Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 18, 1995 TAG: 9503210127
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB THOMAS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
Tonight at 8, HBO begins airing ``In Pursuit of Honor,'' a movie based on an obscure, heroic episode in U.S. Army history. In 1935, according to the script, Gen. Douglas MacArthur ordered hundreds of cavalry horses to be herded to Mexico, where the plan was to destroy them. The move was part of the switch to a mechanized army.
Five Army men, led by Regimental Sgt. Major John Patrick Libby, countermanded the order and attempted to lead the horses 2,000 miles from Sonora, Mexico, to freedom in Canada, chased by an Army force on wheels.
``I love horses,'' Johnson, the former star of ``Miami Vice,'' said over coffee one morning at his Coldwater Canyon home. ``I've always loved horses. I've been around horses all my life. There's a grace about horses that I feel sort of internally - a visceral connection with horses, it seems like.
``When I was a kid, we were living in Wichita, Kan., and every summer we would visit my grandparents in Missouri, where I was from. Whenever I could get out of my grandmother's eyeline, I would slip off down into the pasture.
``I would take a piece of baling twine and catch one of the horses. I'd get up on a stump - because I wasn't tall enough - and jump on the horse's back and ride it around the pasture. He'd get tired of fooling around with me and start to take off, and then I'd jump.''
Johnson said ``In Pursuit of Honor,'' originally called ``Fiddler's Green,'' had been knocking around Hollywood for years.
``Apparently, it was originally written for John Wayne,'' he said. ``Then, it fell in my buddy Clint Eastwood's hands. It ended up in my hands. ... It's a very noble and honorable story, one that wouldn't get made except for HBO.''
The movie was filmed in Australia. Why not the American West?
``Budgetary concerns were an issue,'' Johnson said. ``The major issue was that there is very little country left in America to get the kind of vistas and scope we wanted, without highways and telephone poles and condominiums. If you wanted to move the company five or six times, you could shoot it in this country. But it would be cost-prohibitive.''
Johnson, 45, and his wife, actress Melanie Griffith, live in a ranch-style house built in the 1930s by Bert Lahr, the cowardly lion of ``The Wizard of Oz.''
Johnson and Griffith were married from 1976 to 1978, and then remarried in 1989, only to separate last year after he suffered a relapse in his long fight with alcoholism. He underwent dependency treatment at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif., and the pair later reunited.
Their current bliss was signaled when she entered during the interview, tall and lovely, sans makeup. She and Johnson discussed house business, then parted with a kiss and a mutual ``I love you.'' Whether this tableau was staged for a visitor or not, it was convincing.
After ``Miami Vice'' ended its five-year run in 1989, Johnson appeared in several movies, including ``Dead-Bang,'' ``The Hot Spot,'' ``Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man,'' ``Paradise'' and ``Born Yesterday'' - the latter two with Griffith.
None was a hit, so the actor now is heading back to television.
He has signed with CBS to produce and star in an as-yet unnamed series. The network has made a 22-show commitment for the show, ``an action drama with a lot of humor,'' in which Johnson would play a private detective with two ex-wives to support.
``The thing I like about doing television is that it's not a decision by committee,'' he said. ``That's a lot of what happens in movies these days. Twenty people have to decide on the color of your shirt, as opposed to shooting from the hip.
``I enjoy the immediacy: You shoot it, and go. Some people are intimidated by the confines of time and budgetary constraints. I find them inspiring, challenging. People are so used to quality these days that there's more money available in television to put together great projects.''
by CNB