In the upcoming ABC series "Crossroads," TV veteran Robert Urich plays a Johnny Hawkins, high-powered New York City prosecutor who chucks his career to go out on the road with his estranged 16-year-old son, Dylan.
The boy, played by Dalton James, is on the verge of some serious trouble, so the pair take off on a vintage motorcycle, encountering various people and adventures along the way.It's not the first time Urich has ridden a motorcycle on screen, but he's a good deal more comfortable with the vehicle than his first experience.
He got a part in the 1973 Clint Eastwood movie "Magnum Force" by . . . well, by lying to the director.
"He (Ted Post) said, `Do you ride a motorcycle?' And I said, `Like the wind!' "
"Had never been on a motorcyle in my life," Urich said last month in Los Angeles.
The actor got some help from an expert and "spent an afternoon cracking up motorcycles. We started on little 150s and moved up to the big ones."
All of which didn't help a whole lot on his first day of shooting.
"They mounted a Panavision camera on a big strut that went out over the wheel and had a close-up of me chasing Clint Eastwood. And they couldn't use any of the footage because I looked scared to death," Urich said. "But since then I've ridden a little bit."
Urich, James and the "Crossroads" cast and crew are currently in Utah filming episodes 2 through 13 of the series, which will air on Saturday nights on ABC. This week, the company is at a ranch in Morgan working on an episode in which young Dylan becomes involved with Hutterite girl.
Of the 12 episodes being shot in Utah, only one is actually set in the Beehive State. In the others, Utah acts the part of various Midwestern and plains states.
Fortunately for Urich, his skills as a motorcyclist really aren't particularly important in "Crossroads," however. The motorcycle is simply a vehicle to transport this struggling father and son down the road to various encounters.
Although there is some stunt work in the pilot, "It's really not the focus of the show," Urich said. "But I think we're going to focus on other elements - this human element. This relationship thing.
"A very important part is this notion of seeing America for the first time through new eyes, and rediscovering America. That's a very different point of view from the seat of a motorcycle than from 30,000 feet as we're all used to seeing America, or in a car.
"And so that aspect of the motorcycle, there's something very romantic about that. And the show will very much have that feel."
If the producers and writers can keep up the quality of pilot, they may just have something in "Crossroads." The show transcends its format and has a very literary feel to it.
The relationship between father and son is prickly, with a lifetime of resentments built up between them. Dylan's mother divorced Johnny years earlier, and since her death the boy has been raised by his maternal grandparents.
"One thing I said when we had our first meeting . . . is that I didn't want to play a character who was going to have everything figured out and would spend the next five years pontificating and instructing this young man on the way of manhood," Urich said. "And I thought it was crucial that this guy be really coerced, in a way, into accepting the responsibility of his fatherhood and having the experience be such a surprise and so valuable that he is forced to question and take a look at his whole life.
"One of my favorite scenes in the whole pilot is where he says to his son, `I don't think I know you well enough to tell you this whole story about your mom and me.' I mean, I found that so honest and so refreshing.
"There'll be instances when these guys disagree to a point that they butt heads. And it's going to be a learning experience for both of them."
Urich has starred in so many TV series that even he's losing track. "At least eight, I think," he said.
Among those series were dramas like "Vega$," "Spenser: For Hire" and "S.W.A.T." and comedies like "Soap" and "American Dreamer."
"That's the way my career has gone. If any one of those feature films I made had taken off or made a lot of money, I might not be doing television," Urich said. But he's also made "conscious efforts to do projects that allow me to lead as normal a lifestyle as an actor can lead. And I didn't want to wake up one morning and find out my kids are off to college and I don't know them."
(He's married to Heather Menzies, who played one of the Von Trapp daughters in the movie "The Sound of Music." They have a son, 13, and a daughter, 11.)
"And the notion of going off on location for eight or nine months never really appealed to me. It's painful for me to be away," Urich said. "Although with this show, I'm starting to have to face the fact that I might be away more than I'm home."
The Urichs do own a home in Deer Valley, and he says, "that doesn't hurt" while working in Utah.