Telly Savalas can make a policeman worth watching before the case becomes interesting. Kojak is the place to see how little fuss he needs, though his reassuring presence sometimes softens the programme’s harder questions.
Fi1m perspective
The lollipop in Kojak (1973) is easy to remember; the quietness with which Telly Savalas plays Theo Kojak is more rewarding. The suits and sweets are there, but he does not keep asking us to notice them. We were more absorbed than we expected, because he made the policeman interesting before the case had earned our attention. That is why we recommend the programme, even where the police stories have become familiar.
His early film career was heavy on villains, though Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) allowed him to give a hard character some humanity. He played Archer Maggott in The Dirty Dozen (1967) and Blofeld in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969). The lead in Kojak followed The Marcus-Nelson Murders (1973), turning that toughness towards a policeman audiences could find reassuring. He also directed five episodes of the series. His work behind the camera extended to Beyond Reason (1985), which he wrote, directed and starred in.
Abby Mann’s series helps by giving him a grubby New York and cases with some moral difficulty. Dan Frazer’s Frank McNeill, Kevin Dobson’s Bobby Crocker and George Savalas’s Sgt. Stavros make the workplace feel occupied by people rather than assistants waiting for the lead to speak. Savalas remains the chief attraction, but he benefits from that company. The street-level roughness also matters: his ease would be less persuasive in surroundings that looked arranged for his convenience.
The difficulty is that Savalas can make us too comfortable. Some of the police drama has dated, and his quiet assurance can make the moral complications less troubling than they ought to be. His restraint keeps the suits and sweets from becoming tiresome, but it cannot make every case fresh. We still want to spend time with him, although the programme rewards an interest in police work as well as its leading man. Start with one episode of Kojak, and leave enough time between cases to miss his company.
Biography
Telly Savalas was an American actor. Born Aristotelis Savalas, he appeared in numerous films from the early 1960s onwards, including Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, The Dirty Dozen (1967), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and Kelly's Heroes (1970).
Savalas studied psychology at Columbia University. He became widely known for playing Lieutenant Theo Kojak in the CBS television series Kojak (1973–1978), a role he originated in the 1973 television film The Marcus-Nelson Murders. He also directed episodes of the series. The performance earned him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1974.
Savalas appeared in other television work and films such as Cape Fear (1962) and Capricorn One (1977). His brother George Savalas played a recurring role alongside him in Kojak.
