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Show Hollywood gpg Hotlinep Why Richard Mulligan isn't a cop think I'd made a bad choice when I became an actor." Bonzo, whose bedtime provided title for a Ronald Reagan movie and who's figured on a hot-selling poster, is showing up on T-shirts, T-shirts, lunch boxes and other novelties through efforts ef-forts of Bill Rechin, the artist who draws the cartoon car-toon strip "Crock." Bonzo's also become a stuffed toy in the image of . the Rechin cartoon. With a wife, seven children, chil-dren, two dogs and a raccoon, rac-coon, the artist is an amiable ami-able man who works at home near Washington, D.C. He grew up in Buffalo, N.Y., and claims that his hobby is revisiting Buffalo once a year. After doing graduate work at Albright Art School, Rechin went into the Army during the Korean War, spent two years producing training films, graphic aids, film and animated strips for the military and then, as a reborn re-born civilian, joined a major graphics firm in Washington. Since he claims that drawing comic strips comes easily to him, he's working happily on a Bonzo panel wherein he hopes the chimp will become be-come friendly with our president. The panel, Rechin insists, in-sists, won't be preachy or snide. "Bonzo is a cute little fellow, never vicious," according ac-cording to Rechin. "Think of him as a Will Rogers type." Prior to hanging out with the president, Bonzo, under Rechin's auspices, is '!'."- By NANCY ANDERSON .x. Copley News Service HOLLYWOOD - When Richard Mulligan finished ",: high school, there was no ."j1 money for college, jobs v were scarce, and he had no " " idea what to do next. So he went to his father, a 'New York policeman, and said, "Dad, I'm going to join the force." V His father was reading ..L the paper, but, at this revelation, reve-lation, put it down. Looking at his son, he : said, "No, you're not." 'J;; That was all. Then he is, picked up his paper and began reading again. I "My father became a pb-'1 pb-'1 1-.. liceman because he had "' four children to support '. and later five. It was a steady job," Mulligan says. "But he never liked guns. , .. He hated the idea that he v might have to shoot some-body." some-body." ,lC So the adolescent Richard Rich-ard didn't become one of New York's Finest but, rather, "just walked around for a couple of years." ' He became a reporter ,". for the Miami Herald, tried :' writing plays and, through this latter activity, got into : '' acting. . )':' "When I told my father that I wanted to be an ": 1 actor," Mulligan relates, "he was eating. He asked me, 'Will that put meat and potatoes on the table?' "I said, 'Sometimes.' ' " 'Sometimes? You'll eat sometimes,' my father ;aid. 'Pass the sugar.' "And that was all he said -; aboi:' that." " During the intervening years. Mulligan has done V quite well in his chosen profession, though he's had bleak moments. When a ' play in which he recently : starred on Broadway . closed after opening night, "I he was desperately disappointed, disap-pointed, deeply depressed. But the closing notices had - hardly been posted before Blake Edwards called from Europe asking him to fly over and join the cast of "The Trail of the Pink Panther." That's how it's gone for 25 years. Jobs have ended, new ones have come along until Mulligan has pretty well adjusted to the nature of the acting business. "Everything closes sooner or later," he says. An actor, he says, isn't a migrant worker who knows he'll automatically go to the fields at a certain season. sea-son. This season, Mulligan is starring in a summer series se-ries for ABC television called "Reggie." It will be introduced on the night of Aug. 2 and thereafter will air on Thursdays, beginning Aug. 4. Reggie, whose wife is played by Barbara Barrie, is a man under pressure at home and on the job. His grown children confuse him. His boss is younger than he. His life isn't going the way he's hoped it would. Yet "Reggie" is a comedy come-dy of sorts. "It's a serio-comedy," Mulligan says. "People say Reggie is in mid-life crisis. I says he's in life crisis. "The funniest stuff I've ever done came from things that were deeply unfunny." un-funny." Good comedy, he says, gets closer and closer to the flame of truth until the flame gets too hot. . If the limited series is popular, it will probably come back as a fall or winter win-ter replacement. If it's not . . . well, Mulligan can handle han-dle that. "There've been times when I've told myself that becoming an actor is the worst thing you can do," he remembers. "That acting was the worst possible choice I could have made. "But I've met interesting people and have gotten to travel. I've been to Africa a boy who used to think he'd taken a big trip if he got out of the Bronx! "When I got to Africa I knew that I'd never again hanging out with a cute girl ape call Bon Bon. The cartoonist doesn't own any rights to Bonzo but has a percentage deal with those who do at Bonzo Enterprises. Rechin was recruited to cartoon Bonzo by a friend who draws "Miss Peach." "He called," Rechin remembers, re-members, "and asked, 'Can you draw a monkey? You draw funny goats.' "I said that I could, and drew one with an overbite." over-bite." The friend called back ' with word, "That was an ugly monkey. Can't you draw a cute one?" So it was back to the drawing board for Rechin who, next, produced an acceptable ac-ceptable Bonzo cartoon. "We're thinking in terms of an animated show,-' he says. |