Some people still have their morals

[Catherine]

I came across this article regarding a man who turned down a role because it "trivialized" something he was genuinely proud of:

Actor Tom Selleck has ruled out a cameo role in a planned big screen version of his 1980s TV hit Magnum P.I. - because he refuses to trivialize the show. Selleck is against compromising the memory of a television show he is proud to have starred in by appearing in a big-budget movie making fun of it. He says, "I tell you what worries me - because I love Magnum and we have loyal fans - is they take these TV show titles, and they buy them and they spend $100 million on special effects, and then they make fun of them and trivialize it. Then they try and get the actor who used to be in it to do some ridiculous cameo to prove to the audience that it's OK. And I will not do that."

Source

It's, of course, not a significant news event, but it really struck me as honorable that an actor was so proud of a project he was a part of that he refused to make fun of it. I finished The Romantic Manifesto just yesterday, so this bit of news came at an extremely opportune time. It reminded me of the article Ayn Rand writes on the degradation of romanticism in the media - and how works such as James Bond are bastardized in films because the people involved didn't take their work seriously.

(Sorry if this is in the wrong forum!)

[davidmsc]

Good on Selleck! It's become a cliche, for the TV stars of the 70s and 80s to have those walk-on cameos, and it usually does indeed seem pretty lame.