The Bold Ones: The Senator

It was an age when we dreamed that we could make a difference. Senator Hays Stowe- an amalgam of Bobby Kennedy, Birch Bayh, and a couple of other senators of the era- was an idealistic, principled, honorable, and generally worthy man who fought on the side of the angels.

We could use Hays Stowe again- if not in the Senate or the White House, at least on TV, as an icon of what public servants ought to be.

The best thing about the series is that it was well done. First-class drama, excellent characterization, and a presentation of the problems and issues of the age in all their complexity made viewers think- and dream of how our system would work.

I miss Hays Stowe.

It is ironic that the world's most successful democracy has produced only three good Television shows about democracy. In 1964 and 1965, Richard Crenna starred in the highly praised Slattery's People,about the minority leader of a state legislature.Sadly, Slattery's People was crushed in the ratings and is little remembered today, other than by TV buffs and political junkies. Much later came the much more successful The West Wing, which focused on the travails of a President and his staff. In between these two shows came a segment of The Bold Ones called The Senator. Hal Holbrook played Hayes Stowe, an idealistic, crusading junior senator from an unknown state, who combined elements of Birch Bayh, Bobby Kennedy and Mark Hatfield. I still remember some episodes of The Senator, and I understand that The Bold Ones is rerun on the Retro TV network, Perhaps the nice folks at Retro could get around to eventually rerunning Slattery's People as well.

What show in 1971 had the dialogue of the Senator, the intricate character development, the camera panning in and out for dramatic effect and, most importantly, Hal Holbrook and Michael Tolan? Nothing, nothing close. 28 years before the "acclaimed" and artificial rapid fire banter of The West Wing, you had THIS. It is a masterpiece. He was everything you would want a man of integrity to be and, again, 28 years before Bartlett in The West Wing. I went to see Holbrook perform Mark Twain at The Kennedy Center in 1975 merely so that I could go backstage after, meet him, and ask him a simple question: "Why was The Senator cancelled?" And back then he said, "to this day, I don't know, the ratings were not bad." There were rumors back then, with Nixon being threatened, and people clamouring for Teddy Kennedy to pick up wihere RFK left off, that Hayes Stowe was "too Kennedyesque" and political pressure forced NBC to cancel. Funny enough, in an interview with Holbrook when he was close to 90, talking about The Senator, he expressed bitterness still at the NBC maneuver

Forty-five year old Hal Holbrook played Senator Hays Stowe with great style, grace, and intelligence. It was a stunning series performance. Holbrook reminded me of Henry Fonda in "Twelve Angry Men" and Gregory Peck in "To Kill a Mockingbird". All three men projected quiet decency and great humanity. All three gave hints of what an American man could be at his best. Hal Holbrook became my favorite actor.

"The Senator" didn't quite look or sound like any other show on television. There was no background music which was fascinating. The show was visually interesting and skillfully edited. There wasn't the usual over-lighting. And they seemed to avoid the tired old Universal sets or at least made them look a little less like sets.

The producer of the series was David Levinson. Levinson's ambition was amazing. "The Senator" was head and shoulders above any other drama series on television. The series was tops in all departments: acting, writing, directing, editing and art direction. Somehow this great show came out of nowhere. It was far above the usual Universal product. The unofficial executive producer was William Sackheim, who was the godfather of many fine writers and many interesting projects at Universal.

John Badham was the associate producer. He became a director for the first time on this series. Badham's two episodes were brilliantly directed and he got an Emmy nomination for his second episode. Other fine directors included Jerrold Freedman, Daryl Duke, and Robert Day.

But what really made "The Senator" stand out was the superb writing. The brilliant writers included Joel Oliansky (Clint Eastwood's "Bird"), Ernest Kinoy ( "Roots", "Skokie", the "Blacklist" episode of "The Defenders"), David Rintels ( the play "Clarence Darrow" which originally starred Henry Fonda, the mini-series "Day One" about the creation of the A-Bomb with Brian Dennehy and David Strathairn), Leon Tokatyan ("Lou Grant"), and Jerrold Freedman (director of "A Cold, Night's Death").

Michael Tolan matched Holbrook scene for scene as Jordan Boyle, Stowe's hard-nosed adviser. Tolan should have received an Emmy nomination as best supporting actor. He should have won. Joseph Campanella played Jordan Boyle in the pilot movie for "The Senator". Tolan and Campanella were excellent on Herbert Brodkin's "The Doctors and the Nurses" in 1964-65.

Sharon Acker was a warm, engaging presence as the senator's beautiful wife.

Strong guest star performances were given by James Wainwright, Gerald S. O'Loughlin, Frank Campanella, Will Geer, Ann Doran, Burgess Meredith, Anna Lee, Murray Hamilton, Dana Elcar, James Griffith, David Sheiner, Lincoln Kilpatrick, and Logan Ramsey.

Holbrook had beautifully played a beleaguered university president in the Universal TV movie "The Whole World is Watching". He got an Emmy nomination for best supporting actor. That must have given Universal the idea to put him in a series.

Holbrook won the Emmy for Best Actor in a Drama Series for "The Senator". The series won as Best Drama Series. Daryl Duke won for directing and Joel Oliansky won for writing. Michael Economou won for film editing. There were several other nominations.

The series had already been canceled. But after the many Emmy wins, NBC wanted Universal to make a couple of World Premiere movies of "The Senator". However, Hal Holbrook (who was always terrified of type casting) turned the offer down. Very disappointing. It might have been fun to watch Hays Stowe run for president.

Director John Badham, writer Joel Oliansky, and producer William Sackheim later reteamed for the fine TV movie "The Law". All three received Emmy nominations for "The Law" and the movie itself won the Emmy as outstanding special in 1975.

The only other drama series in the same class as "The Senator" that season (1970-71) was "The Psychiatrist" with Roy Thinnes. "The Psychiatrist" was produced by Jerrold Freedman. Freedman also made big contributions to "The Senator" as the director of one episode and the writer of another.

I must have been 8 or 9 years old when "The Bold Ones" first premiered. The fact that the show aired on NBC Sunday nights at 10:00 meant that I should have been asleep for school the next day. I do remember that the subject matter of all four segments ("The New Doctors", "The Lawyers", "The Protectors" and "The Senator") was definitely for mature TV audiences. Considering the era of the late 1960s-early 1970s, when several TV programs started to evolve and created entertaining stories with some social significance, I can see why "The Bold Ones" was a partial success, at least by some critics but not to the general public. The series never ranked in the top 20 and two segments, "The Protectors" and "The Senator," lasted just one season.

In the past few months, the U.S. digital channel Retro Television Network (RTN) started to air numerous TV shows from the Universal/Revue television library. I'm very glad to rediscover "The Bold Ones" and, specifically, the multiple Emmy award-winning segment "The Senator" with Hal Holbrook playing the fair-minded, idealistic junior U.S. Senator Hays Stowe from an unidentified state.

As of this posting, I had a chance to revisit two episodes after over 38 years since their last airings. In "George Washington Told a Lie", a dam project proposed by Sen. Stowe is on land that would displace a group of Native Americans. In "The Day the Lion Died", Stowe confronts a fellow senator who might be suffering from a serious mental condition. With both episodes, especially the latter, which features an award-worthy performance by Will Geer as the eccentric senate member, I got the sense that the story telling quality was raised a few notches. The pace may have been slow but, at the same time, literate, deliberate and it did not insult my intelligence.

Looking at "The Senator" in 2008, it reminds me of some of the strong qualities of the more successful "The West Wing". It does make me wonder if Sen. Hays Stowe became candidate for U.S. President, would he still have that idealism or would he be corrupted. It is interesting to note that both shows won Emmys for best drama series. Once in a while, quality does triumph over quantity.

Update (July 2, 2015): "The Bold Ones: The Senator: The Complete Series" was released on DVD by Timeless Media/Shout! Factory.