Remington Steele was an American television series first broadcast on the
NBC network from 1982 to 1987. It starred Stephanie Zimbalist as private detective Laura Holt and Pierce Brosnan as a
roguish thief, "Remington Steele". The show took an offbeat approach to the standard TV detective genre, with ironic plotting and elements of
romantic comedy.
In the United States of America, the show originally aired on Friday evenings, switching to Tuesday in an attempt for higher
ratings. The show remained in that slot for most of its run, finally ending with a
series of two hour movies.
Series history
Stephanie Zimbalist plays Laura Holt, a private detective who finds that her potential customers are unwilling to hire a woman. Business
picks up when she invents a fictitious male superior named Remington Steele. In the first episode, she encounters a
Humphrey Bogart-loving thief, played by Pierce
Brosnan, who overhears someone calling for "Remington Steele" and, in order to escape a pair of murderous thugs,
impulsively assumes the Steele persona. By the end of the episode, he chooses to make the alias permanent.
The real name of Brosnan's character was never revealed; in later episodes, it was revealed that Steele did not know his birth
name, and his attempts to discover it became a running theme. In the show's pilot
episode (which was actually the second episode broadcast), Laura reveals that she took the name "Remington" from a brand
of typewriter and "Steele" from the Pittsburgh
Steelers.
One running joke throughout the series was "Steele's" penchant for quoting lines from
famous movies as bits of pseudo-philosophy, and occasionally using techniques from cinematic mysteries to attempt to solve
crimes, with variable degrees of success. A number of plotlines were openly inspired by famous film
noir thrillers, such as the first-season episode "Steele Flying High" that takes its lead from the Bogart classic
The Maltese Falcon.
Season 1
The first season included two recurring characters, James Read who played Zimbalist's real
partner, Murphy Michaels, and Janet DeMay, their secretary and periodic rescuer, Bernice Foxe
(whom Steele always misnamed "Wolf"). Early episodes tended to be simple, focusing on the story without too much flash. (Writer
Joel Steiger won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for his script for the first-season episode "In The Steele of the
Night".) The series tended to focus on the sexual tension between the leads as much as the plots of the episodes themselves.
Season 2
NBC decided that the show was worthy of considerably more attention and re-tooled the format for the second season.
Read was removed in order to allow the romance between Holt and Steele to develop; his character pined for Holt and the
producers felt this was a hindrance, so in the second-season opener Steele and Holt explain to an IRS agent that Murphy had
opened his own detective agency in Denver, and that Bernice had resigned to marry a musician. Later in the episode, the nosy IRS
agent, Mildred Krebs (Doris Roberts), joined the firm as Bernice's replacement. Mildred
proved to be a capable investigator in her own right, and grew to be an amalgam of Bernice, Murphy, and Laura's mother as the
series progressed. The "new" Remington Steele was a bigger-budget production with more flash and a more lively opening credits
sequence that emphasized the action and adventure of the series. (The third season saw another opening credits sequence
introduced that incorporated Doris Roberts.)
Season 3
After the success of the Season 2 premiere, which was filmed on location in Mexico, NBC gave
producers a bigger travel allowance for the third season, resulting in several episodes being filmed in European locations such
as Ireland, Malta and France.
Brief cancellation
The new format lasted for three more years before the series was cancelled at the end of the 1985–86 television season. After
several seasons of "teasing" and nothing happening between Holt and Steele the show was deemed to have run its course, and the
show was cancelled. Brosnan was then named the newest actor to play James Bond for the film,
The Living Daylights. NBC received a barrage of letters urging them to renew
the show. The network, which still had Brosnan under contract, chose to renew Remington Steele for another year in order
to capitalize on Brosnan becoming the new James Bond; this backfired, and Brosnan subsequently lost the role to Timothy Dalton. Bond film producer Cubby Broccoli stated he did not want Bond to be identified with a current TV series. Also, the
producers of Remington Steele refused to release Brosnan from his contract in the light of increased popularity generated
by the Bond rumours. Brosnan would finally become 007 in 1995. Another
side-effect of the surprise renewal was that Zimbalist was forced to pull out of the production of RoboCop, in which she was originally cast to play Officer Lewis (a role that subsequently went to
Nancy Allen).
Final season
The final abbreviated season consisted of several made-for-TV films broadcast over the course of a few months, including
installments filmed on location in places like Ireland. Jack
Scalia joined the cast as a Romancing the Stone-inspired rival for
Laura's affections. This new format was not very popular with audiences, and low ratings coupled with reports of on-the-set
tension (due in part to Brosnan's resentment at losing the Bond role) resulted in the series being cancelled for good in the
spring of 1987 (ironically long before the release of Living Daylights). The final scene of the series implied that Steele
and Laura apparently were about to consummate their relationship.
Cast
Other recurring actors included:
- Cassandra Harris (Brosnan's real-life wife) playing several different roles,
including the recurring Felicia, one of Steele's old flames.
- James Tolkan as Norman Keyes, an insurance investigator bent on proving Steele to be a
fraud.
- Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (father of Stephanie Zimbalist) as Daniel Chalmers, a
charming con man who was Steele's mentor and surrogate father and whose real name, like
Steele's, was unknown.
- Beverly Garland as Abigail Holt, Laura's mother.
- Michael Constantine as George Edward Mulch, a business man with farfetched ideas
only looking for fame and fortune.
- Gary Frank as Detective James Jarvis, who suspected Steele was not all he
appeared.
DVD releases
Brosnan was promoted as the series' sole star on the season 1 DVD cover.
Zimbalist received star billing for the second season release.
A North American DVD release of the first season occurred on July
26, 2005, with Season 2 following on November 8, 2005
and Season 3 on April 18, 2006. Seasons 1 and 2 are also
available to rent. The Season 1 DVD inadvertently echoed an ongoing joke in the series in that Stephanie Zimbalist—who had top
star billing when the show was on the air—was initially omitted from all promotional material connected with its release, as well
as the DVD box itself, as Fox Video chose instead to promote Pierce Brosnan as the sole star. Subsequently, a sticker saying
"Also starring Stephanie Zimbalist" was added to the packaging as an afterthought. This omission was corrected with the release
of the second season which not only gave Zimbalist star billing, but her photograph also appears on the box. Additionally,
Zimbalist is featured on the behind-the-scenes featurettes contained therein (having been absent from the Season 1
featurettes).
| Season |
Ep # |
Release Date |
Additional Information |
| Season One |
22 |
July 26 2005 |
- Commentary on select episodes
- Featurettes
|
| Season Two |
21 |
November 8 2005 |
- "Steele Eligible" commentary with Michael Gleason and Sheldon Larry
- "Steele Sweet on You" commentary with Susan Baskin and Michael
- "Hounded Steele" commentary with Jeff Melvoin
- "Steele Action" Featurette
- "Steele Mildred" Featurette
- "Steele Together" Featurette
|
| Season Three |
22 |
April 18 2006 |
- Commentary on three episodes
- The Baking of Steele in the Chips
|
| Seasons Four and Five |
27 |
August 15 2006 |
- Steele Fanatics Featurette
- Steele Stars Featurette
- Steele on the Road Featurette
- Steele on the Air Commentary by John Sakmar and Kerry Lenhart
- Beg, Borrow, or Steele Commentary by Michael Gleason, John Wirth, Brad Kern and Jeff Melvoin
- Bonds of Steele Commentary by Michael Gleason, John Wirth, Brad Kern and Jeff Melvoin
- Steele Farewell Featurette
|
Trivia
- Every episode has the word "Steele" in it, In some form or another.
- Stephanie Zimbalist co-wrote one episode of the series, "Steele in the Chips."
- The success of the series led to Pierce Brosnan being compared to Roger Moore, and not
only in terms of being a possible successor in the role of James Bond. In 1985, there were media reports that Moore was
considering producing a movie based upon his old TV series, The Saint, and
that Brosnan was a prime candidate to play Simon Templar. This project was eventually
given to Val Kilmer.[1]
- Series producer Glenn Gordon Caron went on to create a similar series called
Moonlighting which, at times, was considered to be in head-to-head
competition with Steele. Brosnan makes a cameo appearance as Remington Steele in
the Moonlighting episode "The Straight Poop."
- A featurette on the Season 2 DVD reveals that Laura's house, seen in the first season and blown up in the second episode of
the second season, was actually Stephanie Zimbalist's real-life home. (A replica was destroyed.)
- In 1984, actor Tom Baker, best known to UK and
international audiences as Doctor Who, made a rare American television appearance when
he played Interpol agent Anatole Blaylock in the episode '"Hounded Steele."
- Brosnan has stated that he does not think a Remington Steele movie will be made.[2]
- Anthony Andrews was the original choice for the character of Remington Steele; he turned down the offer.
See also
Notes
- ^ Kimberly Last (1995). Pierce Brosnan's Long and Winding Road To Bond. Goldeneye. Retrieved on
2007-07-10. “He [Brosnan] was also apparently up for the title role in that
long-rumored (and not released until 1997, with Val Kilmer) film based on the old Roger Moore series The
Saint.”
- ^ Previous Q&A
Questions. PierceBrosnan.com. Retrieved on 2007-04-11.
External links
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