Tom Selleck has had a steady, pretty darn fantastic acting career for 50 years. I find his longevity doubly impressive considering that throughout it all, the mustache was there. It was a bold choice and he stuck with it! No, I know he’s clean-shaven in 1997’s In & Out, and apparently he was about to shave it off for Blue Bloods until CBS said no. Selleck recently shared that tidbit, along with other anecdotes from his life, as part of promotion for his memoir, You Never Know: One Mustache’s Tale (ok, only half of that title is real). In a new interview with People Mag, new-author Selleck confessed that he’s never sent his own emails or texts. And yet, he wrote a book. Boomer Stars, they’re just like our parents!
Speaking with PEOPLE for this week’s cover story, the Blue Bloods actor, 79, says that he is only faintly connected to the technology in his life.
“Occasionally I’ve looked up my name,” he says. “That started really with the book, but I’ve never sent my own email. I had a secretary. I’ve never texted anybody.”
Though Selleck keeps away from electronic messages himself, that doesn’t mean that he’s incommunicado. Selleck says that his wife Jillie, 66, who he met in London in 1983, will send texts on his behalf.
“I have a certain luxury where I probably couldn’t survive otherwise,” Selleck says. “But I don’t know. I have a hard time writing things down, which is weird for a guy who’s pushing a book.”
The book in question is Selleck’s memoir, You Never Know, out this spring via Dey Street Books, an imprint of HarperCollins. In it, the actor reflects on his “accidental career” on screen, which ranges from his early days on dramas like The Young and the Restless to his breakout role as private investigator Thomas Magnum on the ‘80s classic Magnum, P.I.
Along the way, the star also shares recollections of his California childhood and his foray into his now-iconic career, which includes credits like Friends, Three Men and a Baby and Las Vegas.
Looking back on his life in Hollywood, Selleck recognizes that his journey doesn’t look like most people’s. He doesn’t consider himself to be someone who was “bitten by the acting bug,” but instead just wanted to buckle down and work.
“I don’t have the hooks that a lot of people do,” he says. “I didn’t rehabilitate myself or have this tragic life. I had my own share of certainly ups and downs, but I’ve been very fortunate.”
Selleck also tells PEOPLE that he keeps things relatively calm at home, when he’s away from the cameras. He enjoys spending time in nature, watching the wildflowers bloom on his 63-acre ranch in Ventura County, Calif.
In keeping with his largely offscreen existence, the actor admits that he isn’t an active TV-watcher. He likes to spend his free time looking over scripts for his CBS show, Blue Bloods, currently in its final season.
As for his decades-long journey in the entertainment industry, Selleck hopes to showcase the dedication it takes to make it in a challenging field.
“If you’re going to get in the acting business, you better get an appetite for it,” he says. “And I tried to communicate that…Because it was kind of a long road.”
This interview is so hilariously contradictory and odd. I’ll leave alone that he basically says he hasn’t had to send an email or text himself because his secretary or wife was always there to do it for him. It’s his industry advice that I’m trying to figure out. First he says he wasn’t “bitten by the acting bug,” and then a few breaths later he cautions aspiring actors that they “better get an appetite for it.” Which one is it, Tom?! So you haven’t been bitten by the bug, but you still had the appetite? Has acting been an intestinal parasite for Selleck? Make these metaphors make sense, please!
But what really cracked me up the most was him declaring that his favorite pastime is watching the wildflowers bloom. I mean, I love flowers, I do! But the image of Selleck and his mustache just sitting, staring at flowers in the not-that-speedy process of blooming, that will live rent-free in my head henceforth. And of course it begets the question: has he stolen any water to feed those wildflowers? We’ll have to read the book to find out!
Photos credit: Joe Sutter, PacificCoastNews / Avalon, Getty and People Magazine via Twitter