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The term Down Under is a colloquialism which is variously construed either to refer to Australia and New Zealand, or Australia alone. The term comes from the fact that these countries are in the Southern Hemisphere, 'below' many other countries on the globe.^[1][2]

The persistence of the media use of the term has led to its wide embrace and usage. The Men at Work song "Down Under" became an instantly recognisable, patriotic rallying song. The famous Australian boxing champion Kostya Tszyu was nicknamed "The Thunder from Down Under".

According to Roger Ebert's tongue-in-cheek Glossary of Movie Terms,^[3] the Down Under Rule "No film set in Australia is allowed to use the word Australia in its title where "Down Under" is an acceptable alternative. For example, we don't get The Rescuers in Australia or Quigley in Australia."

References[link]

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Colin James Hay^[1][2] (born 29 June 1953) is a Scottish-Australian musician, who made his mark during the 1980s as lead vocalist of the Australian band Men at Work, and later as a solo artist. Regarding his solo career, Hay stated, in 2011: "I feel like it’s been building for the last fifteen, or so, years that I’ve been touring. It’s slow and steady. It’s been word-of-mouth. People see the show, like it, and tell their friends. It feels very organic."^[3]

Hay's music has been frequently used by actor and director Zach Braff in his work, subsequently leading to a career rebirth in the mid-2000s.^[4] Commenting on his younger fanbase, Hay noted, "Most of them have an idea about Men at Work, but that's the subplot. They picked up on me since Scrubs, they're young enough they never heard of Men at Work. But I've found if people discover you they discover everything about you."^[5]

Early life and Men at Work[link]

Hay was born in Kilwinning, North Ayrshire, Scotland, but moved to Australia at the age of 14 with his family.^[6]

In 1978, Hay met Ron Strykert and the men began playing acoustic music as a duo. Hay and Strykert formed the band Men at Work, adding Jerry Speiser (drums), John Rees (bassist) and Greg Ham (flautist/saxophonist). The group released their debut album Business as Usual in 1981.

Hay joined as guest vocalist with The Incredible Penguins in 1985, for a cover of "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)", a charity project for research on Fairy penguins, which peaked at #10 on the Australian Kent Music Report in December.^[7][8]

Later career[link]

Following the breakup of Men at Work in 1985, Hay released several major label solo albums, including Looking for Jack (Columbia) and Wayfaring Sons (MCA), to fluctuating commercial success. In 2011, Hay commented on his early solo career, stating, "After Men at Work, for the better part of a decade, I was stumbling around being unfocused. It was pre-internet, I really had to try to find my audiences by going out on tour. Men at Work really didn't build a foundational audience. We came in as a pop band with enormous radio success; once that goes away and the band breaks up the audience tends to go away with it. You're left with what you want to make of it. When you start out doing those tours, you start again [and] you tend not to attract a very big number of people. I'd play to a hundred people or sometimes less."^[5]

In 2004 he contributed to the Garden State soundtrack with his solo song "I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You".

In addition to recording, Hay also established his own recording label, Lazy Eye Records,^[9] named for his own divergent strabismus (lazy eye) condition, and has made appearances in cult movies such as Cosi and television shows, such as The Larry Sanders Show, JAG, and The Mick Molloy Show. Hay also appeared on television in the NBC show Scrubs, which along with episodes of ABC's What About Brian, NBC's The Black Donnellys, CBS's Cane, and the BBC hospital drama Casualty, have included performances of some of his previous songs.

In December 2005, Hay and Heather Mills digitally re-released "My Brilliant Feat" as a charity single as a tribute to the late football (soccer) player George Best, who died on 25 November of that year. Proceeds were forwarded to the Donor Family Network, supporting organ donor families and promoting organ and tissue donation. The single is available on iTunes with a bonus music video tribute to Best.^[10][11]

In 2006 Hay provided his voice for one of the characters in animated movie The Wild. He has also been a member of Ringo Starr's eighth and tenth All-Starr Bands. He continues to perform regularly, including playing some folk venues.

On 13 February 2009, former Men at Work band member Ron Strykert was arrested for allegedly making death threats against Hay.^[12][13]

Hay contributed music to the TV series Scrubs in the course of a number of episodes, including on-camera performances. In Episode 1 of Season 2 he performs an acoustic version of the Men at Work-hit "Overkill" and he also makes an appearance in "My Hard Labor"

Hay released his 10th album, "American Sunshine", on 18 August 2009 on Compass Records.

In 2009, Hay's former group, Men at Work, were named in a lawsuit alleging copyright infringement by Larrikin Music, which owns the rights to the "Kookaburra" song. Larrikin Music claims that part of a flute riff from the band's 1981 single "Down Under" was copied from "Kookaburra" originally written by a music teacher, Marion Sinclair, who died in 1988. In February 2010, a court ruled in favour of Larrikin Music. Although the petition from Larrikin Music requested 40% to 60% of royalties dating back to 1981 and future royalties, in July 2010 a judge awarded the plaintiff only 5% of royalties dating back to 2002 and the same amount of future royalties.^[14]

In May 2009, Hay performed at the Artist for the Arts Foundation benefit at Barnum Hall, Santa Monica High School, Santa Monica, California. Performing alongside Curt Smith (Tears for Fears) Fee Waybill (Tubes) and Venice and over 70 members of the Santa Monica High School Orchestra and Girls Choir, the benefit helped to provide funds for the continuation of music education in public schools. In August 2010, Hay performed in Missoula, Montana with a Los Angeles Roots rock band named Patrolled By Radar.^[15]

Solo discography[link]

• Looking for Jack (1987)
• Wayfaring Sons (1990)
• Peaks & Valleys (1992)
• Topanga (1994)
• Transcendental Highway (1998)
• Going Somewhere (2000)
• Company of Strangers (2002)
• Man @ Work (2003)
• Are You Lookin' at Me? (2007)
• American Sunshine (2009)
• Gathering Mercury (2011)

Acting[link]

After Men at Work Hay has also performed in a number of films and TV shows, usually in small roles.

• The Uninvited (2008) as Nick
• The Wild (2006) as Fergus Flamingo (voice)
• Scrubs (TV series) (2002, 2007, 2009)

Episode – My Overkill as Troubador (Performing "Overkill")

Episode – My Hard Labor as Troubador (Performing "Down Under")

Episode – My Finale as Troubador (Cameo)

• The Country Bears (2002) (singing voice - uncredited)
• The Mick Molloy Show (TV series)

Episode #1.4 (1999) as Gay Builder

Episode #1.2 (1999) as Artist

• The Craic (1999) as Barry
• Heaven's Burning (1997) as Jonah
• JAG: Judge Advocate General (TV series)

Episode - Trinity (1997) as Miles

• Cosi (1996) as Zac
• Blue Heelers (TV series)

Episode - Shadow Man (1995) as Brad Fielding

Episode - Theft (1994) as George Patterson

• Raw Silk (TV movie) (1988) as Parker
• Wills & Burke (1985) as Publican

Personal life[link]

Hay is married to singer Cecilia Noël, who often provides backup vocals at his shows.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Brazilian fan site
• Colin Hay at the Internet Movie Database
• Colin Hay at Allmusic.com
• Colin Hay on Myspace
• Interview with and performance by Hay on public radio program and podcast The Sound of Young America

Tom Selleck
Selleck in 2010
Born	Thomas William Selleck (1945-01-29) January 29, 1945 (age 67) Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A.
Occupation	actor, film producer
Years active	1969–present
Spouse	Jacqueline Ray (1971–1982) Jillie Mack (1987–present)

Thomas William "Tom" Selleck (born January 29, 1945) is an American actor and film producer. He is best known for his starring role as the private investigator Thomas Magnum in the television series Magnum, P.I. (1980s), which was based in Hawaii. He also plays Police Chief Jesse Stone in a series of made-for-TV movies based on the Robert B. Parker novels. Since 2010 he has appeared as the NYPD Police Commissioner Frank Reagan in the drama Blue Bloods on CBS-TV.

Selleck has acted in many TV roles, including Dr. Richard Burke on Friends and A.J. Cooper on Las Vegas. In addition to his series work, Selleck has appeared in more than fifty made for TV and general-release movies, including Mr. Baseball, Quigley Down Under, Lassiter and his most successful movie release Three Men and a Baby, which was the highest grossing movie in 1987.

Early life[link]

Selleck, born in Detroit, Michigan, is the son of Martha S. (née Jagger),^[1] a homemaker; and Robert Dean Selleck, an executive and real estate investor.^[2][3][4] The family moved to Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, California when Selleck was growing up. His siblings include brothers Robert (born 1944) and Daniel (born 1954) and sister Martha. Selleck graduated from Grant High School in 1962.^[5]

Along with modeling, Selleck attended the University of Southern California on a basketball scholarship where he played for the USC Trojans men's basketball team.^[6] He is a member of Sigma Chi fraternity^[7] and a member of the Trojan Knights. While he majored in business administration, a drama coach suggested Selleck try acting. He then studied acting at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, under Milton Katselas.

Selleck served as a soldier in the 160th Infantry Regiment of the California Army National Guard^[8] and his unit was activated for the Watts Riots in Los Angeles.

Career[link]

[edit] Early work and Magnum P.I.

Selleck's first TV appearance was as a college senior on The Dating Game in 1965, and again in 1967 – he lost both times. Soon after, he appeared in commercials for products such as Pepsi-Cola.

He began his career with bit parts in smaller movies, including Myra Breckinridge and The Seven Minutes. He also appeared in number of TV series, mini-series and TV movies. Selleck also had a recurring role in the 1970s as "too good to be true" private investigator Lance White in The Rockford Files. Lance was very trusting and always lucky, much to the annoyance of Jim Rockford, the show's star private eye played by James Garner. White would frequently say to Rockford, "Don't worry Jim, clues will turn up" and then a clue would just turn up, much to Rockford's consternation, for whom obtaining clues required hard work and hard knocks. Selleck's character was based on one played in Garner's earlier TV series Maverick (1957) by Wayde Preston in that series' highest-rated episode, "The Saga of Waco Williams".

Selleck, an accessible but relatively untested actor, spent years receiving little interest from the entertainment industry. His big break came when he was cast in the lead role as Thomas Magnum in Magnum, P.I.. The Magnum, P.I. producers would not release the actor for other projects, and, thus, Selleck had to pass on the equally enticing film project for the title role of Indiana Jones, which then went to rising star Harrison Ford. The career-influencing choice between the role of Indiana Jones vs. Magnum P.I. actually haunted Selleck so much that before making the decision, he consulted his best friend on what to do. Together they came to the conclusion that taking the high road and honoring the first contract with Universal Studios was the career-savvy direction. It turned out that the shooting of the pilot for Magnum was delayed for over six months (due to a writers' strike) which would have enabled him to complete the role as Indiana Jones, if he had had the option to do so.

Film[link]

Selleck at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival.

Selleck starred in the 1979 TV movie Concrete Cowboys with Jerry Reed. He starred in a number of film roles during and after Magnum; among the most notable were as an acrophobic police detective in Runaway; as a stand-in father in Three Men and a Baby; and as an American 19th century sharpshooter in the Australian western Quigley Down Under – a role and film that he considers one of his best. His other films include Three Men and a Little Lady; High Road to China; Lassiter; Coma; Her Alibi; An Innocent Man; Folks!; Christopher Columbus: The Discovery; Mr. Baseball; In & Out and The Love Letter.

In the early 1990s, Selleck held a press conference to say that he was not gay after a Queer Nation poster allegedly tried to out him. He also sued a tabloid for printing a story that he was gay, a suit which later was settled with an apology and a financial sum that Selleck donated to the University of Southern California journalism program to promote ethics in media. He insisted that he was not anti-gay, however, saying "I would have had the same problem, felt the same kind of righteous indignation, if somebody had said I was having an affair with some actress I had never met," and would later portray an openly gay character in In & Out with Kevin Kline.^[9]

Selleck is an avid outdoorsman, and a marksman and knowledgeable firearms collector. These interests led him to leading-man cowboy roles in Western films, starting with his role as cowboy and frontier marshal Orrin Sackett in the 1979 film The Sacketts, opposite Sam Elliott, Jeff Osterhage, and Western legends Glenn Ford and Ben Johnson. He followed The Sacketts with The Shadow Riders in 1982, then portraying a cat burglar in 1930s London in Lassiter in 1984. Quigley Down Under is probably one of his best known Western films, however he also won a "Western Heritage Award" for his 1997 role in Last Stand at Sabre River. His last two cowboy roles to date were in the 2001 TNT movie Crossfire Trail (based on a Louis L'Amour novel of the same name), and the 2003 motion picture Monte Walsh.

He most recently appeared in the film Killers, along with Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher.

Television[link]

[edit] Magnum P.I.

Selleck on the Red Carpet at the 61st Annual Academy Awards in 1989

Selleck played the role of Thomas Magnum in 1980 after six failed TV pilots. Magnum was a former U.S. Navy Officer, a veteran of a special operations unit in the Vietnam War, who had resigned his commission with the USN Office of Naval Intelligence ONI, and became a private investigator living in Hawaii. The show would go on for eight seasons and 162 episodes until 1988, winning him an Emmy Award^[10] for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1984. Selleck was famous for his moustache, a Hawaiian-style aloha shirt, a Detroit Tigers baseball cap, and the Colt Model 1911A1 .45 ACP Caliber pistol his character carried. Magnum drove a Ferrari 308GTSi in the series. The model became so identified with the role that Ferrari fans now refer to the red-painted model as a "Magnum" Ferrari.

Selleck has confirmed that he is the most popular choice by fans to play the role of Magnum in the rumoured upcoming Magnum P.I. movie.^[11]

[edit] Friends

Throughout the late nineties, Selleck played the role of Richard Burke, Monica's boyfriend, in the hugely successful TV series Friends. Richard was a physician (ophthalmologist) who was a friend of Monica's parents, and at first the relationship was hidden from her parents. The relationship eventually ended over Richard's reluctance to commit to raising a family, though Selleck did make a few extra appearances in later shows.

[edit] The Closer

In February 1998, Selleck accepted the lead role in a sitcom for CBS called The Closer. In it he played Jack McLaren, a legendary publicist heading up a brand new marketing firm. His costars included Ed Asner, David Krumholtz, and Penelope Ann Miller. Despite the high pedigree, and the expectations for his first series since Magnum, P. I., low ratings caused the show to be canceled after ten episodes.

Jesse Stone series[link]

Since 2005, Selleck has starred in the role of transplanted lawman Jesse Stone in a series of made-for-TV movies based on Robert B. Parker's novels. To date, the series comprises seven films, with the eighth released on May 20, 2012.^[12] In addition to his portrayal of the films' protagonist, Selleck also acts as producer for the series. The fifth film, Jesse Stone: Thin Ice, was not adapted from Parker's novels, but rather an original story by Selleck.^[13]

[edit] Las Vegas

He joined the cast of the NBC drama Las Vegas in the season-five premiere on September 28, 2007. He played A.J. Cooper, the new owner of the Montecito Casino. He replaced James Caan who left the cast in the same episode. This was Selleck's first regular role on a drama show since he played Thomas Magnum on Magnum, P.I..

[edit] Blue Bloods

Blue Bloods is an American police procedural/drama series on CBS, filmed on location in New York City. Frank Reagan (Selleck) is the Police Commissioner; the series follows the Reagan family of police officers with the New York City Police Department. The show premiered on September 24, 2010.

Other work[link]

Selleck has also appeared in a number of made-for-TV movies in recent years. In particular, he has sought to help bring back to popularity the western, often playing one of that genre's typical characters but thrust into a modern context.

Selleck was offered the lead role of Mitch Buchannon in Baywatch, but turned down the role because he did not want to be seen as a sex symbol. The role eventually went to David Hasselhoff.

Surprising many of his fans, Selleck unexpectedly played the role of General Dwight D. Eisenhower in A&E's 2004 made-for-TV movie Ike: Countdown to D-Day. The movie showed the planning, politics, and preparation for the 1944 Invasion of Normandy, and Selleck was critically lauded for playing a cool, calm Eisenhower.

Selleck appeared in a recurring role on the acclaimed ABC drama Boston Legal as Ivan Tiggs – the troubled ex-husband of Shirley Schmidt (Candice Bergen) – and as novelist Robert B. Parker's character Jesse Stone in several CBS made-for-TV movies, earning a 2007 Emmy nomination for Jesse Stone: Sea Change.

Broadway[link]

In 2001, Selleck played the lead role of Murray in a Broadway revival of Herb Gardner's comedic play A Thousand Clowns. It ran for only two months. Critics, though far from uniformly negative about Selleck's performance, generally compared it unfavorably to that of Jason Robards, Jr., who won awards in the 1960s for playing the character on the stage and in a movie version. (It remains the role with which Robards is most identified.) Playwright Gardner, however, actually preferred Selleck to Robards in the part, and even said that Selleck was the way he had always envisioned Murray.

Commercials[link]

Selleck did the voice-over for the 1993 AT&T advertising campaigns titled "You Will." These advertisements had a futuristic feel, and posed the question of, "What if you had the technology to ______ ? Well, you will ... and the company that will bring it to you? AT&T." As of December 30, 2007, he began doing commercial voice-overs for Florida orange juice, a move that one writer quipped would have a "magnum" impact on sales (referring to the actor's role in Magnum, P.I).^[14] As of March 2012, Selleck is featured in Coldwell Banker's new television ad campaign focusing on the deepest, most personal meanings of homeownership. ^[15]

[edit] The Practical Guide to the Universe

In the mid-1990s, Selleck hosted a special series on TLC called The Practical Guide to the Universe, in which he talked about the stars, planets, galaxies, and other things in the universe.

Awards and accolades[link]

On April 28, 2000, he received an honorary doctorate from Pepperdine University. He was chosen because of his outstanding character and ethic. He is a board member of the non-profit Joseph and Edna Josephson Institute of Ethics and co-founder of the Character Counts Coalition.^[16] Selleck received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1986. The star is situated at 6925 Hollywood Blvd.^[17]

• Golden Apple Awards – 1982 Male Star of the year
• Golden Apple Awards – 1983 Male Star of the year
• People's Choice Award – 1984 Favourite Male TV Performer
• 36th Primetime Emmy Awards (1984) – Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
• People's Choice Award – 1985 Favourite Male TV Performer
• People's Choice Award – 1985 Favourite All-Round Male Entertainer
• 42nd Golden Globe Awards (1985) – Best Performance by an Actor in a TV-Series-Drama
• National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum – 2010 Inductee into the Hall of Great Western Performers

In 1993, during the brief run of the late night The Chevy Chase Show on Fox, Selleck guest-starred. As a gag, he asked to be presented his 1992 Worst Supporting Actor Razzie award for his performance as King Ferdinand of Spain in Christopher Columbus: The Discovery. When the Razzie was presented to him on the air, Selleck took it in stride and asked the entire studio audience to "blow me a raspberry." Thus Selleck became the third person in Razzie history to voluntarily accept one of the Worst Achievements in Film statuettes.

Personal life[link]

Selleck was married to model Jacqueline Ray from 1971–1982, a marriage during which he adopted her son, Kevin (born 1966), from a previous marriage.

On August 7, 1987, Selleck married Jillie Mack.^[18] They have one daughter, Hannah Margaret Mack Selleck^[19] (born December 16, 1988).^[7][20] The family lives in Freedom, California, and Thousand Oaks, California.^[21] Selleck has a summer residence in Jonesboro, Maine. In the 1980s – specifically around the time of filming Three Men and a Baby – Selleck owned a home on upscale Lakeshore Road in Burlington, Ontario, a city southwest of Toronto.

Selleck lives on an avocado ranch. The following quote is from a Good Housekeeping interview titled "Man of the House: Tom Selleck", "So I like to get outside and work on the farm, from fixing roads to clearing brush. I hate going to the gym, so sweating outdoors sure beats sitting on a stationary bike staring at my navel. And I work cheaper than anyone I could hire to do it."

He is an accomplished indoor and beach volleyball player playing the outside hitter position for the Outrigger Canoe Club, Honolulu. His adopted son, Kevin Shepard, attended Selleck's alma mater, University of Southern California, and became an All-American in 1990. Outrigger Canoe Club team mate Dennis Berg was quoted in the Summer 2011 issue of Volleyball USA magazine^[22] saying of Selleck, "Tom was a great team mate, appreciative of being included with such a talented and experienced group, practicing and playing hard when his Magnum schedule permitted." he continued saying "He was very patient with all of us, and we relished the big crowds that replaced the usual sparse number of players' friends and spouses at the national tourney matches."

Selleck is an avid ice hockey fan and has been seen attending Los Angeles Kings games at the Staples Center. He lists Anze Kopitar and Alexander Frolov as two of his favorite players. He was once a minority owner of his favorite baseball team since childhood, the Detroit Tigers.

One of Selleck's Magnum co-stars, Larry Manetti, in his 1996 memoir Aloha Magnum, was lavish in his praise of Selleck. Manetti lauded Selleck for his extraordinary work ethic on a grueling show (shooting for hours in the midday Hawaiian sun), Selleck's work with Hawaiian charities and his willingness to go to bat for the program's cast and crew members.

In February 2009, Selleck joined the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund as national spokesman for the new Education Center being built on the National Mall.^[8]

Political views and the NRA[link]

To promote his movie The Love Letter, Selleck was invited to be on The Rosie O'Donnell Show on May 19, 1999. However, he found himself defending an ad in which he appeared supporting the National Rifle Association (NRA) and his position on gun ownership. Selleck said: "It's your show, and you can talk about it after I leave." O'Donnell was highly criticized, criticism which led her to make an apology to Selleck by saying: "For him feeling embarrassed and humiliated by me, I strongly do apologize to him personally, but I do not apologize for my feelings about the issue of gun control."^[23]

Selleck is a member of the Board of Directors and public spokesman of the four-million-member NRA.^[24] After close friend and fellow avid outdoorsman Charlton Heston stepped down – due to failing health – as the highly visible public spokesman of the NRA in 2003, Selleck has stepped up in comparable manner to succeed him.^[25] In 2002, Selleck donated the rifle he used in Quigley Down Under (a custom 13-pound [6 kg], single-shot, 1874 Sharps Rifle, with a 34-inch [86-cm] barrel),^[26] along with six other firearms from his other films, to the National Rifle Association, as part of the NRA's exhibit "Real Guns of Reel Heroes" at the National Firearms Museum in Fairfax, Virginia.^[24]

For a number of years, Selleck appeared in television advertising for The National Review (he also subscribes to The New Republic).^[27] He endorsed senator John McCain in 2008 presidential election. Selleck describes himself politically as "a registered independent with a lot of libertarian leanings."^[28] In a 2012 magazine article about his career, he mentioned that he likes the fact that his character on Blue Bloods and his family are visibly practicing Catholics, while adding that he is not very religious himself.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Tom Selleck

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tom Selleck

• Tom Selleck at the Internet Movie Database
• Tom Selleck at the Internet Broadway Database
• Tom Selleck at Emmys.com