- In full:
- Thomas William Selleck
Tom Selleck
What role made Tom Selleck a major star and sex symbol?
What was Tom Selleck’s role in the series Blue Bloods?
Tom Selleck (born January 29, 1945, Detroit, Michigan, U.S.) is an American actor best known for his starring role as the mustachioed, Hawaii-based private investigator Thomas Magnum in the adventure-crime television series Magnum, P.I. (1980–88). The show made him a major star and sex symbol, and Selleck went on to pursue a range of film and TV roles. Notably, he appeared on the sitcom Friends in the 1990s and early 2000s and later gained acclaim for his portrayal of New York City police commissioner Frank Reagan in Blue Bloods (2010–24).
Early life, education, and military service
Selleck is the second of four children born to Martha Selleck (née Jagger), a homemaker, and Robert Dean Selleck, a real estate investor and executive. When he was a toddler, his father served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II as a B-29 mechanic; Selleck and his elder brother stayed in Detroit with their mother, who worked in a General Motors plant. In 1948 the family moved to Sherman Oaks, California.
Selleck attended high school in nearby Van Nuys and excelled in athletics, especially basketball. Although Montana State University offered him a basketball scholarship, he declined it to pursue his goal of attending the University of Southern California (USC). After graduating from high school in 1962, Selleck enrolled in a local junior college to save money while living at home. During his junior year, with the help of a scholarship, he transferred to USC, where he studied business administration and played for the university’s basketball team. His career plans took a turn when he enrolled in a history of theater course in hopes of “an easy A.” His professor recommended him to a talent agent, and Selleck soon earned his first acting credit in an Air Force training film.
Other celebrities who appeared on The Dating Game include Sally Field, Farrah Fawcett, Burt Reynolds, Michael Jackson, Steve Martin, Andy Kaufman, John Ritter, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jeff Bridges. Rodney Alcala, who would later become known as a serial killer, was also on the show—and was picked over the two other bachelors.
In 1967, during his senior year, Selleck’s friends urged him to audition for The Dating Game, a television show in which a single person interviews three eligible candidates on the other side of a partition and then decides which one to go on a date with based on their answers. Selleck was not chosen by the bachelorette, but his appearance on the show led to him being cast in a Pepsi commercial. An executive at Twentieth Century Fox took notice of the handsome young actor and invited him to join the film studio’s program for new talent. Selleck accepted the offer and withdrew from USC.
Six months into his training, Selleck received notice to report for a military draft physical. Seeking to take control of the situation, he enlisted in the National Guard, in which he served from 1967 to 1973 and rose to the rank of sergeant. Because he was not deployed to Vietnam, he was able to find occasional work, appearing in commercials and TV series during his service.
Early acting career and breakthrough with Magnum, P.I.
Selleck began his professional acting career in earnest with a recurring role on the soap opera The Young and the Restless, appearing from 1974 through 1975. About this time he also starred in a three-episode arc of Marcus Welby, M.D. Over the next several years, Selleck made guest appearances in various crime-drama shows, including Mannix, Charlie’s Angels, and The Rockford Files. A role in the 1979 miniseries The Sacketts, a western adapted from the novels of Louis L’Amour, gained him further recognition.
Selleck’s breakthrough came in 1980, when he was cast in the title role of Magnum, P.I. The series follows former Navy SEAL-turned-private investigator Thomas Magnum and his case-solving adventures on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. The show was a major hit, ranking in the top 20 television programs in the United States for the first five years of its eight-season run. With his thick mustache and runner’s shorts, Selleck exuded a virile masculinity, but Magnum’s fun-loving character (and penchant for loud Hawaiian shirts) and Selleck’s affable personality assured viewers that the star did not take his sex symbol image too seriously. In 1984 he won an Emmy Award for outstanding lead actor in a drama series, and the following year he won a Golden Globe Award.
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Before Magnum, P.I., Selleck was set to play another 1980s icon: the adventurous archaeologist Indiana Jones in the film Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). After being offered the role by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, he was forced to turn it down because he could not get out of his contract with CBS, which had bought Magnum, P.I. In 2025 Selleck told Hour Detroit magazine, “I already had confidence as an actor, but the offer from Spielberg and Lucas was validating but very frustrating at the same time because I could have done both.” (The Raiders role was given to Harrison Ford instead; Spielberg later quipped that he would have made Selleck shave his trademark mustache to play Jones.)
Film roles, Friends, Blue Bloods, and other projects
Near the end of Magnum, P.I.’s run, Selleck began to score bigger roles in films. In 1987 he starred in the family comedy Three Men and a Baby, which was one of the highest-grossing films at the domestic box office that year. Its sequel, Three Men and a Little Lady (1990), was also a hit. He also starred in the western adventure Quigley Down Under (1990) and the sports comedy Mr. Baseball (1992), and he appeared in the romantic comedies In & Out (1997) and The Love Letter (1999).
Beginning in 1996, Selleck had a recurring guest role on the hit sitcom Friends. His portrayal of Dr. Richard Burke, the love interest of Monica Geller (Courteney Cox), earned him an Emmy Award nomination in 2000. Although Richard is considered to be one of Selleck’s iconic characters, the actor later admitted that he “was scared to death” to guest star on the hugely popular show.
Selleck’s other notable work includes the Jesse Stone series of TV movies adapted from the novels of Robert B. Parker. Between 2005 and 2015, Selleck not only portrayed the titular crime-solving New England police chief in nine Jesse Stone films, but he also served as executive producer on each one and cowrote several of them. His performance in Jesse Stone: Sea Change (2007) earned him another Emmy nomination.
In 2010 Selleck was cast in the series Blue Bloods as Frank Reagan, a New York City police commissioner and the patriarch of a multigenerational family involved in law enforcement. The drama show focuses on the professional and personal lives of the family members as they collaborate to investigate crimes and maintain law and order in the city, all the while striving to keep the family united. Blue Bloods was an audience favorite and had a successful 14-season run before its series conclusion in 2024.
Selleck will return to TV screens in a true-crime docuseries on the History Channel. Titled Crime and Justice with Tom Selleck, the 10-episode series, which Selleck is hosting, narrating, and executive producing, will examine some of the most famous crimes, investigations, and cases in the history of the United States.
Personal life
Selleck was married to model and actress Jacqueline Ray from 1971 to 1982, and he is the adoptive father of her son, Kevin. In 1987 Selleck married actress Jillie Mack, with whom he has a daughter, Hannah.
In 2024 Selleck published the memoir You Never Know.