Robert Wagner steps into his motor home dressing room, flashes his patented grin, pulls off his dinner jacket, loosens his tie and drops onto a couch. Even slouched he looks elegant.
He was the charming rogue and reformed cat burglar in ABC’s It Takes A Thief, and was the charming rogue and reformed con man in CBS’ Switch.
In his new series, ABC’s Hart to Hart, he’s a charmer and mischief and adventure cling to him like an expensive shaving cologne.
His co-star and wife in the series is Stefanie Powers, as adept as Wagner at making the trite seem fresh.
Miss Powers is standing outside tossing a ball to her dog. She is wearing a bright red Halston dress. Wagner explains:
“We decide to dress up to go out for dinner. Then a friend of ours getsinto trouble and this whole situation develops. I play the whole show in a dinner jacket and Stefanie is in the Halston. We get shot at, cross a river, she rips my jacket in jail, I tear her dress. Hopefully, it will all have some wit and charm.”
Wit and charm. That, more or less, is what the series is all about. It’s not a whodunnit, and he and Stefanie are not private eyes.
Involvements
Wagner is Jonathan Hart, a self-made multi-millionaire. Stefanie is Jennifer Hart, freelance journalist and author.
“It’s not always a crime show,” says Wagner. “We will have lots of involvements in many areas. It’s not a comedy, either. Our endeavors are quite serious, but they’re dealt with in high style. Jonathan Hart uses his money to be adventurous instead of sitting around an office.
Wagner agrees that he tends to be attracted to the same kind of role. “If the characters are charming, they’re written that way.” He doesn’t think, however, that he’s a personality actor. “I try to do what’s there. I just try to stay out of the way of the furniture.”
He varies the pattern, however, as when he played Brick to Laurence Olivier’s Big Daddy Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on television. He is a shady businessman in Concorde: Airport ‘79.
One of Wagner’s greatest assets as an actor is his ability to make the same old dialogue sound fresh.
He says “the most difficult thing for me to play is the same part for three years and keep it fresh. That’s why it’s so important to have people around like Stefanie. The more you do it the harder it gets. It’s like a mosaic - you add a piece here, a piece there. Fortunately, you’re not doing it alone. There are a lot of people helping you.”
