Groceries Aren't Free

In eulogizing the recently deceased British actor David Hemmings, Boats Against the Current wrote on Saturday, "I did not know that, in the 1980s, he spent some time in Hollywood directing vintage '80s TV shows like Magnum, PI, The A-Team, and Airwolf. Whatever pays the bills, I suppose. But who am I to even say something like that?"

True enough. A guilty pleasure of weekday afternoon TV is hunkering down in front of reruns and watching the "Guest Starring" credits to see which of today's stars was earning rent money back then. (George Clooney on The Facts of Life, anyone?) For my money one of the greatest career leaps was made by another A-Team alumnus, Carl Franklin, who played one of the hapless military goons chasing down Hannibal, B.A., Face, and Murdoch, then went on to film the shattering One False Move and the polished Devil in a Blue Dress.

Who knows? Perhaps one day it will reported that a Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction got his start with a foolish little baseball and pop culture blog. . . .