R.I.P.: Peter Graves -- Capt. Oveur and out

Joey (Rossie Harris), Elaine (Julie Hagerty) and Capt. Oveur (Peter Graves) in "Airplane!" (Courtesy:  Paramount Pictures)

I never had the pleasure of meeting Peter Graves in person.

But TV's "Mission:  Impossible" star who died over the weekend just days short of his 84th birthday will always have a special place in my heart, my career as a film critic and my funny bone.

In the late 1970s, I got a wild idea.  I figured that If Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel (fiercely competitive Chicago newspaper film critics) could write about movies by day and talk about them on TV at night, why couldn't I?

I figured the TV part wouldn't be so difficult to land.  After all, I had several years TV news experience in the highly competitive Dallas-Fort Worth market.  Full disclosure:  By that time I had given up my TV news gig to find fame and fortune as a comedian, then a comedy writer and then -- perhaps finding my real station in life -- as a cab driver and bartender.

The newspaper connection would be the tough job to acquire, I thought.  I was correct.  Some patient (and, I suspect, amused) editor at the Dallas Morning News informed me that it would be nice (required, in fact) to have some newspaper experience before sharing my vast movie knowledge with Dallas Morning News readers.

After an extensive search, I landed a starvation wages job in the sports department of the Valley Morning Star newspaper in Harlingen, TX.  It was April Fools Day, 1980.

To say that I had an agenda is, without a doubt, the understatement of the last 30 years or so.  It only took three months of constant badgering to convince Valley Morning Star editors that what the paper needed was a film critic.  They reluctantly agreed, although I would have to maintain my sports department duties as well.

The first movie I reviewed as a paid professional was "Airplane!," which co-starred Peter Graves and opened over the July 4 weekend 1980.

There was no such thing as an advance screening for movie critic(s) at the time in the Rio Grande Valley.  So I took my seat at the first public screening on Friday afternoon with pencil and pad; ready to launch my movie critic career and my ultimate run on New York (which I figured would be sooner rather than later).

I don't remember the exact moment the pencil slipped from my hand in the dark and lodged in a wad of gum stuck to the floor, but it must have been about the time I realized that "Airplane!" was not like any movie I'd seen before.

In fact, it wasn't like any movie anyone had seen before.

It was a wild comic spoof; taking cheap and very funny potshots at the recent cheesy airline disaster flicks.  Graves deadpanned beautifully as the plane's captain, Clarence Oveur.  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played co-pilot Roger Murdock and the great Leslie Nielsen was Dr. ("Don't call me Shirley") Rumack.

A young actor named Rossie Harris, who was 10 or 11 at the time, had the misfortune of being caught in the comic crossfire as Joey, a little boy on his first airplane flight brought into the cockpit to meet the captain:

Capt. Oveur (Graves):  "Joey, have you ever seen a grown man naked?"

And:  "Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?"  

Walking back out into the piercing South Texas sunlight that afternoon, I knew I had a decision to make.  And I had to make it fast because the deadline for my first film review was looming.

"Airplane!" -- stupidity personified or bar-raising comic brilliance?

I made what turned out to be the right choice, going with brilliance.

Peter Graves had a major role in that decision and with launching this career.

So thanks, and rest in peace Mr. Graves/Capt. Oveur.

Over and out.

I never got a chance to call you Shirley.