 1997 role in Last Stand at Saber River. His last two cowboy roles to date were in the 2001 TNT movie Crossfire Trail (based on a Louis L'Amour novel of the same name), and the 2003 motion picture Monte Walsh.

He most recently appeared in the film Killers, along with Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher.

Television

Magnum, P.I.

Selleck played the role of Thomas Magnum in 1980 after six other previous TV-pilot attempts that were never sold. Magnum was a former U.S. Navy Officer, a veteran of a special operations unit in the Vietnam War, and later a member of the "Naval Intelligence Agency" (a fictional version of the Office of Naval Intelligence), who had resigned his commission with the Navy to become a private investigator living in Hawaii. The show would go on for eight seasons and 162 episodes until 1988, winning him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1984. Selleck was famous for his mustache, a Hawaiian-style aloha shirt, a Detroit Tigers baseball cap, and the Colt Model 1911A1 .45 ACP Caliber pistol his character carried. Magnum drove a Ferrari 308GTSi in the series. The model became so identified with the role that Ferrari fans now refer to the red-painted model as a "Magnum" Ferrari.

Selleck confirmed that he was the most popular choice by fans to play the role of Magnum in the once-rumored Magnum, P.I. movie.

Friends

In the mid-nineties, Selleck played the role of Richard Burke, Monica's boyfriend, starting at the end of the second season of the hugely successful TV series Friends. Richard was a divorced ophthalmologist who was a friend of Monica's parents, and at first the relationship was hidden from her parents. The relationship eventually ended over Richard's reluctance to commit to raising a family, though Selleck did make a few extra appearances in later shows.

The Closer

In February 1998, Selleck accepted the lead role in a sitcom for CBS called The Closer. In it he played Jack McLaren, a legendary publicist heading up a brand new marketing firm. His costars included Ed Asner, David Krumholtz, and Penelope Ann Miller. Despite the high pedigree, and the expectations for his first series since Magnum, P. I., low ratings caused the show to be canceled after ten episodes.

Jesse Stone series

Since 2005, Selleck has starred in the role of transplanted lawman Jesse Stone in a series of made-for-TV movies based on Robert B. Parker's novels. To date, the series comprises nine films, with the most recent released in October 2015. In addition to his portrayal of the films' protagonist, Selleck now also acts as producer for the series. The fifth film, Jesse Stone: Thin Ice, was not adapted from Parker's novels, but rather an original story by Selleck.

Las Vegas

He joined the cast of the NBC drama Las Vegas in the season-five premiere on September 28, 2007. He played A.J. Cooper, the new owner of the Montecito Casino. He replaced James Caan, who left the cast in the same episode. This was Selleck's first regular role on a drama show since he played Thomas Magnum on Magnum, P.I..

Blue Bloods

Blue Bloods is an American police procedural/drama series on CBS, filmed on location in New York City. Frank Reagan (Selleck) is the Police Commissioner; the series follows the Reagan family of police officers with the New York City Police Department. The show premiered on September 24, 2010.

Other work

Selleck has also appeared in a number of made-for-TV movies in recent years. In particular, he has sought to help bring back to popularity the western, often playing one of that genre's typical characters but thrust into a modern context.

Selleck was offered the lead role of Mitch Buchannon in Baywatch, but turned down the role because he did not want to be seen as a sex symbol. The role eventually went to David Hasselhoff.

Selleck played the role of General Dwight D. Eisenhower in A&E's 2004 made-for-TV movie Ike: Countdown to D-Day. The movie showed the planning, politics, and preparation for the 1944 Invasion of Normandy, and Selleck was critically lauded for playing a cool, calm Eisenhower.

Selleck appeared in a recurring role on the acclaimed ABC drama Boston Legal as Ivan Tiggs—the troubled ex-husband of Shirley Schmidt (Candice Bergen).

Broadway

In 2001, Selleck played the lead role of Murray in a Broadway revival of Herb Gardner's comedic play A Thousand Clowns. It ran for only two months. Critics, though far from uniformly negative about Selleck's performance, generally compared it unfavorably to that of Jason Robards, Jr., who won awards in the 1960s for playing the character on the stage and in a movie version. (It remains the role with which Robards is most identified.) Playwright Gardner, however, actually preferred Selleck to Robards in the part, and even said that Selleck was the way he had always envisioned Murray.

Commercials

Selleck did the voice-over for the 1993 AT&T advertising campaigns titled "You Will." These advertisements had a futuristic feel, and posed the question of, "What if you had the technology to ______ ? Well, you will ... and the company that will bring it to you? AT&T." As of December 30, 2007, he began doing commercial voice-overs for Florida orange juice. In 2012, Selleck was featured in Coldwell Banker's television ad campaign focusing on homeownership.

The Practical Guide to the Universe

In the mid-1990s, Selleck hosted a special series on TLC called The Practical Guide to the Universe, in which he talked about the stars, planets, galaxies, etc.

Awards and accolades

On April 28, 2000, he received an honorary doctorate from Pepperdine University. He was chosen because of his outstanding character and ethic. He is a board member of the non-profit Joseph and Edna Josephson Institute of Ethics and co-founder of the Character Counts Coalition. Selleck received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1986. The star is situated at 6925 Hollywood Blvd.

• Golden Apple Awards - 1982 Male Star of the year
• Golden Apple Awards - 1983 Male Star of the year
• People's Choice Award - 1984 Favorite Male TV Performer
• Emmy Award (1984) - Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
• People's Choice Award - 1985 Favorite Male TV Performer
• People's Choice Award - 1985 Favorite All-Round Male Entertainer
• Golden Globe Award (1985) - Best Performance by an Actor in a TV-Series-Drama
• National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum - 2010 Inductee into the Hall of Great Western Performers

In 1993, during the brief run of the late night The Chevy Chase Show on Fox, Selleck guest-starred. As a gag, he asked to be presented his 1992 Worst Supporting Actor Razzie award for his performance as King Ferdinand of Spain in Christopher Columbus: The Discovery. When the Razzie was presented to him on the air, Selleck took it in stride and asked the entire studio audience to "blow me a raspberry." Thus Selleck became the third person in Razzie history to voluntarily accept one of the Worst Achievements in Film statuettes.

Personal life

From 1971 to 1982, Selleck was married to model Jacqueline Ray. During that time, he adopted her son, Kevin Shepard (born 1966).

On August 7, 1987, Selleck married Jillie Mack. They have one daughter, Hannah Margaret Selleck (born December 16, 1988). The family lives in Fallbrook, Freedom, and Thousand Oaks, CA. Selleck has a summer residence in Jonesboro, Maine. In the 1980s—specifically around the time of filming Three Men and a Baby—Selleck also owned a home on upscale Lakeshore Road in Burlington, Ontario, a city southwest of Toronto. Selleck recently purchased ranch property near the historic town of Prescott, Arizona.

Selleck lives mainly on a 60 acres (24 ha) avocado farm in Westlake Village. In an interview with Good Housekeeping, Selleck talked about living and working on his farm, "So I like to get outside and work on the farm, from fixing roads to clearing brush. I hate going to the gym, so sweating outdoors sure beats sitting on a stationary bike staring at my navel. And I work cheaper than anyone I could hire to do it."

He was an accomplished indoor and beach volleyball player playing the outside hitter position for the Outrigger Canoe Club, Honolulu. (Son Kevin attended Selleck's alma mater, USC, and became a volleyball team All-American in 1990.) Outrigger Canoe Club team mate Dennis Berg, in the summer 2011 issue of Volleyball USA magazine, said of Selleck, "Tom was a great team mate, appreciative of being included with such a talented and experienced group, practicing and playing hard when his Magnum schedule permitted.... He was very patient with all of us, and we relished the big crowds that replaced the usual sparse number of players' friends and spouses at the national tourney matches."

Selleck is an avid ice hockey fan and has been seen attending Los Angeles Kings games at the Staples Center. He lists Anze Kopitar and Alexander Frolov as two of his favorite players. He was once a minority owner of his favorite baseball team since childhood, the Detroit Tigers.

One of Selleck's Magnum co-stars, Larry Manetti, in his 1996 memoir Aloha Magnum, was lavish in his praise of Selleck. Manetti lauded Selleck for his extraordinary work ethic on a gruelling show (shooting for hours in the midday Hawaiian sun), Selleck's work with Hawaiian charities and his willingness to go to bat for the program's cast and crew members.

In February 2009, Selleck joined the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund as national spokesman for the new Education Center being built on the National Mall.

Political views

To promote his film The Love Letter, Selleck was invited to be on The Rosie O'Donnell Show on May 19, 1999. Unexpectedly, he found himself defending an ad in which he appeared supporting the National Rifle Association (NRA) and his position on gun ownership. After questions from O'Donnell, Selleck said, "It's your show, and you can talk about it after I leave."

Selleck is a member of the Board of Directors and public spokesman of the NRA. After close friend Charlton Heston stepped down—due to failing health—as the highly visible public spokesman of the NRA in 2003, Selleck has stepped up in comparable manner to succeed him. In 2002, Selleck donated the rifle he used in Quigley Down Under (a custom 13-pound, single-shot, 1874 Sharps Rifle, with a 34-inch barrel), along with six other firearms from his other films, to the National Rifle Association, as part of the NRA's exhibit "Real Guns of Reel Heroes" at the National Firearms Museum in Fairfax, Virginia.

For a number of years, Selleck appeared in television advertising for National Review (he also subscribes to The New Republic). He endorsed Senator John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. Selleck describes himself politically as "a registered independent with a lot of libertarian leanings." In a 2012 magazine article about his career, he mentioned that he likes the fact that his character on Blue Bloods and his Reagan family members are visibly practicing Catholics, while adding that he is not very religious himself.

Filmography

Films

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1970	Myra Breckinridge	Stud
	The Movie Murderer	Mike Beaudine	TV movie
1972	Daughters of Satan	James Robertson
1973	Terminal Island	Dr. Milford
1974	Case of Rape, AA Case of Rape	Stan	TV movie
1975	Returning Home	Fred Derry	TV movie
1976	Midway	Aide to Capt. Cyril Simard	War Film
1977	Bunco	Gordean	TV movie
	The Washington Affair	Jim Hawley
1978	Coma	Sean Murphy
	Superdome	Jim McCauley
	The Gypsy Warriors	Captain Theodore 'Ted' Brinkenhoff
1979	The Chinese Typewriter	Tom Boston	TV movie
	The Sacketts	Orrin Sackett	Western TV movie. With Sam Elliott, Jack Elam, Ben Johnson, Jeff Osterhage, John Vernon, L.Q. Jones, Paul Koslo, Slim Pickins, Pat Buttram, and Louis L'amour as Himself.
1982	Divorce Wars: A Love Story	Jack Sturgess
	The Shadow Riders	Mac Traven	Western TV movie. With Katherine Ross, Harry Carey, Jr., Sam Elliott, Ben Johnson, Jeff Osterhage, R.G. Armstrong, Gene Evans, and Geoffrey Lewis.
1983	High Road to China	Patrick O' Malley	With Wilford Brimley
1984	Lassiter	Nick Lassiter	With Jane Seymour, and Bob Hoskins.
	Runaway	Sgt. Jack R. Ramsay
1987	Three Men and a Baby	Peter Mitchell
1989	Her Alibi	Phil Blackwood
	Innocent Man, AnAn Innocent Man	Jimmie Rainwood
1990	Quigley Down Under	Matthew Quigley	Australian Western
	Three Men and a Little Lady	Peter Mitchell
1992	Folks!	Jon Aldrich	Nominated—Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor
	Christopher Columbus: The Discovery	King Ferdinand V	Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor
	Mr. Baseball	Jack Elliot
1995	Broken Trust	Judge Timothy Nash	Thriller TV movie
	Open Season	Rock Maninoff
1996	Ruby Jean and Joe	Joe Wade	Western TV movie
	The Magic of Flight	Narrator	IMAX Documentary
1997	Last Stand at Saber River	Paul Cable	Western TV movie
	In & Out	Peter Malloy	Nominated—Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Nominated—MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss
1999	Love Letter, TheThe Love Letter	George Matthias
2000	Running Mates	Gov. James Reynolds Pryce	TV movie With Teri Hatcher, Robert Culp, and Bruce McGill.
2001	Crossfire Trail	Rafael "Rafe" Covington	Western TV movie
2003	Touch 'Em All McCall	Touch McCall	TV movie
	Monte Walsh	Monte Walsh	Western TV movie
	Twelve Mile Road	Stephen Landis	TV movie
2004	Reversible Errors	Larry Starczek	TV movie
	Ike: Countdown to D-Day	Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower	TV movie
2005	Stone Cold	Jesse Stone	TV movie
2006	Jesse Stone: Night Passage	Jesse Stone	TV movie
	Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise	Jesse Stone	TV movie
2007	Meet the Robinsons	Cornelius Robinson	Voice
	Jesse Stone: Sea Change	Jesse Stone	TV movie Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie Nominated—Satellite Award for Best Actor - Miniseries or Television Film
2009	Jesse Stone: Thin Ice	Jesse Stone	TV movie
2010	Jesse Stone: No Remorse	Jesse Stone	TV movie
	Killers	Mr. Kornfeldt
2011	Jesse Stone: Innocents Lost	Jesse Stone	TV movie
2012	Jesse Stone: Benefit of the Doubt	Jesse Stone	TV movie
2015	Jesse Stone: Lost in Paradise	Jesse Stone	TV movie

Television series

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1969	Lancer	Dobie	Episode: "Death Bait"
	Judd for the Defense	Deputy	Episode: The Holy Ground: The Killing Parts 1 & 2
1971	Sarge	Captain Denning	Episode: "The Combatants"
1973	The Wide World of Mystery	Mark Brolin	Episode: "Shadow of Fear"
	The FBI	Steve	Episode: "The Confession"
	Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law	Brinkley	Episode: "Snatches of a Crazy Song"
1974	Marcus Welby, M.D.	Lt. Rogers	Episode: "Feedback"
1974- 1975	Young and the Restless, TheThe Young and the Restless	Jed Andrews	Unknown episodes
1975	Marcus Welby, M.D.	Sgt. Ed Brock	Episodes: Dark Fury Parts 1 & 2
	Mannix	Don Brady	Episode: "Design for Dying"
	Streets of San Francisco, TheThe Streets of San Francisco	Jimmy Desco	Episode: "Spooks for Sale"
1976	Most Wanted	Tom Roybo	Episode: "Pilot"
	Charlie's Angels	Dr. Alan Samuelson	Episode: "Target: Angels"
1978	Taxi	Mike Beldon	Episode: "Memories of Cab 804: Part 2"
1978- 1979	Rockford Files, TheThe Rockford Files	PI Lance White	Episodes: "White on White and Nearly Perfect", & "Nice Guys Finish Dead"
1979	Concrete Cowboys	Will Eubanks	Episode: "A Fine Romance"
1980- 1988	Magnum, P.I.	Thomas Sullivan Magnum IV	159 episodes Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Television Series Drama People's Choice Award for Favorite Male TV Performer Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Television Series Drama Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
1981	Christmas in Hawaii	Himself	TV movie
1982	Simon & Simon	Thomas Magnum	Episode: "Emeralds Are Not a Girl's Best Friend"
1983	James Bond: The First 21 Years	Himself	TV movie Documentary
1984	Muppet Babies	Himself	Episode: "What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?"
1985	50th Presidential Inaugural Gala	Himself	TV movie
	The Merv Griffin Show	Himself	episode: 1-2-1985
1986	Murder, She Wrote	Thomas Magnum	Episode: "Magnum on Ice: Part 2"
1988	The World's Greatest Stunts: A Tribute to Hollywood Stuntmen	Himself	TV movie Documentary
1995	The Annual Artist Rights Foundation Honors Steven Spielberg	Himself	TV movie
1996	Way Out West	Himself	TV movie Documentary
1996- 2000	Friends	Dr. Richard Burke	10 episodes Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series
1997	Big Guns Talk: The Story of the Western	Himself	TV movie Documentary
1998	Closer, TheThe Closer	Jack McLaren	10 episodes
2003	Intimate Portrait	Himself	episode: Dana Delaney
	Time Machine: When Cowboys Were King	Himself	TV movie Documentary
2004	Biography	Himself/Narrator	TV series Documentary episode: Dwight D. Eisenhower: Supreme Commander-in-Chief
	Biography	Himself	TV series Documentary episode: Tom Selleck: More Than Magnum
2005	The Young and the Restless	Jed Andrews	unknown episodes
2006	Boston Legal	Ivan Tiggs	4 episodes
2007- 2008	Las Vegas	A.J. Cooper	19 episodes
2010- present	Blue Bloods	NYPD Police Commissioner Frank Reagan	133 episodes
2013	North America	Narrator	7 episodes

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Charities

Tom Selleck supports the following charitable causes: Women's Issues, Poverty, Cancer, Education, Hunger, Children, Health Education, Arts Education.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]