I must admit that I didn’t watch The A-Team when it first aired on NBC, but two years after its last episode, I realized through re-runs just what an outstanding show it was due to its writing– particularly its use of comedy– and its exceptional cast. The star of which was George Peppard. As Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith, he was the cigar-chomping leader who always had a plan. It was a role that revitalized George’s career– a role so iconic that not even an accomplished actor like Liam Neeson could approach it.
The A-Team was wildly popular right from the 1983 premiere, but I think the base audience was the teenage set and younger. This just could have been another routine action series, propped up by a familiar Hollywood veteran, and some good character players; instead, The A-Team offered something just a little bit different: a send-up of its own adventure genre, complete with a quirky mix of off-beat stories and personalities. The “light” approach is pretty well executed by producer/writer Stephen J. Cannell, who back in the mid-80s had about five or six runaway successes airing on different networks. The guy’s script output was incredible. Of course, The A-Team plays like a dead-on send-up of Mission Impossible with liberal doses of The Fugitive.
I liked the modern day soldier-of-fortune approach with the elaborate schemes to carry out an assignment that sometimes sound like the “Our Gang” Rascals were in on the gag. I always got a kick out of the episodes where the schemes can’t even begin until Murdoch is sprung from the local psycho ward or until the phobic B.A. is tricked into taking a knockout drug so he can be loaded onto a waiting plane! Or until the smooth-talking “Face” can con someone out of the funds and materials necessary for their transportation. And I always liked the make-shift weaponry these guys would “manufacture” on the spur of the moment to meet any crisis. Unfortunately, the series eventually fell into the usual “formula” trap and started grinding out generally interchangeable confrontations and generic bad guys. By the fifth (and last) season, a lot of the irony and fun of the concept was exchanged in favor of a more straight-forward espionage format.
George Peppard as Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith…
At the heart of it all was George Peppard. He must have been the last of the contract players in the old studio system in Hollywood (under contract to Universal, naturally). Just as everything was swinging over to “freelancing” and independent production. And he appeared on-screen like the matinee idols of old, starring in a Western, then a private-eye drama, maybe a war saga, then a romantic adventure– all diverse genres we don’t have today.
He had done a lot of television work in the mid-to-late ’50s before becoming a star, so it was an easy transition for him to return to it after his glory years at MGM and Universal. There were those great segments from his first TV series, Banacek, from the early ’70s. Here he was an insurance investigator checking out elaborate thefts, like a whole train right off the tracks. I always enjoyed the wonderful if fantastic “solution” to the mystery…
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I remember a story told to me by a video pirate named Dick. He was one of those interesting characters who inhabited the fringes of the movie convention floors. He spoke about the time when he was living in Los Angeles during most of the ’80s. His closest buddy was a struggling actor named Tony, a tall, good-looking, blue-eyed dude who never quite got the breaks in the business beyond a lot of walk-ons and crowd scenes in TV and features, usually without dialogue. Tony was from North Carolina with manners and a persona which would remind you of Randolph Scott– and a way with women which would put Errol Flynn to shame. The guy was also one of the greatest film buffs you’d ever encounter. Especially when it came to adventure films and Universal horror. The proudest moment of his career and life was playing the “Frankenstein Monster” in a Sheena Easton music video (“Telefone”) set in a haunted house. Legendary make-up artist Jack Pierce would have been impressed!
Tony’s main income, however, came from doing voice-overs on cartoon shows and documentaries. He always seemed to be moving into another apartment with a different roommate, some other struggling actor, or renting a whole house up in the Hollywood Hills with a clique of fellow would-be’s– with everybody contributing to the household expenses.
One guy who never “put in the pot” but was forever “crashing on the couch” was John Schneider, who eventually hit it big on a fluke casting call for The Dukes of Hazzard and never looked back, never reimbursed loans and, much to Tony’s ire, forgot he ever had any friends who could use a day’s pay on a series. Lovely fellow.
After The A-Team‘s immediate success in late 1984, Universal TV decided to create a 20-minute stunt show based on the series as part of the studio tour. While a six-building Western set was being raised on the backlot, and bleachers installed, auditions were given– and Tony won the Hannibal Smith role. Actually, there were three rotating teams of four principles who would alternate up to six live-action shows a day, depending on audiences. There was a lot of shooting, naturally, swinging on a rope from rooftop to rooftop, crashes and falls from windows, the works.
The problem was, Universal was low in paychecks and short-sighted in safety. They really should have been paying top dollar for a squad of Tom Steeles and Dave Sharpes rather than expecting desperate or struggling actors to carry out the exhausting and dangerous stunts, particularly amid a flood of pyrotechnics, explosions and van crashes. After two months, the body count was rising and the lawsuits were brewing among the teammates! Tony never sustained any injuries, although the stock in Ben-Gay factory undoubtedly rose! And he was out in six month’s time after finding himself between a rock and a hard place in a suit filed by a fellow performer against the studio.
Here’s the cool part. About a month after the stunt show opened to popularity, the big brass sent George Peppard down for a series of cast photos with the stuntmen counterparts. Since Dick and these stunt boys spent a lot of time bending their elbows together, he was usually up at the show for the conclusion, including the afternoon George and a photographer showed up. This show had two professional stunt coordinators ramrodding the proceedings, and apparently one of them knew Peppard from way-back-when. After two hours of every conceivable pose, this guy suggests a “cold one” to Peppard, straight out of the refrigerator stationed behind one of the building flats. And since he never liked to “pop a cork” alone, the stunt coordinator motions for Tony and about five others, including Dick, to join the festivities.
These other five guys didn’t know squat about Peppard or his career, beyond The A-Team, and sat like statues as Tony and Dick pumped George for stories for the next two hours! It was wonderful! According to Dick, Peppard was bemused and amazed they had so many facts at hand, but while he answered questions and offered opinions, his expression never varied; he just didn’t seem particularly emotional or moved by his accomplishments.
Now The Carpetbaggers is one of the great “trash” flicks (as Peppard described it fondly) and Dick had to ask Peppard about co-star Alan Ladd. (It was Ladd’s last film.) Boy, George’s eyes just lit up for an instant. Then the guard went back up or whatever. Seems Ladd was one of his heroes growing up, and he relished working with the guy. At first, Peppard thought the unresponsive Ladd was stand-offish or perhaps pissed that he was accepting second billing in a film for the first time since 1942’s This Gun For Hire. Later, George came to realize that Ladd was a very insecure man for all his stardom and very leery of working with a company of strangers after years of familiar crews and cast members. And the booze had taken its toll at this late phase of Ladd’s career.
Dick was somewhat dumbfounded when Peppard summed it up quickly with a regretful observation: that every time he was doing a “two-shot” with Ladd he’d be looking into a pair of “dead” eyes that had seen it all and done it all… which is precisely the feeling he had that day sucking down a beer and looking Peppard in those dull, sad eyes. George was going right down the same path and knew it. “Believe me,” Dick said, “the boyish features were quite dissolute and it was like studying an old coin whose edging had been worn smooth.” But as undemonstrative as George was, he still probably enjoyed the clambake in back of the flat more than talking to the big brass or some studio flunky. Dick told me that Tony still has a few copies of that photo session, including at least one candid where Dick is partially featured.
When Peppard came down for those publicity photos with the stunt show A-Team members, they posed with this affable African-American stand-in for B.A. named Jeff. Peppard took one look at his toothy smile and obvious genial attitude and said, “Nice improvement over the original, guys!” George’s very vocal disdain for Mr. T was a gossip column delight almost from the start– particularly after Mr. T became the “break-out” character of the group. But I think it had more to do with T’s unprofessional manner on the set than a matter of personal jealousy.
“I ran into Peppard one other time, unexpectedly,” Dick told me later. “I noted in the daily paper about two years later that some half-dozen celebs were appearing at a local department store in North Hollywood one Saturday afternoon to sign autographs, pose for pictures, etc. All in the name of ‘Just Say No’ to drugs among the kids. I went down only knowing that Anna Lee would be present and I had a still from Bedlam I wanted autographed– I’m a huge admirer of Val Lewton and his movies. Lo and behold, Peppard was also on the panel. Frankly, I didn’t approach the guy as I was having too good a conversation with Ms. Lee, but I give him credit for his tolerance towards a load of unmannerly fools who were pestering him for a signature and poses, one after another.”
Dick added that he was saddened but not shocked when Peppard’s obit appeared in 1994; 65 was too young to bite the dust. He believed it was the years of hard-drinking that finally caught up to him, wore him down to a frazzle. Peppard tried to clean up his personal life, but according to Dick, “For a heavy drinker like Peppard, ‘giving up the booze’ means graduating down from hard liquor to beer. He certainly wasn’t drinking soda pop that afternoon on the A-Team stunt show site. But I was impressed that he could ‘milk’ a single Coors for a whole hour, twice over!”
It was the emphysema from lung cancer that ultimately took his life. To Peppard’s credit (and in his defense), he was able to overcome the worst of his alcoholism many years before. Towards the end of his life, I recall seeing him in a 1994 episode of Matlock, but I don’t think he had worked much in recent years– just fighting those court battles with Universal and Stephen Cannell over rerun and syndication rights to The A-Team really. And divorce action from his fifth wife, sad to note.
Audiences at the Pickwick Theatre Classic Film Series will see George Peppard on-screen later during our eighth season. However, the film that’s slotted is probably better known for starring Audrey Hepburn. (The majority of your average moviegoers probably don’t even know George was in it.) But I’ve always been an admirer of his work. Those who are like-minded should revisit movies like How the West Was Won, Operation Crossbow, The Blue Max, even House of Cards— the latter being a hard-to-find thriller (with Orson Welles) that made an impression on me, but I haven’t seen it in about twenty-five years.
Home From the Hill features one of Peppard’s best performances. It’s one of those Vincente Minnelli non-musicals the cineMAH experts overlook; crackling dialogue in a heated family dispute, starring Robert Mitchum in a terrific role as the patriarch of a really screwed-up Southern clan. Except for Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Peppard’s films might not be memorable in the public consciousness, but they are incredibly entertaining, and his performances are almost always top-notch.
~MCH
