"Hey, they don't LOOK Jewish!"
"Neither did Nimoy and Shatner."
Anyway...it's September, and there's some Jewish holiday or other, so consider this a celebration of it, whatever it is. Unless it's Yom Kippur, in which case, feel sad about something. Like the fact that no minority's lives matter anymore except ONE.
Gritty war shows aren’t too popular anymore, but back in the 60’s, “Combat!” had a pretty long run: 1962-1967. It would be the most memorable role for the two ill-fated stars, Rick Jason and Vic Morrow. Both had plenty of work before and after, but fans would remember them best in uniform, and they know the famous “Combat!” theme you hear below.
The TV show starred two Jewish guys as war heroes. Is that a surprise? Lots of Jews were war heroes and there was certainly plenty of opportunity in WW2. Even if they didn't get a medal, at least some were definitely over there, face to face with the enemy in France (Mel Brooks!) or in the Marines (Don Adams!) or in the Navy (Don Rickles!) But let's not digress. We'll stick to JASON and MORROW.
Born Richard Jacobson (May 21, 1923-October 16, 2000) Rick Jason could play suave charmers (he got his mitts on classy blonde Joan Marshall in an episode of “The Millionaire.”) He got his first movie break replacing Fernando Lamas in “Sombrero,” a forgotten 1953 movie. He would play a Mexican bandit in the TV show “Stories of the Century” (1954) before moving on to more varied roles. ZIV (the company that produced Joan Marshall’s “Bold Venture” series) hired him for the 1960 “The Case of the Dangerous Robin” TV show, which lasted a year in 1960-61. He played insurance investigator Robin Scott. The following year, he as Gil Hanley, alternated with Vic Morrow as the stars of various episodes of “Combat!” Jason had been in the U.S. Army Air Corps, so he knew all about the life of a soldier.
Vic Morrow (Victor Morozoff, February 14, 1929 – July 23, 1982) was born in the Bronx, a borough noted for tough guys. He dropped out of high school to join the Navy, and with his rugged looks, he played one of the more dangerous punks in “Blackboard Jungle” menacing Glenn Ford (1955). He landed the lead (Brando) role of Stanley Kowalski in a road company version of “Streetcar Named Desire,” and appeared in such gritty films as “Men In war( 9157) and Hell’s Five Hours (1958). In 1961 he had the lead in “Portrait of a Mobster,” playing the famous Jewish gangster “Dutch” Schultz (whose real name was Arthur Flegenheimer — a German who got his nickname “Dutch” as a Bronx-y corruption of the word “Deutsch.”
From there, it was “Combat!” and his role as Chip Saunders. There was a fine balance on that show, in terms of who got more exposure each week, or the best scripts, so Morrow and Rick Jason got along just fine. As Rick recalled, a big difference was that Vic was quite a pacifist in real life, and was not a gun owner. He enjoyed taking some shots at Vic now and then: I said to him, "I've got a couple of shotguns in the back of my station wagon. You want to shoot some skeet?" Without so much as a pause he responded, "No, thanks. I can't stand to kill clay." He knew he could always break me up and during our five years together he did it quite a bit. His sense of humor happened to tickle my funny bone.” The blonde Morrow and dark-haired Jason had a bit of the same vibe as another Jewish combo, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy…two guys with a different look and appeal, each staked to his own territory (and female followers).
Both Rick and Vic, who appeared in all 152 episodes of the show, found steady work after “Combat!” with chances in movies, and guest starring roles on TV shows. Morrow, who had directed seven episodes of the show, also worked as a director on other projects, too. Still, most fans knew the two actors as the soldiers of “Combat!” and were delighted when there was a chance to see them in person. In October of 2000, there was a reunion of “Combat!” stars in Las Vegas. Usually this type of thing makes a star feel good, knowing that so many remember and appreciate past work. Rick, 77 years old, may have been depressed to realize his best success was so far in the past, and that new assignments and the ability to put in long hours memorizing lines and performing them, were not likely. He was a suicide, just a week after attending that show.
As for Morrow, everyone knows what happened to him: he was filming “Twilight Zone: The Movie” with John Landis directing. A sequence called for him to rescue two Vietnamese children as a helicopter followed them with bad intent. A malfunction caused the chopper to crash, with the pilot surviving but Morrow and one of the children sliced away by the rotor blades. The other child was crushed to death. He was only 53.
The “Combat!” theme was the work of another Jewish talent, Leonard Rosenman. Born in Brooklyn (September 7, 1924-March 4, 2008) he had a very long career writing theme songs and incidental music for TV shows and movies. His first major credits were composing music for two James Dean films, “East of Eden” and “Rebel Without a Cause.” (1955, 1956). There's Lenny and Jimmy:
Lenny’s TV work stretched from “Combat” (1962) to “Garrison’s Gorillas” (1967) “The Virginian” (1967) and “Marcus Welby” (1969) working of course on multiple episodes of those shows over the years. He created incidental music for a variety of episodes of other shows.
Rosenman worked primarily in films in the 70’s through the 90’s, winning Oscars for “Barry Lyndon” (1976) and “Bound for Glory” (1977) and including “Cross Creek” (1984), Star Trek IV” (1986) and “Levitation” (1997). He’s probably one of the most prolific movie music writers to be unknown to the general public…unlike Henry Mancini, Elmer Bernstein, Hans Zimmer, Jerry Goldsmith or John Williams.
Admittedly, the “Combat” theme is pretty derivative. It borrows a little from “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” which was used a bit too much in “Stalag 17.” It also borrows some style from “The Great Escape” and the ridiculous Colonel Bogey March (from “Bridge Over the River Kwai”) where war is somehow as much fun as summer camp, and people either whistle a lot, or they march around like they have paper hats and cardboard swords, with Mitch Miller-type oom-pah marching bands around. The theme is almost at the same light-hearted level as “Hogan’s Heroes.” Still, it’s catchy, and it never goes out of style. Neither does war.
THE COMBAT! THEME - no passwords, no creepy malware or spyware, listen or download
