Tom Selleck: Built to Last

Thomas Magnum would have been a very different character had Selleck just accepted what was handed to him. As conceived, Magnum was a flashier figure, one that Selleck calls "very James Bond–like." Though Selleck knew how easily a Hollywood opportunity can vanish, he pushed back, campaigning to turn his leading role into an Everyman who favored ocean kayaking, Hawaiian shirts and bottles of cold beer. He wanted Magnum to come off more like James Garner's laid-back detective on The Rockford Files (on which Selleck had a recurring role). "I said, 'I don't want to be Rockford, but I want to do something like that, where the guy is fallible.'" The studio had also rejected the idea that Magnum's Navy SEAL history be referenced throughout the series, yet Selleck prevailed on that point, too. Ultimately it was this character detail that landed Magnum in the Smithsonian. "I don't want to get too emotional, but I am very proud of this," Selleck says, suddenly choking up, his eyes pooling with tears. "Magnum was recognized as the first show to portray Vietnam veterans in a positive way. My silly Hawaiian shirt and Detroit Tigers cap are in their collection."

8 Things You May Not Know About Tom Selleck

1. While batting for the Detroit Tigers in a 1991 spring training game, he struck out after fouling away three pitches.

2. Though he owns an avocado farm, Selleck hates the taste of avocados.

3. He is friends with former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

4. He belongs to the Sigma Chi fraternity.

5. He correctly predicted his Jesse Stone series would be sold as a box set. "You get eight movies but no real Scotch. That would be illegal."

6. His daughter buried his [worst in film] Razzie for his turn as King Ferdinand in Christopher Columbus: The Discovery in a secret location.

7. A Magnum remake is not for him: "They often pay the original actor for a cameo so the audience knows it's OK, but I ain't gonna do that."

8. He doesn't wear Hawaiian shirts. "People would say, 'Tom, Magnum's over. Get over it.' "

Selleck has traded Hawaiian shirts and his Detroit Tigers cap for a modern Lumbersexual appearance.

John Russo

Selleck traces his enterprising streak back to his father, Robert, a onetime World War II B-29 mechanic who moved his family from Detroit to Los Angeles, hoping to make his way in real estate. "He worked for his realtor brother on straight commission and bought a 1,000-square-foot house for $10,000 on the GI Bill," says Selleck. His father, who ended up as a vice president of Coldwell Banker, and Selleck's mother, Martha, taught their four children that bettering oneself meant being willing to take risks: "They walked their talk. I don't have any tragic stories of parental rejection. They taught me everything I know."

His parents also passed along to their son the importance of giving back. Selleck is currently the spokesperson for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. (An advocate for gun rights, the politically conservative Selleck is also a board member of the National Rifle Association.) In an office in his 100-year-old hunting lodge-turned-guesthouse, a small bust of 19th-century author Horatio Alger shares space with antique rifles and wall-mounted antlers. It is Selleck's most beloved trophy, he says, bestowed upon him in 2000 by the association named for the storytelling dean of the American Dream — a group that gives college scholarships to young people across the country who have excelled academically despite facing great adversity.

When it came to true love, Selleck's parents, happily wed until his father's death in 2001, served as his role models, too.

Selleck spends time away from Hollywood at the ranch he owns that once belong to Dean Martin.

John Russo

Although his first marriage, in 1971, to model Jacqueline Ray (whose son, Kevin, now 50, Selleck adopted) ended 10 years later, Selleck didn't give up on his search for a soul mate. In 1984 he was in London starring in a caper film when he went to see his pal Brian Blessed in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats. While backstage, he spotted in a throng of actors dressed in whiskers, face paint and furry tails his future wife, the British actress Jillie Mack. "She looked pretty good in a leotard," jokes Selleck, adding that it took him several visits to Cats before he could screw up the courage to call her on a theater phone. "She had to go on," he says. "I was hemming and hawing, and she finally asked, 'Do you want to meet for a cocktail?' "

Mack was unfazed by Selleck's star power. "My television had been stolen three months before," she admits. "I'd never heard of him."

When the pair exchanged vows three years later, the wedding was held in a secret location: a tiny chapel in Lake Tahoe. A month passed before the press caught wind of the nuptials. "We wanted some dignity," says Selleck, adding that the day was documented only by Polaroid snapshots. "People who seek out fame? I don't get them," he says, tracing his personal aversion to a promotional event in Paris for his 1983 film, High Road to China, during which he and his costar Bess Armstrong were nearly trampled by a "hysterical" crowd. Selleck recalls looking over at the French promoter on the sidelines of the crush. "He was just delighted," the actor says. "He had created an event. Afterward I called my agent and said, 'I don't know whether I can do this unless I find a way to do it on my terms.' "

Selleck decided he needed to move his family some 50 miles from Hollywood. Mack, who'd just given birth to their daughter, Hannah, now 26, wasn't wild about the idea but sees it differently today. "It's the best place to raise a child," she says, adding that she not only loves the ranch, she rarely leaves it. "It was such the wisdom of Tom. He knew he needed to buy back his anonymity, to replenish the soul."

Almost 27 years later, when his wife turns up along a ranch road wearing shorts and running shoes while speed-walking with one of their five dogs, Selleck instantly brightens and bellows out "Macksy!" — his nickname for her. He credits the sprawl of their property — an eight-bedroom Spanish Colonial ranch house, a swimming pool, stables and 20 acres of avocado trees — for his and Jillie's long, happy union. When Selleck isn't on location, the two head off in the morning to different corners of the ranch and often bump into each other midday. "We're both independent," he says. "There's a lot of yin and yang in us. I'm kind of quiet. She's got this joie de vivre. I don't know what our secret is, but I'm happy."

Yet in recent years, Selleck's state of perfect harmony has been threatened by California's drought, one so epic that it has forced him to abandon his once-verdant orchard of avocado trees. When he drives past the grove, he says, he averts his gaze. "I don't want to look at them because they're all dying. I feel like they're going, 'Tom, just a little water and we can make it,' " he says, grimly. "Basically I'm a small businessman who is going out of business." Recently he made national headlines after being sued by an adjacent county for illegally transporting public water to his ranch in 2013. His attorney contends that the water was legally obtained and paid for as far as Selleck knew, and the suit was settled after the actor agreed to reimburse the county for its investigation expenses.

The controversy must have been especially painful for Selleck, whose name recognition guaranteed that the story lingered in the news. Naturally, he fell back on his time-tested strategy for coping with the glare of fame, today's decidedly unglamorous task being no exception. Climbing onto his ATV, bound for a remote corner of his property, Selleck declares with a smile, "I'm waging a war with the tumbleweeds," then rides away in a cloud of dust.