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BerichtGeplaatst: 18-05-2006 09:44:46  Reageer met quote


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Dit is een engels-talig interview met George van 1985: Ik zou zeggen veel lees plezier:

Article by Louise Farr, August 31, 1985 U.S. TV Guide


He Made A Lot of Enemies

With his drinking days behind him, George Peppard of The A-Team is still living down his reputation as a difficult man around the set.

"George was before his time. Men were sissies then," Mr.T says. We're in his trailer dressing room in Culver City, California. It smells of vitamins and cologne. T gives one of his fierce looks. It's easy to see what he thinks of sissies. Won't find any of those on "The A-Team," NBC's hardy little band of prime-time mercenaries led by George Peppard playing Col. John "Hannibal" Smith.

"George was seen as a troublemaker because he stood up for his rights," T declares. "Everybody would like to be able to say what they feel without kissing anybody's behind."
T is talking, of course, about Peppard's bad-boy reputation, which stems from his drinking days, and from his contract disputes with studios and squabbles with executives over
directors and scripts. Hollywood can tolerate a certain amount of drinking. But it doesn't like the rest of it.

"George is my leader," T is saying. "Where there's unity there's strength. If George don't like it and I don't like it, then they're dealin' with the A-Team."
As T strolls to rehearsal, he thumps on Peppard's motor home with a fist. "Is my leader there?" he yells. If he is, he's not answering. T raises both arms in a salute and strolls
on.

It's a Friday lunchtime in the Polo Lounge at The Beverly Hills Hotel. Soft-spoken executives consummate cutthroat deals over salmon and raspberries. And George Peppard, rosy-cheeked and freshly shaven, immaculate in navy blazer, his silver hair shining and perfectly combed, is in the middle of a silken-voiced monologue praising God and thanking "A-Team" executive producer Stephen J. Cannell for hiring him when he was a Hollywood
untouchable. "George is old school. He looks good. He's well manicured. He's clean," Dwight Schultz, who plays Howling Mad Murdock, has said on the phone. "Don't try to outfox him," he's added. "He sees everything in terms of strategies."

In fact, within seconds Peppard has ousted me from his favourite seat in his favourite booth, the strategic one in which to see and be seen. But he's managed it gracefully. And now he's admitting that in the 1970s he was known around Universal Studios as "that sonofabitch Peppard." More politely, he was known throughout his career for being difficult.
"An appellation I really don't feel is entirely justified," he says, lighting a cigarette. "They think they're paying you a great deal of money and you should do as you're told."

That wasn't his style. Lurking beneath the image of the WASP gentleman was a rebel nurtured in the '30s on kelp and the idea of karma by Christian Spiritualist parents in Detroit. His style now is to speak of personal matters, if at all, with an ironic detachment. It's a mask, but so what? For a life that's been lived publicly and to a chorus of criticism, perhaps a mask is necessary.

"I learned a long time ago that if I was going to predicate my feelings on other people's opinions, I'd have no life at all," Peppard says. "So basically I do what I think is the right thing and let them think what they please."
He wanted simply to "make a good living" when he came to Hollywood in the late 1950s after training at the Actors Studio in New York.

And then in the 1970s he quit two Universal series, "Banacek" and "Doctors Hospital." "I've had worse experiences, but it wasn't easy," says "Banacek" executive producer George
Eckstein, an old friend of Peppard's from his days in summer stock. Eckstein, whose own decision to leave "Banacek" ("because I was burned out") prompted Peppard's departure,
remembers 3 A.M. calls from his star, who would demand script changes and complain about directors. Eckstein used to hang up swearing. But he says he was better able than other executives to tolerate Peppard because of their long friendship. "He made a lot of enemies in those days," says Eckstein. "He was always his own man and * the consequences."

"In the network mind, in the studio mind, you cost them millions of dollars," Peppard says, poking his fork into a piece of sole. "That's more than being difficult. That's being a sonofabich. You also cost yourself millions of dollars, and that's insane. It's the same thing as dropping a baby out of a 40-story building as far as they're concerned."
Worse, probably.
Peppard nods. "The man who does that has no ethics." Later, expanding on the curious morality of Hollywood's attitude toward someone who gives up millions, he says chuckling, "You can't be bought and that renders you totally untrustworthy."

"I thought it was self-destructive," says Monique James, who watched him walk from "Banacek." She was Peppard's agent before she became co-head of new talent at Universal. "It was very difficult to through to him in those days. You were talking to the bottle."
In 1972, he told TV Guide that he had "a troubled spirit." What troubled him he didn't say and doesn't now. Although he does say that he was never much of a George Peppard fan. And he may not simply be talking about his acting. "He said to me once, 'I'm not a
nice man'," says a friend of his. "The fact is he is a nice man."
"One could always wish one had the charm of David Janssen," says Peppard. "It was hard not to like David. He was outward going. He always had a new joke to tell. I'm not that way. I don't know a lot of jokes."

In 1979 he stopped drinking cold turkey and his "load of angst and depression" lifted. "I think my pattern's about as ordinary as you can get," he says. "You have problems, you think drink helps, and then you have two problems."
But sobriety didn't help his career. Six years ago he was forced to lease his Beverly Hills house after sinking his capital into producing the film "Five Days From Home." He was living in Marina del Rey, contemplating a future acting in dinner theatres.

"The temporal quality of all things was being firmly impressed upon me," he says with his habitual amused detachment. Yet when he was hired for the "Dynasty" pilot, he argued with executives over how to play the Blake Carrington role and left the show.
"Everyone thought I was crazed because of my career being in the dumps at the moment," he says. "I'm so glad I wasn't drinking. I bet a lot of people thought when I did certain things, I'd been drinking, and now they found out it wasn't the booze at all-it was me."

Shortly after the "Dynasty" debacle, Peppard was expecting to be cast in the Alan Jay Lerner-Charles Strouse musical "Dance a Little Closer." "I hadn't heard a word from them since the time Lerner said to me, 'I want you terribly'," Peppard says. Then, to his surprise,
he read in the New York Times that Len Cariou had been cast instead.
"I had voiced...some doubts about certain plot points that I thought needed fixing," he says. "It may have been that they didn't want to hear anything from me about it." The surprising thing is that this still surprises Peppard.
"His beliefs haven't changed," says Monique James. "He was always fighting for what he felt as an actor was important. He's still fighting for the same things. It was just so out of hand
before."

"A lot of people in this business play a lot of games. But I know them all." George Peppard smiles. "There's always the new wrinkle. One must keep one's eyes always open. But some things are done in context with producing a series, certain positions are..."he hesitates discreetly, "not exactly what they seem. They are a strategic move."

It's another Friday lunchtime in another show-business restaurant. "Use my name. We'll get a better table," Peppard said on the phone. He now watches people come and go. I sit facing a wall and Peppard, who is, if possible, more immaculate than before in fine-chord jacket, tan slacks and cream shirt.
"I do not make the rules of the game," he says. "Nor do I play games that I initiate. However, other people do. And if you can't recognize them as such and deal with them strategically, you'll get yourself into hot water."
To illustrate, he launches into the tale of an A-Team director, whose methods the actors didn't like. There was a bit of conflict on the set. "If you want to call it a war, you may," Peppard says helpfully.

So what happened to the director? "He's no longer with us", Peppard says. He's grinning, with his cigarette clamped in his teeth the way it so often is. And what did it take to get rid of him? "Quite a bit," he says, gliding smoothly on. "I really don't think that's very important. We're talking tactics here."

Mr. T explains the usual tactics. "George is our leader. And I say, 'I'm leavin' with my leader.' Boom-boom. And we'll hold up production."
Stop production? Stephen Cannell is horrified. Never.
Well, maybe once for half an hour. And he would never shove a director onto his stars, he says, adding: "Why should I put a director in that position to go down there and be brutalized by four actors?"
Of the director who left, Peppard says: "I imagine he's walking around saying, 'George Peppard is a *.' My reputation grows and grows."

Cannell gets upset when he thinks Peppard is telling stories against himself. "I would say to anyone who wants to go to work with George, 'Do it,' Cannell says. "He's a total pro...I told him when we started I'd always listen to him. If he has a bad idea, I just stonewall him."
"I think he goes over the script with a magnifying glass," says co-executive producer Frank Lupo, who describes Peppard as being "like the captain of the tug-of-war team."
Dwight Schultz thinks the producers like "the turbulence" of working with Peppard. "Conflict is the source of the best things you do in life," he says.

Two seasons ago, ad-libbing got a little out of hand, though. "I called George," Cannell says. "I said, 'If that's the way it's going to be, you're not going to see any more scripts out of me'." Peppard apologized, according to Cannell, and there's been no ad-libbing since.
Peppard has not stopped calling the production offices. "If he's floating around in Europe or Vegas or New York and he passes a street sign and it gives him an idea, boy, he'll find the nearest phone and he'll call you up so he doesn't lose the thought," Frank Lupo says,
laughing. "Sometimes," says Cannell, "he calls just to see how I'm doing. And that's great."

At 56, Peppard admits to a certain amount of pleasure at the thought of his old enemies gnashing their teeth over his comeback.
There's a line of A-Team dolls, and he and his 17-year-old son, Christian (from his marriage to his second wife, actress Elizabeth Ashley), have discussed the endless possibilities of what might be done to the Hannibal Smith a k a George Peppard model. "'OK, take that',"
says Peppard, imitating a vengeful Hollywood executive. "'Snap its little head off. Rip off its arms and legs.' When I get a twinge in my hip socket, I think perhaps...."

Last December, Peppard married Alexis Adams, 31, who now calls herself J.J. Peppard. It's her first marriage, his fourth. He met his first wife, Helen Davies, at the Oregon Shakespearean Festival.
She's the mother of his two other children, Bradford, 30, and Julie, 26. His second wife, Sherry Boucher, was a former Miss National Physical Culture. They married in 1975 and were divorced four years later.

"Some people do better on their own. I don't. It sounds stupid to say, but it's true. I like women. I like them when they're little tiny babies, and I like them when they're old ladies, and I like them all in between. They please me."
He's always been attracted to creative women. "I don't think I could live with someone for whom just married life was enough," he says. "Unfortunately, three times I picked actresses who really wanted to be actresses." Luckily J.J. has given up acting and is now an artist.

It's taken Peppard a long time-and four or five therapists-to learn certain things, he points out. One of those things is that he's difficult. About 20 years ago he told a group of friends about something or other that had happened to him. "Well, you know me," he said. "I'm easy going." He got no further. Everyone began to laugh. One friend laughed so hard that he slid from his chair onto the carpet. It hurt Peppard's feelings then. Now it amuses him.
"There's nothing easy going about me at all," he says.

He has to leave to pick up his son. I've made arrangements to have the check taken care of (gracefully, I think) without any fanfare at the table.
"What do you mean, All taken care of'?" says Peppard. "That's tactics." He turns to the waiter. "I understand the lady has outwitted me." He looks back at me. "There," he says. "Feel better?"

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Hibernia
BerichtGeplaatst: 19-05-2006 08:30:11  Reageer met quote


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Zeg geweldig, bedankt dat je dit erop gezet hebt!!

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BerichtGeplaatst: 19-05-2006 17:04:56  Reageer met quote


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ja leuk artikel. Bedankt!

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Hantibal
BerichtGeplaatst: 20-05-2006 12:09:43  Reageer met quote


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Interview 2

George was interviewed last on the program after Edward Woodward and Michell Letrice, who are all sitting comfortably together along the sofa.

Terry Wogan: You're looking terrific, very slim.

George Peppard: Well, I work at it, yes er...

TW: Do you have to work at keeping the old figure trim?

GP: Well its more than that. On the series, because of er..exhaustion and giving up smoking I gained weight, gained about 30 pounds and lost 30 pounds, without exercise and on the schedule that we had - I don't know if you had as bad a one as we were on (to EW) - but I was up at 4 in the morning to do my exercises before I left at 5:30 or 7:00. And ten more pages the next day and I got into the habit of exercise and er.. since the series has been over with shooting for about 90 days I have been exercising with a vengeance like a man who has been denied his rights.".my body is my own and I can do what I like with it"!

TW: Did you enjoy making that series?

GP: Well initially I had an awfully good time, I mean I got a chance, a rare chance for me, to do character parts, you know, wigs and false noses and at times... as a matter of fact we had a co-producer of the series, Frank Lupo, who wrote a part as a two hour show as an opening to the season where I played - where the part of Hannibal took over - the part of a hood and he introduced the part of the hood first, so I played the hood and then I played the part of Hannibal putting on the makeup to play the hood and later the hood came back into the scene and I was talking to myself (laughter) and at that point I realised that I'd come to the end of the line..(more laughter) where I realised that I really wanted another actor to play that part, but I did manage in that part to fool some people who knew me, and there's a great joy in that. Different from a lot of straight parts as I've done most of my life.

TW: Its an ensemble of course, I mean your play in with three other people, I mean how did you all get on together, we have a picture of all four of you together (shown) yes there you are, were you all one happy team, or are you gonna tell us the truth? (laughter)


>>George Peppard
GP: Ah well the show is playing here in England I wouldn't wanna say anything to make it less pleasurable for the audience. We did have some difficulty, er.. because.. er.. Mr T got into a quarrel with the producers and executive producers and, er, he wanted to fire some of the crew, and that included a wardrobe lady, co-incidently who was born and raised in Britain, a very nice lady, and the sound crew, the second camera crew (laughter) and the unit manager.

TW: There wasn't a chance he was getting too big for his necklaces was there?

GP: Well you know, nobody likes to rock the boat in televeision and er.. Stephen Cannell who was the owner and co-creator of the series was prepared to replace thee people. We were all in a boat in the Mexican waters and when we got back they told me about it and I'd heard about it. He'd [meaning Mr. T] refused to shoot, and, um, I went into Mr Cannell's office and said, "If you have a list of 6, you may put George Peppard's name down as number 7, if you're going to fire them." He elected not to do that and er..that er, that was the right thing to do because, as you know and as we all know, the power of stardom is really a load of crap - and should be dealt with, properly and as a fellow worker. It did irritate me, um, I didn't speak to him for 16 weeks.

TW: He doesn't say a lot anyway.

GP: No. there's not a lot to say, but we got over that and we went about the show. The show comes first.

TW: There's obviously criticism with children watching the show, the violence...

GP: Yes... I don't think so. I think... The A-team are either the worst shots in the world... they take a machine gun and blow everything up... but it's good because it tells everyone to begin with, "We're out for fun.. there's going to be no blood, there's going to be no horror here." Er, you know what we intend, you know we don't like the bad guys, and we do defeat them, I think its good. It also gave us some leeway into farce, because bascially, the best thing about the A Team to me was when we came close to what I just think is the funniest people in the world - Monty Python - ...when you have something that is utterly ridiculous that's treated with absolute seriousness, and when we did that well, I thought we were very funny.

(here Edward Woodward comes in with his own ideas on TV vioence and agrees with G's assesment of The A-Team)

GP: yeah there's a strange rule NBC has, that if you have a pistol in your hand and your gonna point it at somebody, you may point it at their heart, but you may not point it at there head; now there is a piece of network logic. There's a joke in Californaia, I don't know if you have it on this side of the ocean but I'll repeat it quicky: The difference between a dead cat in the raod and a dead Televison Executive are there are skid marks in front of the cat.

(Everyone laughs. Terry Wogan thanks all three guests).

By televry1@aol.com

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BerichtGeplaatst: 20-05-2006 12:12:23  Reageer met quote


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Artikel

"He Made A Lot of Enemies"

With his drinking days behind him, George Peppard of The A-Team is still living down his reputation as a difficult man around the set.

"George was before his time. Men were *sissies* then," Mr.T says. We're in his trailer dressing room in Culver City, Cal. It smells of vitamins and cologne. T gives one of his fierce looks. It's easy to see what he thinks of sissies. Won't find any of those on "The A-Team," NBC's hardy little band of prime- time mercenaries led by George Peppard playing Col. John "Hannibal" Smith.

"George was seen as a troublemaker because he stood up for his rights," T declares. "Everybody would like to be able to say what they feel without kissing anybody's behind." T is talking, of course, about Peppard's bad-boy reputation, which stems from his drinking days, and from his contract disputes with studios and squabbles with executives over directors and scripts. Hollywood can tolerate a certain amount of drinking. But it doesn't like the rest of it. "George is my *leader*," T is saying. "Where there's unity there's strength. If George don't like it and I don't like it, then they're dealin' with--the *A-Team*." As T strolls to rehearsal, he thumps on Peppard's motor home with a fist. "Is my *leader* there?" he yells. If he is, he's not answering. T raises both arms in a salute and strolls on.

It's a Friday lunch time in the Polo Lounge at The Beverly Hills Hotel. Soft-spoken executives consummate cuttroat deals over salmon and raspberries. And George Peppard, rosy-cheeked and freshly shaven, immaculate in navy blazer, his silver hair shining and perfectly combed, is in the middle of a silken-voiced monologue praising God and thanking "A-Team" executive producer Stephen J. Cannell for hiring him when he was a Hollywood untouchable. ("George is old school. He looks good. He's well manicured. He's *clean*," Dwight Schultz, who plays Howling Mad Murdock, has said on the phone. "Don't try to outfox him," he's added. "He sees everything in terms of strategies.") In fact, within seconds Peppard has ousted me from his favorite seat in his favorite booth--the strategic one in which to see and be seen. But he's managed it gracefully. And now he's admitting that in the 1970s he was known around Universal Studios as "that sonofabitch Peppard." More politely, he was known throughout his career for being difficult. "An appellation I really don't feel is entirely justified," he says, lighting a cigarette. "They think they're paying you a great deal of money and you should do as you're told." That wasn't his style. Lurking beneath the image of the WASP gentleman was a rebel nurtured in the '30s on kelp and the idea of karma by Christian Spiritualist parents in Detroit. His style now is to speak of personal matters, if at all, with an ironic detachment. It's a mask, but so what? For a life that's been lived publicly and to a chorus of criticism, perhaps a mask is necessary.

"I learned a long time ago that if I was going to predicate my feelings on other people's opinions, I'd have no life at all," Peppard says. "So basically I do what I think is the right thing and let them think what they please." He wanted simply to "make a good living" when he came to Hollywood in the late 1950s after training at the Actors Studio in New York. And then in the 1970s he quit two Universal series, "Banacek" and "Doctors Hospital." "I've had worse experiences, but it wasn't easy," says "Banacek" executive producer George Eckstein, an old friend of Peppard's from his days in summer stock. Eckstein, whose own decision to leave "Banacek" ("because I was burned out") prompted Peppard's departure, remembers 3 A.M. calls from his star, who would demand script changes and complain about directors. Eckstein used to hang up swearing. But he says he was better able than other executives to tolerate Peppard because of their long friendship. "He made a lot of enemies in those days," says Eckstein. "He was always his own man and * the consequences." "In the network mind, in the studio mind, you cost them millions of dollars," Peppard says, poking his fork into a piece of sole. "That's more than being difficult. That's being a sonofabich. You also cost yourself millions of dollars, and that's *insane*. It's the same thing as dropping a baby out of a 40-story building as far as they're concerned." Worse, probably. Peppard nods. "The man who does that has *no* ethics." Later, expanding on the curious morality of Hollywood's attitude toward someone who gives up millions, he says chuckling, "You can't be bought and that renders you *totally* untrustworthy." "I thought it was self-destructive," says Monique James, who watched him walk from "Banacek." She was Peppard's agent before she became co-head of new talent at Universal. "It was very difficult to through to him in those days. You were talking to the bottle." In 1972, he told TV Guide that he had "a troubled spirit." What troubled him he didn't say and doesn't now. Although he does say that he was never much of a George Peppard fan. And he may not simply be talking about his acting. "He said to me once, 'I'm not a nice man'," says a friend of his. "The fact is he *is* a nice man." "One could always wish one had the charm of David Janssen," says Peppard. "It was hard not to like David. He was outward-going. He always had a new joke to tell. I'm not that way. I don't know a lot of jokes."

In 1979 he stopped drinking cold turkey and his "load of angst and depression" lifted. "I think my pattern's about as ordinary as you can get," he says. "You have problems, you think drink helps, then you have two problems." But sobriety didn't help his career. Six years ago he was forced to lease his Beverly Hills house after sinking his capital into producing the film "Five Days From Home." He was living in Marina del Rey, contemplating a future acting in dinner theaters. "The temporal quality of all things was being firmly impressed upon me," he says with his habitual amused detachment. Yet when he was hired for the "Dynasty" pilot, he argued with executives over how to play the Blake Carrington role and left the show. "Everyone thought I was crazed because of my career being in the dumps at the moment," he says. "I'm so glad I wasn't drinking. I bet a lot of people thought when I did certain things, I'd been drinking, and now they found out it wasn't the booze at all-it was *me*."

Shortly after the "Dynasty" debacle, Peppard was expecting to be cast in the Alan Jay Lerner-Charles Strouse musical "Dance a Little Closer." "I hadn't heard a word from them since the time Lerner said to me, 'I want you terribly'," Peppard says. Then, to his surprise, he read in the New York Times that Len Cariou had been cast instead. "I had voiced...some doubts about certain plot points that I thought needed fixing," he says. "It may have been that they didn't want to hear anything from me about it." The surprising thing is that this still surprises Peppard. "His beliefs haven't changed," says Monique James. "He was always fighting for what he felt as an actor was important. He's still fighting for the same things. It was just so out of hand before." "A lot of people in this business play a lot of games. But I know them all." George Peppard smiles. "There's always the new wrinkle. One must keep one's eyes always open. But some things are done in context with producing a series, certain positions are...," he hestitates discreetly, "not exactly whay they *seem*. They are a *strategic move*."

It's another Friday lunch time in another show-business restaurant. "Use my name. We'll get a better table," Peppard said on the phone. He now watches people come and go. I sit facing a wall and Peppard, who is, if possible, more immaculate than before in fine-chord jcket, tan slacks and cream shirt. "I do not make the rules of the game," he says. "Nor do I play games that I initiate. However, other people do. And if you can't recognize them as such and deal with them strategically, you'll get yourself into hot water." To illustrate, he launches into the tale of an A-Team director, whose methods the actors didn't like. There was a bit of conflict on the set. "If you want to call it a war, you may," Peppard says helpfully. So what happened to the director? "He's no longer with us," Peppard says. He's grinning, with his cigarette clamped in his teeth the way it so often is. And what did it take to get rid of him? "Quite a bit," he says, gliding smoothly on. "I really don't think that's very important. We're talking *tactics* here." Mr. T explains the usual tactics. "George is our *leader*. And I say, 'I'm leavin' with my *leader*.' Boom-boom. And we'll hold up production." *Stop production*? Stephen Cannell is horrified. *Never*. Well, maybe once for half an hour. And he would never shove a director onto his stars, he says, adding: "Why should I put a director in that position to go down there and be brutalized by four actors?" Of the director who left, Peppard says: "I imagine he's walking around saying, 'George Peppard is a *.' My reputation grows and grows."

Cannell gets upset when he thinks Peppard is telling stories against himself. "I would say to anyone who wants to go to work with George, 'Do it,' Cannell says. "He's a total pro...I told him when we started I'd always listen to him. If he has a bad idea, I just stonewall him." "I think he goes over the script with a magnifying glass," says co-executive producer Frank Lupo, who describes Peppard as being "like the captain of the tug-of-war team." Dwight Schultz thinks the producers like "the turbulence" of working with Peppard. "Conflict is the source of the best things you do in life," he says. Two seasons ago, ad-libbing got a little out of hand, though. "I called George," Cannell says. "I said, 'If that's the way it's going to be, you're not going to see any more scripts out of me'." Peppard apologized, according to Cannell, and there's been no ad-libbing since. Peppard has not stopped calling the production offices. "If he's floating around in Europe or Vegas or New York and he passes a street sign and it gives him an idea, boy, he'll find the nearest phone and he'll call you up so he doesn't lose the thought," Frank Lupo says, laughing. "Sometimes," says Cannell, "he calls just to see how I'm doing. And that's great."

At 56, Peppard admits to a certain amount of pleasure at the thought of his old enemies gnashing their teeth over his comeback. There's a line of A-Team dolls, and he and his 17-year-old son, Christian (from his marraige to his second wife, actress Elizabeth Ashley), have discussed the endless possibilities of what might be done to the Hannibal Smith a k a George Peppard model. "'OK, take that'," says Peppard, imitating a vengeful Hollywood executive. "'Snap its little head off. Rip off its arms and legs.' When I get a twinge in my hip socket, I think perhaps...."

Last December, Peppard married Alexis Adams, 31, who now calls herself J.J. Peppard. It's her first marraige, his fourth. He met his first wife, Helen Davies, at the Oregon Shakespearean Festival. She's the mother of his two other children, Bradford, 30, and Julie, 26. His second wife, Sherry Boucher, was a former Miss National Physical Culture. They married in 1975 and were divorced four years later. "Some people do better on their own. I don't. It sounds stupid to say, but it's true. I *like* women. I like them when they're little tiny babbies, and I like them when they're old ladies, and I like them all in between. They *please* me." He's always been attracted to creative women. "I don't think I could live with someone for whom just married life was enough," he says. "Unfortunately, three times I picked actresses who really *wanted* to be actresses." Luckily J.J. has given up acting and is now an artist.

It's taken Peppard a long time-and four or five therapists-to learn certain things, he points out. One of those things is that he's difficult. About 20 years ago he told a group of friends about something or other that had happened to him. "Well, you know me," he said. "I'm easy going." He got no further. Everyone began to laugh. One friend laughed so hard that he slid from his chair onto the carpet. It hurt Peppard's feelings then. Now it amuses him. "There's nothing easy going about me at all," he says. He has to leave to pick up his son. I've made arrangements to have the check taken care of (gracefully, I think) without any fanfare at the table. "What do you mean, 'All taken care of'?" says Peppard. "That's *tactics*." He turns to the waiter. "I understand the lady has *outwitted* me." He looks back at me. "There," he says. "*Feel* better?"

Date:- 31st August 1995
Writen By:- Louise Farr
Article Source:- U.S. TV Guide

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BerichtGeplaatst: 20-05-2006 12:13:30  Reageer met quote


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Artikel 2

Crowning Achievement

George Peppard isn't wearing any underwear. Honest. In the era that 'Lion in Wintrer' is set, the noblemen and women don't wear undergarments," Peppard commented while talking about his starring role as King Henry II in James Goldman's comedy 'The Lion in Winter.' "That's very telling of the kind of story we tell in this play." Okay, maybe Peppard is wearing some BVDs on stage, but King Henry didn't. And that's okay with Peppard. He describes Henry as a rogue, the kind of character Peppard has played well - and enjoyed portraying - during his 40+ year acting career.

The rogue in Peppard is evident in his theatrical biography listed in the show's program: no TV or movie credits. Where's Hannibal Smith, the grinning renegade soldier from his hit series 'The A-Team'? Where's the disaffected insurance investigator from his first major television show, 'Banacek'? Where are the myriad movie roles that earned him a reputation as a celluloid tough-guy?

"I purposely don't have them listed," he said recently in a telephone interview that cellular technology allowed him to conduct while he was driving through Beverly Hills. "I'm just listing my stage work. From my point of view, there is a lot of joy in stage work. I love to entertain an audience. Sometimes you can feel like you're a 10-year-old boy again, trying to fool somebody. It's not that I'm knocking the movie and television work. I've made a lot of money in the city I'm driving through. It's provided me with enough to live on and the ability to do as I please, and this is what I want to do. If they'll have me and the show does well, I could do this another two or three years."

What makes Peppard so committed? He likes the character, plain and simple. "In his first scene, Henry makes the point that the priests are the ones who record the history of the day, so Henry says, 'I know how they'll remember me. They'll say Henry was a master *!' He had a good time doing everything," Peppard said.

He explained that Henry is a 50-year-old king during a time when the average life expectancy was about 30 or 35 years old. He was a robust and rugged man whose physical and mental feats became the stuff of legend. "Travielli, one of that era's most respected historians, called Henry the greatest king ever known," Peppard said. "He once rode his horse 200 miles in 2 days, twice the rate of travel that was the norm in that day. He established the grand jury system that we still use today in judiciary matters. He was a superb warrior and philosopher who loved his people. He was also very amorous, and had innumerable liasons. And he had a keen sense of humor." And that's what originally surprised Peppard about this play and his role. He had seen a film version of "The Lion in Winter," and didn't think they could create a comedy from it. He soon discovered he was wrong. "The fights between Henry and his wife, who is wonderfully portrayed in this play by Susan Clark, are the centerpiece of the play," he said. "The audience really looks forward to them. They're extremely funny and they develop the character further. It's fun playing a king, and the fun of playing this king in particular is the fun he has dominating and manipulating the people around him. It's a little mini-kingdom on stage, and he is the center of it all. He takes great pride and pleasure in his role. He is having a flagrant affair with a girl 30 years his junior and he has fantastic battles with his wife that amuse him no end. He's a rogue, and I have a weakness for rogues."

His theater work began in 1951 with a production of 'Home of the Brave', followed up with the plum role of Proctor in 'The Crucible'. From there, he started gaining steam in movies and television projects, but he returned to the theater in the 1980s with the one-man show 'Papa'. a stirring remembrance of literary rogue Ernest Hemingway. "Hemingway was great fun," Peppard said. "At times, it got to be wrung out and sad, because the man had such a preoccupation with his own death. My research on him was what I read of him and about him, and I did a great deal of that."

With that feather in his cap, Peppard started looking for a role that would provide the fun of playing a good character with the intimacy of playing to the stage. Lion in Winter fit the bill. And it's a bill he said he's very proud to lead.

"I'm very pleased to come to Florida to play this role," he said. "This is a play filled with very wicked wit, scheming and lying and peeks into a real royal family's bedrooms. I mean, there are eight scenes, and five take place in bedrooms. It's a family fight, scathing and hilarious, and it's left all of our audiences bubbling as they left the theater."

Date:- April 1992
Writen By:- Tony Panaccio
Article Source:- Encore Magazine

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BerichtGeplaatst: 20-11-2006 23:30:28  Reageer met quote


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Bedankt Hantibal Very Happy .
Voor het neer zetten van deze intervieuws van George Smile .

Ze zijn goed te lezen, ook al is het in het engels!

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BerichtGeplaatst: 21-11-2006 11:33:40  Reageer met quote


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Ik ben een enorme fan van george peppard en probeer alles te verzamelen van hem. Als je dus nog wat informatie hebt stuur ze mij aub.

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BerichtGeplaatst: 27-05-2007 18:43:34  Reageer met quote


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ik heb er nog een gevonden weet alleen niet welk jaar dit was.

Wogan: George Peppard Interview


>>The A-Team:
George Peppard in the title
credits.
This is a transcript of an interview with George Peppard from an old On The Jazz newsletter . I decided to republish it here as I think it's an excellent article, and a good insight into life whilst filming The A-Team.

George was interviewed last on the program after Edward Woodward and Michell Letrice, who are all sitting comfortably together along the sofa.

Terry Wogan: You're looking terrific, very slim.

George Peppard: Well, I work at it, yes er...

TW: Do you have to work at keeping the old figure trim?

GP: Well its more than that. On the series, because of er..exhaustion and giving up smoking I gained weight, gained about 30 pounds and lost 30 pounds, without exercise and on the schedule that we had - I don't know if you had as bad a one as we were on (to EW) - but I was up at 4 in the morning to do my exercises before I left at 5:30 or 7:00. And ten more pages the next day and I got into the habit of exercise and er.. since the series has been over with shooting for about 90 days I have been exercising with a vengeance like a man who has been denied his rights.".my body is my own and I can do what I like with it"!

TW: Did you enjoy making that series?

GP: Well initially I had an awfully good time, I mean I got a chance, a rare chance for me, to do character parts, you know, wigs and false noses and at times... as a matter of fact we had a co-producer of the series, Frank Lupo, who wrote a part as a two hour show as an opening to the season where I played - where the part of Hannibal took over - the part of a hood and he introduced the part of the hood first, so I played the hood and then I played the part of Hannibal putting on the makeup to play the hood and later the hood came back into the scene and I was talking to myself (laughter) and at that point I realised that I'd come to the end of the line..(more laughter) where I realised that I really wanted another actor to play that part, but I did manage in that part to fool some people who knew me, and there's a great joy in that. Different from a lot of straight parts as I've done most of my life.

TW: Its an ensemble of course, I mean your play in with three other people, I mean how did you all get on together, we have a picture of all four of you together (shown) yes there you are, were you all one happy team, or are you gonna tell us the truth? (laughter)


>>George Peppard
GP: Ah well the show is playing here in England I wouldn't wanna say anything to make it less pleasurable for the audience. We did have some difficulty, er.. because.. er.. Mr T got into a quarrel with the producers and executive producers and, er, he wanted to fire some of the crew, and that included a wardrobe lady, co-incidently who was born and raised in Britain, a very nice lady, and the sound crew, the second camera crew (laughter) and the unit manager.

TW: There wasn't a chance he was getting too big for his necklaces was there?

GP: Well you know, nobody likes to rock the boat in televeision and er.. Stephen Cannell who was the owner and co-creator of the series was prepared to replace thee people. We were all in a boat in the Mexican waters and when we got back they told me about it and I'd heard about it. He'd [meaning Mr. T] refused to shoot, and, um, I went into Mr Cannell's office and said, "If you have a list of 6, you may put George Peppard's name down as number 7, if you're going to fire them." He elected not to do that and er..that er, that was the right thing to do because, as you know and as we all know, the power of stardom is really a load of crap - and should be dealt with, properly and as a fellow worker. It did irritate me, um, I didn't speak to him for 16 weeks.

TW: He doesn't say a lot anyway.

GP: No. there's not a lot to say, but we got over that and we went about the show. The show comes first.

TW: There's obviously criticism with children watching the show, the violence...

GP: Yes... I don't think so. I think... The A-team are either the worst shots in the world... they take a machine gun and blow everything up... but it's good because it tells everyone to begin with, "We're out for fun.. there's going to be no blood, there's going to be no horror here." Er, you know what we intend, you know we don't like the bad guys, and we do defeat them, I think its good. It also gave us some leeway into farce, because bascially, the best thing about the A Team to me was when we came close to what I just think is the funniest people in the world - Monty Python - ...when you have something that is utterly ridiculous that's treated with absolute seriousness, and when we did that well, I thought we were very funny.

(here Edward Woodward comes in with his own ideas on TV vioence and agrees with G's assesment of The A-Team)

GP: yeah there's a strange rule NBC has, that if you have a pistol in your hand and your gonna point it at somebody, you may point it at their heart, but you may not point it at there head; now there is a piece of network logic. There's a joke in Californaia, I don't know if you have it on this side of the ocean but I'll repeat it quicky: The difference between a dead cat in the raod and a dead Televison Executive are there are skid marks in front of the cat.

(Everyone laughs. Terry Wogan thanks all three guests).

By televry1@aol.com


Article taken from On The Jazz Newlsletter, Issue 10, Volume 1.
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Banacek
BerichtGeplaatst: 25-06-2007 11:42:31  Reageer met quote


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Dit laatste interview (ook al hierboven geplaatst) daar was Edward Woodward ook bij aanwezig. Hij speelde toen in "The Equalizer" ook een serie die veel kritiek kreeg te verduren vanwege het geweld dat werd getoond.

De rol van Banacek van George Peppard is trouwens ook erg leuk. Deze jaren 70 serie (seizoen 1) is net op DVD verschenen in Amerika (regio 1), bij Tv Guide.
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BerichtGeplaatst: 25-06-2007 14:31:37  Reageer met quote


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Leuke intervieuws. Smile Thanks for sharing! Wink

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BerichtGeplaatst: 25-06-2007 19:04:06  Reageer met quote


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Echt cool,leuke intervieuws

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BerichtGeplaatst: 25-06-2007 22:57:59  Reageer met quote


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Wat mooi om dit allemaal na te lezen Very HappyVery Happy heel bijzonder

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BerichtGeplaatst: 27-06-2007 22:32:49  Reageer met quote


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In september 1972 verscheen een interview met Peppard in het Amerikaanse TV Guide over Banacek, zijn rol in Groundstar Conspiracy en hoe hij van overmatig drankgebruik afkwam. Ik zal proberen het interview digitaal tekrijgen, erg interessant om te lezen.
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BerichtGeplaatst: 03-07-2007 19:03:17  Reageer met quote


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ik zit met smacht te wachten op dat interview over banaceck
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