Seven fake nuns and a giant black man with a metal hand attack the Gideon Peak Observatory. They steal the invention of Professor Gregory, a cannon shooting a powerful dehydrating ray. The Director of UNIT, an intelligence agency accountable only to the President, sends T.R. Sloane to Gideon Peak. Thomas R. Sloane III is an art historian and antique dealer but most of all he's the Director's best agent. Sloane meets Professor Gregory's niece Chrissy Randall and the scientist's assistant Sabina Dorffman. Millionaire Erik Clawson and the organization KARTEL are behind the observatory raid. They want to eliminate the attendants of a peace conference in Switzerland.
In 1978, U.S. television network NBC looked for a series a la James Bond and they discussed the idea with Quinn Martin, the boss of QM Productions. Martin built his reputation with crime drama hits The Fugitive (1963-1967), The F.B.I. (1965-1974), Cannon (1971-1976), The Streets of San Francisco (1972-1977) and Barnaby Jones (1973-1980). His style was recognizable, from the opening credits read by an announcer (Hank Simms or Dick Wesson) to the four acts and the epilogue of each episode all labelled on-screen. Beyond cops and detectives, Quinn Martin ventured into the military genre (Twelve O'Clock High, 1964-1967), sci-fi (The Invaders, 1967-1968) and even horror (Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected, 1977).
QM Productions had something for NBC: Sloane, a scenario written in 1975 by screenwriter and producer Cliff Gould (Cade's County, The Streets of San Francisco) for ABC although not produced (1). During Autumn 1978, Quinn Martin sold his 18-year old independent company to two of its executives in order to produce feature films and kept only a consultant position. In turn, both investors sold QM Productions to Taft Broadcasting soon after. Writer and producer Philip Saltzman, a longtime associate of Quinn Martin, founded Woodruff Productions the same year. Woodruff co-produced the last two seasons of Barnaby Jones with QM. Saltzman got involved with Sloane in December 1978 (2) as the executive producer.
Cliff Gould was called to rewrite and produce the pilot, retitled T.R. Sloane. The role of superspy Thomas Remington Sloane III went to Robert Logan. Noticed in the 1960s for his parts in 77 Sunset Strip and Daniel Boone, he preferred sailing and travelling to acting. In 1968, Robert Logan was in Czechoslovakia for The Bridge at Remagen, where he played a soldier, when the country was invaded by the Soviet Union. While the actors and the crew left for Austria, Logan stayed to film the invasion and make photos. His career was relaunched by The Adventures of the Wilderness Family (1976). This low-budget family movie spawned two sequels, The Further Adventures of the Wilderness Family (1978) and Mountain Family Robinson (1979).
Veteran actor Dan O'Herlihy was cast as The Director. He joined the Mercury Theatre of Orson Welles in 1948 and played alongside Welles in the stage and movie versions of Macbeth. O'Herlihy got an Oscar nomination for the title role in Luis Buñuel's film The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1954). He was a regular in The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (1963-1964) and The Long, Hot Summer (in 1966), and guest starred in many TV series. The Director never leaves his Kentucky farm and communicates with Sloane via voicemails. He interacts with Effie 3000, an unseen computer (voiced by Michele Carey). The only UNIT agent who has a direct contact with Thomas is his assistant Miss Blessing (Penelope Windust).
New Zealand-born stage, cinema and television actor Clive Revill (3) brought his talent and a bit of irony to the evil Erik Clawson, a character with a penchant for a cheese-loving spider and poisonous snakes. Torque, his henchman played by the impressive Ji-Tu Cumbuka (4), has a multi-function right hand in stainless steel. After stage work with the Performing Arts Society Workshop in Los Angeles, 6'5'' (1.96 m) Cumbuka made his film debut in Uptight (1968) under the direction of Jules Dassin. He participated to several TV series (including three from QM Productions), the miniseries Roots (1977) and the unsold pilot Mandrake the Magician (1979).
The first major role of actress and former model Ann Turkel (Sabina) was in the 1974 film 99 and 44/100% Dead, where she met its star Richard Harris. They married and worked together in The Cassandra Crossing (1976), Golden Rendezvous (1977) and Ravagers (1979) (5). Before T.R. Sloane, Maggie Cooper (Chrissy) co-starred in the live-action saturday morning series Space Academy (1977). Lee H. Katzin was chosen to helm T.R. Sloane. For television he directed series, pilots such as Hondo (1967) and The Mod Squad (1968), the premiere of Space: 1999 (1975), the first Man from Atlantis TV movie (1977) and the miniseries The Bastard (1978).
Lee H. Katzin also directed films like Le Mans (1971) or The Salzburg Connection (1972). Health issues almost prevented him to be hired on T.R. Sloane because of difficulties with the production insurance company (6) but the shooting took place between February and March 1979. The Swiss portion of the script was filmed in Colorado at Sunlight Ski Area, Glenwood Springs and Snowmass Village. Glenwood Springs and Snowmass previously doubled as Switzerland in Intertect (1973), a pilot written and produced by Philip Saltzman for QM. Robert Logan had a ranch in Aspen and was an accomplished skier. The rest of T.R. Sloane was done in California.
T.R. Sloane was previewed by NBC programming boss Fred Silverman in April 1979 (7). He decided that Robert Logan wasn't right for the role and that Ji-Tu Cumbuka's Torque should be the sidekick of Sloane. NBC agreed to order a series if QM could find the right replacement to Logan. Stephen Collins and Armand Assante were considered (8), then Silverman told the production to get Robert Conrad. For the network, Conrad starred in Baa Baa Black Sheep/Black Sheep Squadron (1976-1978), played a trapper in Centennial (1978-1979) and was the NBC team captain in six episodes of Battle of the Network Stars (on ABC) between 1976 and 1979. Except Robert Conrad was now an ex-boxer turned detective in The Duke, launched by NBC in April 1979 to the satisfaction of the actor, who expected it to return in Autumn.
Fred Silverman convinced him to give up The Duke after only
four episodes and star in A Man called Sloane for $100.000 per hour-length show (9). Meanwhile, the quite similar 007 copycat pilot Billion Dollar Threat was presented by ABC on April 15, 1979. Dan O'Herlihy and Michele Carey stayed for A Man called Sloane but UNIT left Kentucky for a Californian store called The Toy Boutique and a young woman named Kelly (Karen Purcill) was now in charge of Sloane's gadgets. Thomas' car, a 1979 Di Napolic Coupe, was changed for a Samco Cord Warrior. Gerald Sanford (Barnaby Jones) replaced Cliff Gould as
the producer for the series. Peter Allan Fields (The Man from
U.N.C.L.E.) was appointed executive story consultant.
Despite a budget estimated to $2.5 million (10), T.R. Sloane was still on the shelf when A Man called Sloane started on September 22, 1979. Some footage of the pilot was edited for the series promotion, an interview of Ji-Tu Cumbuka and the title sequence of A Man called Sloane. Unlike the soundtrack of the series, composed mainly by Patrick Williams (The Streets of San Francisco), T.R. Sloane has no original music. Music editor Ken Wilhoit chose pieces from the KPM library. For instance, Fugitive by Johnny Pearson (opening credits), Agressive Jazz Theme by Keith Mansfield (Cuban mission) or Dave Gold's Big City (A) (ski scene). A Man called Sloane did well in the ratings until it faced ABC's Fantasy Island. NBC aired its 12th and final episode in December 22, 1979.
T.R. Sloane was finally shown by the network on March 5, 1981 under the title Death Ray 2000. The pilot recovered its initial title for reruns on USA Network. A Man called Sloane arrived in France on TF1 in 1981 as Sloane, agent spécial. T.R. Sloane, titled Le maître de l'eau in French, aired on the same channel in August 1983 with a dubbing adaptation which erased all the names used in the series (Sloane was called "Stone"). Robert Logan wrote the script of the Canadian movie Kelly (1981) and starred in it. He quit acting in 1997 to pursue a life of travels and sports (polo, cycling...) Ji-Tu Cumbuka guest starred in numerous TV series and appeared in Brewster's Millions (1985) and Harlem Nights (1997). His extraordinary presence in A Man called Sloane is fondly remembered.
Dan O'Herlihy is part of pop culture history for his roles in Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), The Last Starfighter (1984), RoboCop (1987) and RoboCop II (1990). Maggie Cooper became a television reporter in 1989. Robert Conrad returned to his signature role of James West (The Wild Wild West, 1965-1969) in The Wild Wild West Revisited (1979) and More Wild Wild West (1980), two made-for-TV movies for CBS. Though he never had a hit series again, Robert Conrad continued to enjoy his TV legend status. A Man called Sloane was one of the rare QM series without the elements which popularized the style of its founder and it was the last series produced by the company.
(3) Clive Revill died last month, aged 94. He's best known as the original voice of Emperor Palpatine in The Empire Strikes Back (1980).
(4) His name was given by his grandmother. Ji-Tu means "Giant" and Cumbuka means "To Remember" in Swahili.
(6) (8) Quinn Martin, Producer: A Behind-the-Scenes History of QM Productions and Its Founder by Jonathan Etter (McFarland, 2003).
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