Magnum P.I.

Magnum, P.I. was an American television show that followed the adventures of Thomas Magnum (played by Tom Selleck), a private investigator living in Hawaii. The show aired eight seasons on the CBS network from 1980 to 1988.

Thomas Sullivan Magnum III is a former U.S. Navy SEAL[1] and Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) officer, who was awarded the Navy Cross[2] and strongly prefers being called “private investigator” over “private eye” or “private detective.” He lives in the guest house of a posh beachfront estate (“Robin’s Nest”) on the island of Oahu, at the invitation of its owner, celebrity author of lurid novels Robin Masters (whose face is never actually seen), in exchange for his expertise in quality control of the estate’s security. Magnum is a graduate of the Naval Academy, where he played quarterback, and left the Navy in disillusionment after approximately ten years service.

Robin’s Nest is managed by Englishman Jonathan Quayle Higgins III (played by Texan John Hillerman), an ex-British Army Sergeant Major, and is guarded by two highly trained Dobermann pinschers, Zeus & Apollo (AKA “The Lads”). Near the end of the series it was suggested that Higgins and Robin Masters might be the same person. In the final episode Higgins ostensibly admits to being Robin Masters, but at its conclusion he recants, perhaps whimsically telling Magnum that he had lied about Robin Masters, leaving viewers to wonder whether he was lying about Robin or lying about being Robin. During the early seasons of Magnum, the voice of Robin Masters (heard only a few times a season) was played by Orson Welles.

Magnum’s lifestyle represents every man’s dream. He comes and goes as he pleases, works only when he wants to, has the almost unlimited use of a Ferrari 308 GTS as well as many other of Robin Masters’ luxuries, keeps a mini-fridge with a seemingly endless supply of beer, comes into contact with countless beautiful women (who are often his clients or victims in the cases he solves), and enjoys adventures with his two buddies, both former U.S. Marines he served with in VM0-2 (a Marine Observation Squadron) in Vietnam. All three wear a gold Team Ring, which bears a Croix de Lorraine on a black field, as a bond of wartime camaraderie. The buddies are:

* Theodore “T.C.” Calvin (played by Roger E. Mosley) (who—as does Magnum—often sports a Da Nang baseball cap), a helicopter pilot who operates a tourist charter business called Island Hoppers. His combat-trained flight skills are often enlisted by Magnum during the course of an investigation. He is very powerfully built and a teetotaller.
* Orville Wilbur Richard “Rick” Wright[3] (played by Larry Manetti), a suave and quite short playboy who is manager of the King Kamehameha Club, an exclusive beachfront members-only club. In the initial movie, which was the predecessor of the series, Rick owned Rick’s Cafe Americaine - a reference to the movie Casablanca. Rick also maintains a number of underworld contacts (one of whom is Francis “Icepick” Hofstettler, a loan shark, gang boss, and Rick’s stepfather) and is an expert in weaponry—he was T.C.’s door gunner during the war.