Run for Your Life

This was a very clever concept. A lawyer, Paul Bryan, has been diagnosed with an incurable disease and has been told he has just two to three years to live. The idea put this lead character in the position of living life to the fullest and the most responsible. There is a message in that for all of us somewhere, isn't there?

While somewhat morbid straight off the top, the concept made for interesting viewing from my perspective. Ben Gazzara played the main character and each week he would resolve other people's problems, but at the end of the show he would still be facing the anguish of a limited time on this earth. One of an unnamed genre of shows like "The Fugitive" and "The Incredible Hulk", "Run for Your Life" was set in locales all over the world, but probably filmed on studio back-lots, renovated to look like the French Riviera, Hawaii and Rio. The idea was that Bryan was seeing the world with what little time and resources he had left. Each episode he would engage in new relationships, involving himself in new circumstances, resulting in high action and adventure.

This wasn't a great show, but was certainly a product of its time. Always reminded us of our own mortality, which all of us need occasional reminders of in life.

At one time, TV shows occasionally had an interesting premise. This one's a variant on the question of what you'd do if you had the means and perhaps the time. Time, though, this character doesn't have, and the threat of death is probably what gives the series its focus and urgency. "To cram thirty years of living into one or two" is the voiced-over premise at the start of an episode; we would all do well to remember it at the start of a day, and live as though it's the last one, not recklessly but deliberately.

The great writer/producer Roy Huggins created and produced "Run For Your Life". Roy Huggins had already developed "Cheyenne", "Maverick", "Colt 45" and "77 Sunset Strip" while he was at Warners Brothers. Huggins also created "The Fugitive", but sold the idea to ABC because he was planning to go back to college to get his Ph.D. in Political Theory. (Huggins was fed up with TV after a bad experience as head of TV production at 20th Century Fox around 1960-61.) Huggins Ph.D. plans fell through, and he wound up a producer at Universal.

"The Fugitive" with David Janssen premiered in 1963, in which year Huggins was producing (without credit) "Kraft Suspense Theater", a fine anthology series. David Janssen had worked for Huggins on "Conflict", "Adventures in Paradise" and "Follow the Sun". It must have hurt Huggins to see how successful Janssen's portrayal of Dr. Richard Kimble was for competitor producer Quinn Martin, who ABC had assigned the property to.

One episode of "Kraft Suspense Theater" featured Herschel Bernardi as a small town attorney dying of leukemia who is defending Dean Stockwell on a murder charge. This may have given Huggins the idea for "Run For Your Life". Huggins may have also been influenced by a "Naked City" episode where David Janssen played an advertising executive dying of cancer who tries to get Adam Flint (Paul Burke) to take over his firm. (Huggins' hero is named Paul Bryan which is pretty close to Paul Burke.) And Huggins had earlier worked on a Warner Brothers pilot about Doc Holliday, who would have been played by Adam West. Doc Holiday was a man who knew he was dying and chose to live his last days adventurously and recklessly. And finally the movie "DOA" might have provided some inspiration.

"Run For Your Life" was Huggins sly rip-off of "The Fugitive", his own creation. Paul Bryan is a 35-year old attorney (and former assistant district attorney) with political ambitions. He is a Stanford graduate who lives in San Francisco. He was a jet pilot during the Korean War. Bryan is living his life planning for the future when he suddenly learns that he has only one or two years to live. (He won't feel ill till near the end.) Bryan tells his doctor he plans "to squeeze 30-years of living into one or two." Paul Bryan's idea of "living" is sky diving, competitive skin diving, race car driving, and chasing fascinating women. He is constantly looking for ways to make time feel fuller. Paul Bryan is always willing to help out his fellow man as he hedonistically travels around the world. He even does a little reluctant free lance spying for a friend in U.S. intelligence. And Bryan's lawyer background sometimes becomes central. Paul Bryan refuses to tell anyone he is dying, since he doesn't want to see the look of pity in their eyes.

Elia Kazan had once said that Ben Gazzara was one of the three finest American actors alive. Kazan didn't say who the other two were. One must have been Brando. Maybe the third was George C. Scott. Kazan said this when Gazzara was in his early glory days on Broadway ("Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", "A Hatful of Rain", "End as a Man"). Gazzara's film career got off to a great start with "The Strange One" and "Anatomy of a Murder" but petered out quickly. Years later when Gazzara was doing "Run For Your Life", an interviewer asked Gazzara if he thought Kazan would still say he was one of the country's three finest actors. Gazzara said no one would.

In 1963 Gazzara had starred as a cop in the ambitious but failed series "Arrest and Trial" (which later inspired "Law and Order").

Ben Gazzara's performance in "Run For Your Life" as existential romantic hero Paul Bryan was superb. He gave the character a depth, compassion, and a restrained sadness that probably weren't in the writing. Gazzara made Paul Bryan an extremely strong, inner directed, thoughtful character. His desire to reach out and grab life seemed admirable, even if I doubt many people would react that way in his situation.

Gazzara was twice nominated for an Emmy, but lost each time to Bill Cosby of "I Spy". The show was also nominated twice as best drama series.

Gazzara had major battles with producers Roy Huggins and Jo Swerling, Jr. over the quality of the show. But the result was the series seemed to get better.

This "rip-off" of "The Fugitive" was even better executed than the original in many ways, and each episode wasn't tied to a somewhat tedious formula.

Roy Huggins and Ben Gazzara were both in top form here. This was my favorite show when it was on.

It's obvious to me that early TV shows & movies formed much of who I am today. This TV series is one example. It taught me that each day on this earth is precious. The people you meet, the experiences you live through, the sights, sounds, tastes and smells of life. All should be consumed with passion. The good, AND the bad. As if you only had one or two years left of your life. For after all, we don't know how much time we have. But what ever length that is, it should not be wasted.

The theme of this series is provocative. And, always kept me anxious for next weeks show. The acting and production value is exceptional. I especially liked the recurring dreams (night mares really), or flashbacks that Ben Gazzarra's character would wake from, where he was being chased by Father Time (or was it he that was doing the chasing). I found these scenes to be very symbolic.

I do hope that this series becomes available on DVD soon. If you liked "The Fugitive" television series, you'll probably also like "Run For Your Life".

"Run for Your Life" was one of those shows that Johnny Carson loved to joke about, back in the sixties; with the premise that a wealthy 30-ish lawyer had a fatal disease with only one or two years left to live, when the show entered it's third season, did this mean the specialists were quacks, or that the hero's globe-trotting adventures invoke some 'miracle cure'?

The joking aside, the series' novel premise gave star Ben Gazzara an opportunity to display his well-respected dramatic skills (he'd created the role of Brick in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" on Broadway, and, with Peter Falk, would make a major impact in John Cassavetes' innovative films of the sixties and seventies), and turn the routine plots into often engrossing character studies.

There could never be a truly 'happy' end to any episode; even when 'Paul Bryan' resolved the issues raised in a show, he could never enjoy the 'fruits' of his endeavors, or even promise to return to the people whose lives he'd changed. If he fell in love (which, naturally, happened), he had to either deny it, or pass the reciprocated love to someone else (unless the girl herself died), so 'bittersweet' was the best term to describe the show, a quality similar to "The Fugitive", as well.

As NBC required 'action' in their series, "Run for Your Life" had Bryan often "in harm's way", and each time he was treated by a doctor or hospital, there was the added tension of whether his exertions might accelerate his disease. Gazzara's Bryan was not trying to commit suicide, but was trying to live his remaining time to the fullest, so his anguish when facing risks had a very 'real' basis, and gave Gazzara some of his best series' moments.

Despite the 'backlot' feel of the 'international' locales (the show never went on location), and the casting of the same actors who appeared in many other Universal-produced series of the period, veteran producer Roy Huggins tried to keep each episode fresh and original, through the use of stock footage, music, and clever editing.

"Run for Your Life" was not a 'great' series, but was unconventional for it's time, and, as a showcase for Ben Gazzara, was definitely worth watching.