Was Maxwell Caulfield Difficult to Work with?

[thomaswak]

I had a crush for John James, for some reasons, when I was a young Teen. And Maxwell Caufield left me cold at the time.
Now that I am not a Teen anymore (I am a... Ty) I would go in a total threesome with those two, when they were in their 20/40's.

Who am I kidding? Maxwell aged very well, so I would go on my knee to praise his 60's awesomeness without blinking.

 

[Dallas Fanatic]

Never knew MC was tough to work with. It is encouraging he admits it today and apologizes (which is better than most). I always thought he was an odd choice, as his only claim to fame before the Colbys was Grease 2, which is now a cult classic. His song solo in that movie is so atrocious that they couldn't even fix it in the studio. Youtube "Charade" from "Grease 2".

 

[Michael Torrance]

I always thought he was an odd choice, as his only claim to fame before the Colbys was Grease 2, which is now a cult classic.

Regardless of what a disaster THE COLBYS ended up being for ratings, the casting principle was sound. They already had big names of the past (Heston, Stanwyck, Montalban) for the older roles, so they could go with new faces for the younger. After all, Coleman and James were not household names either (and neither was Collins!). When a show is good, it makes its actors into stars. When it is bad, even the combined star power of old Hollywood movies cannot save it.

 

[Brian Kinney]

I always thought he was an odd choice, as his only claim to fame before the Colbys was Grease 2, which is now a cult classic.

In 1984 he was in Electric Dreams and in 1985 just before The Colbys in The Boys Next Door (co-starring Charlie Sheen, directed by upcoming Wayne's World's Penelope Spheeris, screenplay by future The X-Files writers Glen Morgan and James Wong) which was something of an instant cult classic - for those who have seen it, the production company went bankrupt around release time. Commercial failures but at that time Caulfied was still considered an upcoming star despite Grease 2 because the magazines nevertheless continued to write about him - he was hot, just without a shot. I think The Colbys stopped his chances to get other offers from independent film productions and I always thought he was one of the three best actors on The Colbys besides Montalban and Beacham because they had an original style not the generic TV acting of Samms, James or Ross and not the either wooden or hamming it up old style of Heston.

 

[tommie]

There's always a lot of people in Hollywood that are seen as "the next big thing that just hasn't gotten a break yet"... I bet Maxwell at the time had a good agent who were able to sell that line to anyone who would listen.

 

[Michael Torrance]

Just like Chris Wood now, who is super hot, and the CW especially tries to give him vehicle after vehicle to make it.

 

[tommie]

Just like Chris Wood now, who is super hot, and the CW especially tries to give him vehicle after vehicle to make it.

Oh yeah, HIM. For whatever reason The CW has decided that they guy is a star - then again they do just in general like to recycle their actors. Lucy Hale, who was lead on mega flop Life Sentence, was re-used for Katy Keane.

 

[thomaswak]

Just like Chris Wood now, who is super hot, and the CW especially tries to give him vehicle after vehicle to make it.

right : https://www.tvguide.com/news/chris-wood-cw-career-tribute/

 

[J. R.'s Piece]

A producer I know worked who with Caulfield when he did a year-long stint on Casualty in the UK in the early 2000s said he was very sweet and very humble on set.

Oh yeah. He expired by sacrificing his life and dropping to his death in the Holby City part of the first big cast-combining Casualty/Holby City full-on crossover (distinct from the usual story and cast crossovers), which festively killed off characters from both shows at Christmas 2004, after a tanker crashed into Holby City Hospital, leading to things exploding. John McArdle, Freema Agyeman, Nicola Stapleton and Rene Zagger were in that.

Not necessarily. John James said MC arrived on set in character and stayed in character. What if that meant MC was taking his character off-set too?

I remember George Irving quitting his role as the enigmatic Anton Meyer (hardly anything is revealed about his private life in a four year stint) on Holby City (and 1 episode of Casualty) because he felt that he was having trouble switching the character off at home and declined to ever return. Richard Bradford reportedly used to do that on ITC’s Man in a Suitcase. He himself said that he only used to get along with the actors playing the characters that his character (McGill with no first name, a former American intelligence agent, framed and dismissed by his bosses for something they know that he didn’t do) was supposed to get along with. Which wasn’t very many. This got him disliked by the stunt people because he didn’t like to rehearse and this caused actor Derren Nesbitt to pull out of a fight sequence with him. That sequence was handed to Larry Martin, who ended up in hospital from a stray Bradford punch. Although Bradford got along exceptionally well with Jacqueline Pearce, Anton Rodgers and particularly Colin Blakeley. Colin Blakeley played both a very bad baddie and also a brutal killer turned friendly priest. Bradford and Blakeley were reported to each take a long time to get into character but once ready, they worked very well and quickly. Bradford said that when Donald Sutherland (twice a guest actor), tried to be friendly to him, he wouldn’t let it happen, as they weren’t friendly in the show and the second time, Donald Sutherland’s character was trying to murder him. Although he got along very well with and had lifts from Peter Blythe, who tried to defenestrate him on the show.

 

[Brian Kinney]

Just like Chris Wood now, who is super hot, and the CW especially tries to give him vehicle after vehicle to make it.

And now ABC too: Thirtysomething(else), which doesn't sound bad. He and Odette Annable will be in the pilot as the adult children of Ken Olin and Mel Harris.

 

[J. R.'s Piece]

A producer I know worked who with Caulfield when he did a year-long stint on Casualty in the UK in the early 2000s said he was very sweet and very humble on set. He also comes across as very likeable on Twitter.

I kind of have a soft spot for anyone who admits to having been difficult to work with, as he does on The Colbys DVD interview. And I've heard stories about Heston and Beacham being both lovely and difficult. I mean, we all get it wrong from time to time.

In the Casualty repeats on Drama, Maxwell Caulfield has just vanished after a big crossover appearance yesterday and bunches of people online have been today complaining about his character appearing to have died offscreen and that they have missed an episode. His character’s heroic and spectacular death, saving a Holby City regular and her unborn baby from dying, by choosing to drop to his death from a great height to his death because Simon MacCorkindale couldn’t pull both of them to safety... aired on the Holby City repeats almost exactly a year ago. I’ve seen quite a few online posts recently about people having good experiences meeting Maxwell Caulfield and photos of them.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]