When Tom Selleck was young, or at least younger, he did not always sport his famous mustache in his performances. There are a few types of memorable movie mustaches, but none are named for the men who wear them. Tom Selleck is doubly famous for both his distinguished movie and TV career and for his thick, walrus-esque mustache. Selleck’s official acting career began in 1969, in an episode of Lancer, as the one-off character “Dobie”. Since then, he’s been a mainstay of procedural crime TV and movies, appearing in over 75 roles.
He played Jesse Stone in the long-running TV movie franchise of the same name, and had a memorable 10-episode run on Friends as Dr. Richard Burke. Selleck also starred in the three-piece comedy Three Men and a Baby alongside Ted Danson and Steve Guttenberg. He was the longtime Police Commissioner Frank Reagan in Blue Bloods, but what he’s best known for is playing the title role in Magnum, P.I., an Emmy and Golden Globe-winning series that gave both Selleck and his ‘stache mainstream recognition. It may come as a surprise then, that his lip was, at one point, unadorned.
Tom Selleck Didn’t Have His Iconic Mustache In His First TV Appearances
Selleck Used To Sport A Clean-Shaven Look
In his college years, Tom Selleck was having a grand old time. He attended the University of Southern California and played for their basketball team his junior and senior years, and was a pitcher and designated hitter for the baseball team (via Horatio Alger). While there, his fraternity brothers convinced him to appear on The Dating Game in 1965 and 1967, a game show where a bachelorette would ask three bachelors, hidden behind a curtain, questions to determine who she would go on a date with.
Selleck didn’t win, unfortunately, as he told People in his 1982 cover story: “I didn’t get the girl.” However, his appearance led to him being noticed by talent scouts. He told Entertainment Tonight in an interview,
“Somebody saw me on The Dating Game, said there’s a talent program at Fox. I did a terrible audition. I’d never done an audition for a play in my life. I didn’t know what I was doing. I did commercials, a lot of stupid ones. I remember one, when I got to the set, they introduced me to Farah [Fawcett], that was kind of neat. Yeah, I got paid to flirt with her for two days. That was a good gig.”
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These commercials eventually led to a steady acting career for Selleck, who appeared on the soap opera The Young and the Restless as Jed Andrews for a significant story arc from 1974-1975 and returned for a guest appearance in 2005. Other early roles include eight episodes on Bracken’s World as Roger Haines/Dave Rawson, and small roles in Midway and Daughters of Satan.
Selleck Broke Out With Magnum, P.I. & Remained A TV Star With Blue Bloods
Tom Selleck Has Been An Enduring TV Star Since His Early Career
It wasn’t long before Selleck broke out as a massive TV star. In 1980, he began starring in Magnum, P.I. as the titular private detective. For eight seasons, Selleck donned a Hawaiian shirt, lived out of the guest house on a beachfront estate in Hawaii, and solved cases around the island. The role earned Selleck seven Emmy nominations, winning once, and five Golden Globe nominations, also winning once. Magnum, P.I. immortalized Selleck thanks in part to his bushy mustache that only he can really pull off.
Tom Selleck may have aged from his Dating Game years but put that mustache on the USC student, and it may be hard to tell the two apart.
Later roles, like Frank Reagan in Blue Bloods, A.J. Cooper in Las Vegas, Peter Mitchell in Three Men and a Baby, and Matthew Quigley in Quigley Down Under all succeeded by utilizing Selleck’s natural charisma, easy humor, seemingly gruff exterior, and his mustache that instantly made any character her played unique. Tom Selleck may have aged from his The Dating Game years but put that mustache on the USC student, and it may be hard to tell the two apart.