5 Things You Probably Don’t Know About ‘Hart to Hart’
Admit it — you always wished you were a self-made millionaire who trotted the globe solving mysteries with your gorgeous spouse. There’s no shame in that: A huge part of the appeal of Hart to Hart, which premiered on August 25, 1979, was how cool Jonathan and Jennifer Hart were. Played by Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers, the pair were a latter-day Nick and Nora Charles, except with cooler cars and bigger hair.
The show aired on ABC for five seasons, which saw the loving couple (plus their assistant, Max, and their adorable dog, Freeway) stop kidnappings, unmask murderers, and break up crime rings about as often as you buy cartons of milk. But even if you’re a fan, you might not know these behind-the-scenes facts. Because putting this show out … it was murder (just kidding, it sounds like it was actually a very nice time on set).
1The Show Was Created By One of the Best-Selling Writers of All Time
Even if you’ve never read any of his books, you know who Sidney Sheldon is. The blockbuster mystery novelist’s books sold more than 300 million copies, and were especially ubiquitous in the ’70s and ’80s — you probably remember seeing them lined up alongside Danielle Steel’s at Waldenbooks at the mall.
But you might not know that before he took the publishing world by storm, Sheldon was a screenwriter. After a number of years working on Broadway, Sheldon moved on to Hollywood, where he wrote screenplays for movies like Annie Get Your Gun, Easter Parade, and Anything Goes — he actually won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 1947 for The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer.
He then moved on to the small screen, where he created two of the most famous shows of the ’60s — The Patty Duke Show and I Dream of Jeannie. By the late ’60s, Sheldon had begun writing mystery novels, and had his first New York Times No. 1 bestseller in 1973 with The Other Side of Midnight. In the early ’70s, he wrote a script for a TV movie called Double Twist, about a pair of married spies; it was never made, but eventually, it ended up in the hands of Aaron Spelling, who thought it would work better as a series.
2Robert Wagner Almost Lost Out to an Old Hollywood Icon
Jonathan Hart is supposed to have the charm and swagger of Cary Grant. So, Spelling and the producers thought, why not get Cary Grant himself? The only issue: The former Archibald Leach was 75 years old in 1979, and hadn’t made a film since 1966. Previous efforts to lure him out of retirement with a remake of Grand Hotel or a role in Warren Beatty‘s 1978 Heaven Can Wait were unsuccessful, and attempts to get him on Hart to Hart also failed. Producer Leonard Goldberg recalled, “We did inquire with Cary Grant’s representation. The answer was no. We agreed that the closest to him was R.J. Wagner. He’s a very good-looking guy, has an easy charm about him, and could handle that comedy.”
3Max Was Once on the Hollywood Blacklist
Lionel Stander was over 70 when his run as Max on Hart to Hart began. His incredibly long career involved appearances in everything from the 1936 version of A Star Is Born to Once Upon a Time in the West. Stander was also an activist, active in supporting left wing and union causes (He was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild).
Columbia Pictures Television/Courtesy: Everett Collection
But in 1940, Stander was one of the first actors to be subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Stander appeared before a grand jury to defend himself from charges of being a Communist agitator. Though he was found innocent, Stander’s career faltered, and he was unable to find few film roles. Throughout the late ’40s and early ’50s, actors brought before HUAC and asked to name names repeatedly brought up Stander — which led to his getting blacklisted.
Stander asked to testify before HUAC, and was finally granted an audience in 1953. Stander denied having ever been a Communist, but had some very choice words for the committee, telling them, “My estimation of this committee is that this committee arrogates judicial and punitive powers which it does not possess.”
Stander probably didn’t think his testimony was going to get him off the blacklist, and it didn’t — he remained there until 1965. The intervening years saw him try non-acting careers on Wall Street, and move to Europe, where he worked as a stage actor. He appeared in numerous spaghetti Westerns, before slowly reclaiming his film career, in movies like 1965’s Promise Her Anything and 1971’s The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.
4Freeway Was a Rescue Pup in Real Life, Too
Columbia Pictures Television/Courtesy: Everett Collection
The Harts’ adorable dog, Freeway, was named after where the couple had found the stray — and in a case of art imitating life, the dog who played Freeway also came from a shelter. Freeway’s real name was Charlie Gray, but he had a puppy named Freeway Jr., who went on to appear in the 1993 TV movie, Hart to Hart Returns. No word about whether either dog wandered away with the occasional murder weapon in real life, though.
5Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers Were (and Remain) Good Friends
View this post on Instagram
Yes, the Harts solved mysteries — many, many, many mysteries. But there are a lot of mystery shows. What kept this show beloved for five seasons and eight TV movies was the warm, romantic connection between the Harts, which mirrored the warm, non-romantic connection between Wagner and Powers in real life.
Though the network originally wanted Wagner’s then-wife, Natalie Wood, to play Jennifer, producers objected, and Powers — who had appeared once before alongside Wagner, in an episode of his show, It Takes a Thief — was recruited. The two bonded on set. Powers described their relationship as “siblings who really like each other — when we were working together, sometimes we would get into laughing fits and they’d have to send us home.” Their bond deepened when their respective spouses, Wood and William Holden, both died in November 1981. “We held each other up,” Powers says of the time period.
And their relationship remains. Powers was a guest for Wagner’s 94th birthday this year, and told TV Guide Magazine in 2019, “We talk quite regularly. We also email and send each other dirty jokes.”
Remind
