After growing up in Santa Monica, California, Hatch began his professional acting career on the East Coast. Not unlike the Colonial fleet, he and a group of actors traveled across the country in search of fame and fortune. Arriving in New York, they formed a repertory company in a rented ballet studio on Eighth Avenue and Fifty-fourth Street. The group eventually disbanded, but Hatch remained in New York and in 1969 won the role of Philip Brent on the soap opera All My Children.
After two and a half years on the show, Hatch went on to do an off-Broadway play, Love Me, Love My Children, which won an Obie Award in 1972. Returning to Hollywood, the actor worked as a guest star in episodes of series like Hawaii Five-O, The Rookies, The Waltons, Cannon, Kung Fu, and Barnaby Jones. One of his big breaks came in 1976, when he was offered the opportunity to replace the departing Michael Douglas in The Streets of San Francisco. The actor’s other credits include the starring role in the Chicago stage play P.S. Your Cat Is Dead, and Deadman’s Curve, about the rock artists Jan and Dean.
RICHARD HATCH
Science fiction has always had something for everyone. I don’t care who you are, how old you are, or what nationality, science fiction bridges all those gaps. It bridges the gender gap and addresses issues that most television shows are afraid to tackle. Science fiction gets away with it because it’s put out of context in a futuristic setting, so it’s not so threatening. Yet the information that’s brought forth is very inspiring and consciousness-raising. It really helps people to realize how to get along with one another and that we are all human beings. Science fiction contains some of the most incredible concepts and yet brings a tremendous humanity to it.
GLEN A. LARSON
Richard was one of the choices that came down from the network that I happened to agree with. We didn’t agree on a lot of different people. When [casting director] Pam Dixon came up with Richard, I thought he was a good choice. I thought he was interesting.
RICHARD HATCH
I have to tell you, being as insecure as I was, with low self-esteem, whenever I had to play a role that was more heroic or a character that was confident and together it was very hard for me because I felt totally unconfident. I had no confidence as a person. I had no security as a human being, so it was a major challenge for me to be able to dig inside myself and find a way to connect to a part of myself where I could find that sense of strength and confidence to play any role that had those qualities, and obviously Captain Apollo had those qualities.
Right before getting cast I had a role in a play, Class of ’65, where I played a coach. It was very much a similar character. He was very confident and he was wonderful with people and he was an inspired leader and he worked with this young kid to help him bring out his talent. I had played that role and basically within that time frame they were casting for Captain Apollo and I had turned down the initial reading for Apollo because I had loved Star Wars so much. I was very idealistic and I had seen television so many times rip off movies and do second-rate versions of successful movies. And not knowing that much about Galactica I just had the sense that they were going to do the same thing.
Usually when they do sci-fi I was disappointed, and I will say that most sci-fi fans all over the world are disappointed with most sci-fi movies, because they are done in a cheesy way, and so I basically turned down the reading. About six months later, after every actor in Hollywood had gone out for the audition, they were still searching for the perfect actor, and as we all know when there is a very big expensive project they are looking for perfection and nobody is perfect. So I think it was about two days or a week before shooting, something like that, and they had not cast Apollo. At that time, I was called Skylar. They changed that to Apollo about three or four days into the shoot.
GLEN A. LARSON
We were looking for sort of the traditional leading man, who was positive and straight heroic as opposed to being an antihero. Richard fit that mold very well.
Looking for leading men is a tricky thing. I have been very fortunate in picking some guys who did it, from Selleck to Hasselhoff to Don Johnson, and you pick them for different reasons. In this case, we were looking for the straight hero.
RICHARD HATCH
They were down to the wire getting ready to film and I guess someone saw my Class of ’65, where I played the coach, and that was a difficult role for me because again I had to play a character that I felt so distanced from. I didn’t feel confident, I didn’t feel together, and, yes, those characters were in me but I hadn’t yet really forged them or developed them as a human being. That’s what I lacked in acting, because it forced me to deal with areas inside of myself that I was uncomfortable with.
They saw the Class of ’65, and that very character that I forged was Apollo. After seeing Class of ’65, Glen took me out to dinner and offered me the role.
GLEN A. LARSON
I don’t think Richard [screen] tested at all, because that suggestion came from ABC, and when the network makes the suggestion, in many cases, you don’t have to test because they’re saying they already like him, whereas if we make the suggestion sometimes we have to test to prove our point. These days you do a lot more testing of everyone, since there’s just a lot more insecurity.
RICHARD HATCH
Glen took me out to one of the nicest French restaurants [in town], and I was a starving actor, so why not? He picked me up in this big black limousine that Glen is famous for and took me to this wonderful restaurant. We had a great dinner, he got me drunk and told me what the show was going to be about. I remember a couple of lines he used. I basically was not sure I wanted to do it, but he said there is a lot of action but it’s about family; it’s about characters; it’s about people. He said two things: he mentioned Wagon Train, an epic Western which blended action and character and that’s perfect for an action piece to have.
Then he mentioned Family, which was a very highly esteemed show at the time, and that it was a combination of those two kinds of shows. Everybody loved Family and I loved the personal character stories they had on that show and when he said Family, I thought if they are going to have these types of relationships and in-depth profound connections, people-to-people-type stuff, that it was something I would like to do.
In fact, I actually think that for a sci-fi program it was a wonderful balance of action and character and plot, which was very rare, and that was one of the things that made Battlestar so special. I loved sci-fi, but as an actor I wanted something that would really challenge me, and I hate to say it but when they write sci-fi most of the time they don’t write challenging characters. But when I got the script and I looked at the imagery, the pictures from Ralph McQuarrie blew me away—the little child in me was looking at this incredible vision being laid out. Having seen Star Wars and seeing these pictures and reading it led me to believe that the character was going to have depth and heart and there was going to be more going on there than just the cliché superhero.
So Glen told me the story and he showed me the script. The artwork by Ralph McQuarrie was stunning, and the vision that was laid out in that piece was absolutely extraordinary. I don’t know how anyone could turn that down. I was wide-eyed. I was very much into science fiction actually as a kid, so I fell in love with it and said yes. Twenty-four hours later I was on the set filming and not knowing any of my lines.
GLEN A. LARSON
If Clark Gable was a leading man, as opposed to an Errol Flynn, who had more of an edge to him, Starbuck was the one that was supposed to have the pixie quality, a little more off-center, and Apollo was supposed to be the straighter, more all-American—or in this case, all-Galactica—kind of straight character.
In the case of Starbuck, a number of actors, including Don Johnson (soon to be Sonny Crockett of Miami Vice fame) and Barry Van Dyke, who would later be cast as Dillon in Galactica 1980, auditioned for the role. Growing up in White Sulphur Springs, Montana, Dirk Benedict had a very traditional upbringing. He attended Whitman College, in Walla Walla,
Washington, where on a dare he tried out for the college production of Showboat. To his surprise, he was cast in a starring role, and as a result of the experience decided to change his major to drama. After college, Benedict went to Detroit to study with John Fernald, formerly head of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, in London, and went on to perform in repertory companies in Seattle, Washington, and Ann Arbor, Michigan, as well as doing summer stock. While on a trip to New York he auditioned for the Broadway play Abelard and Heloise with Diana Rigg and got the part. Benedict later replaced Keir Dullea as Gloria Swanson’s son in the Broadway hit Butterflies Are Free. Film and television roles soon followed. The actor’s film credits include Georgia, Georgia; Sssssss; the short-lived television series Chopper One; guest spots on Hawaii Five-O; and, following his starring role on Battlestar Galactica, five years on The A-Team, in which he, in a moment of meta hilarity, amusingly does a double take as a Cylon walks obliviously past him in the hit NBC series’ opening credits.
DIRK BENEDICT
(actor, “Lieutenant Starbuck”)
At that time I was kind of making a comeback. I had had a career earlier in this town but I was a stage actor from New York and before that I was in repertory theaters in Seattle and Michigan, so I had classical training. My dream was to be a stage actor and nothing more. Through a set of so-called coincidences I ended up in Hollywood doing a couple of films and series. Then I had cancer in 1975 and that went away for a couple of years so when I came back, of course, I did a couple of jobs and then Battlestar Galactica. Although Galactica seemed to be my first real visible show, I had actually done a series before that and several films.
GLEN A. LARSON
I liked Dirk. I had always felt Dirk was a real natural for this. I was lobbying pretty heavily for him.
DIRK BENEDICT
It was a huge struggle with ABC, who did not want me in the show. So that went on literally for months.
GLEN A. LARSON
I tested a few other people that were interesting. The one that would probably be the most noteworthy was Don Johnson. He actually did a very good job, and from that point on I knew I wanted him in a series and kept trying to cast him. People around me eventually of course did, too. My protégé eventually put him in Miami Vice. I also tested him for Knight Rider.
DIRK BENEDICT
I had done a movie at Universal for Richard Zanuck, the movie about a kid that’s turned into a snake. I had starred on Broadway, and when I recovered from cancer I came back and did a couple of episodes of Charlie’s Angels and another show, where I met Glen Larson and found out he had me in mind for this part all along.
GLEN A. LARSON
I tested him twice and I didn’t get it off the first one so I went back and did another version.
DIRK BENEDICT
That went on for months, and finally they had already started filming for four or five days, before ABC finally gave in and cast me in the show. I was forced to do a lot of screen tests, because they basically didn’t want me because they wanted another actor who had an agent who they had a deal with. It’s all about business and relationships, but Universal wanted me, and thanks to Frank Price, who was the head of Universal Television at the time, and Glen Larson, they were forced into giving in.
Their final reason for not wanting me was that I wasn’t sexy enough. So that was the final reason that they gave and refused to hire me but they went ahead and started principal photography and then Universal told ABC that if you don’t hire this actor we will stop shooting. I think that was one of the reasons that created bad feelings between ABC and Universal over that show. There were other things, but that was certainly one of them. ABC, at the time, was quite arrogant. They were the number-one network and I think that was one of the reasons they canceled us the next year.
DAVID LARSON
(son of Glen Larson)
Cigar-smoking ladies’ man. Sure he had his issues, but he’s the kind of guy every young man wants to be, right? Apollo had the weight of the world on his shoulders.
We all wanted to be Starbuck. Apollo was kind of a drip. Yeah, even today I wouldn’t want to be Apollo. I don’t want that responsibility. I’d rather be Starbuck.
SCOTT MANTZ
(film critic, Access Hollywood)
When I was watching Star Wars, my favorite character was Han Solo. Luke was a good guy, but he was kind of a wimp. Han Solo was the rogue and the pirate, he could fend for himself. Now, over the years, so many people have compared Starbuck to Han Solo. Starbuck wasn’t a pirate. He was a loner. He was a womanizer. He was definitely a ladies’ man. He was very confident. When I was a kid, I wanted to be Starbuck, but I was really Apollo.
They were a great team. Dirk Benedict and Richard Hatch had great chemistry together. Apollo was noble and honest. He was sincere. He was a good guy. Starbuck, his heart was in the right place, but he tried to hide his feelings, pass off like he didn’t care. He was less Han Solo than he was Rick Blaine from Casablanca.
And he had a nice little love triangle going on with Maren Jensen, as Athena, and Cassiopeia, Laurette Spang. I remember that scene in the launch tube between Starbuck and Cassiopeia, they’re fooling around and Athena’s checking the monitor and she sees them in the launch tube and puts the steam on. He gets a little steam burn before they have to go into the Nova of Madagon.
LAURETTE SPANG
The network got overly sensitive about it, because Dirk and I had that scene in the launch tube and he had his shirt off and they flipped out about that. I was in Michigan visiting my family and I had to fly back to reshoot that scene with his shirt on. It was the exact same scene with his shirt on.
Dirk and I always had a very kidding relationship. He was always into health foods and I would always tease him about the birdseed he would eat and all that. I teased him about his dating life and he did the same with me. That was just sort of the relationship we had. It was easy.
DIRK BENEDICT
I modeled Starbuck on James Garner’s Maverick. It was almost mimicry, but a lot of his attitude about situations, certainly in the card games, the reluctance to put himself in danger was very unusual to see. I was playing a hero but he wasn’t crazy about getting into his fighter plane and going out and getting killed. He would rather, if he could, talk his way out of it and stay home and play cards or have a meal with an attractive girl. This was the hero, but it was a very unheroic thing, and this was 1978, and there hadn’t been a lot of that. That was something that I added, him sort of shifting his feet and shuffling and that attitude. He wanted to have a good time, he wanted to party, but when he got into the situation he rose to the occasion.
I would have liked to have played Starbuck for another three or four years. It was a wonderful character. I would have paid them to have been part of that experience and it was one of the greatest experiences I ever had.
The casting of the stentorian Terry Carter as the ship’s second-in-command, Commander Tigh—a part originally written for a Caucasian actor—helped make Galactica an early champion of diversity on television. Carter, born in Brooklyn, New York, attended St. John’s University with hopes of becoming an attorney. Acting, however, spoke to him, and he joined the noted off-Broadway repertory company at the Greenwich Mews Theater in Greenwich Village. In 1954 he received his first leading role, opposite Eartha Kitt in Mrs. Patterson.
Carter began commuting between New York and California and made appearances on such television programs as Combat, Breaking Point, and Dr. Kildare.
TERRY CARTER
I was flying back and forth, like most New York actors were in the early sixties. I was living in New York but would be cast in California. Hollywood perceived that New York actors had theater training, so they wanted to get them out there.
In 1965 Carter decided to leave the industry and accept the challenge of newscasting at Boston’s WBZ, where he was the first African-American news anchor in New England. He later returned to Hollywood, where a chance encounter at the Univer
sal commissary led to him being cast in the role of Sergeant Joe Broadhurst in McCloud.
TERRY CARTER
I happened to be sitting there when the head of casting came through, and he knew me because I had done work through him before. He didn’t know I was in town, and the same day my agent got a call and that was about McCloud. I don’t think it would have happened had I not been sitting in that place at that particular time. I was offered roles in two other series as well, and the only reason I chose McCloud was because of Dennis Weaver. He, at the time, was one of my favorite actors. I had seen a lot of his work, including what he did for Orson Welles in Touch of Evil, and just the idea of working with Dennis Weaver was more interesting to me than the other stuff. As it turned out, I put my money on the right horse. I had worked for the producers, Leslie Stevens and Glen Larson, because I was on McCloud for seven years and both of them had been associated with that show.
What happened is when McCloud finished, they were putting together Battlestar Galactica and they thought of me in the role of Lieutenant Boomer. I think it was a mistake. Because Lieutenant Boomer is a kind of gung-ho, young fighter pilot and I was a little more mature. I’d been in the business for twenty-odd years or something like that. I was over fifty, but who’s counting? So it was okay with me, I was willing to play it. But as luck would have it, I went roller-skating with my daughter, who was six years old at the time. We went out to Venice Beach, and as we were leaving the area, the sidewalk where we were walking was broken and there were holes in the sidewalk. I remember the last thing I said was, “Look out for the holes in the sidewalk,” and the next thing I know, this hole reached up and grabbed my skate. I had shoe skates on and I lost my balance. I went over and my foot stayed in the same place. It broke my ankle, and it was the most painful thing I have ever experienced. I had to be carried off and put in a splint. So naturally I called my agent and I said, Jack, this is what happened, and he said, “What the hell are we going to tell the Battlestar Galactica people?”
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