Now 36, Kerwin is stealing only scenes. As Sally Field's good-ole-boy ex-husband, Bobby Jack, in Murphy's Romance, he shines as a scoundrel who is terrific in bed but a flop on his feet. "He's just a dear heart," says Field of Kerwin. Adds co-star James Garner, nominated for a Best Actor Oscar as Field's love interest: "Bobby Jack has no redeeming qualities, yet Brian was wonderful at it."
Perhaps that's because Kerwin spent so many years practicing for the part. At 6'1" and a lanky 175 pounds, his blond hair and blue eyes evoke comparisons to Nick Nolte. But as a hell-raising ophthalmologist's son in the moneyed Chicago suburb of Floss-moor, the comparison was more to one of the Little Rascals. "I was very self-conscious about my weight," he says. "But I was such a general screw up anyway—I got bad grades and was arrested for shoplifting—that being fat just sort of blended in." His arrest, at 13, came when he was caught leaving a market with a jumbo bag of Heath bars. (Further probing revealed that his coat also hid shaving cream "so I could vandalize windows" and a rubber stamp "so I could extend my library books.") His parents grounded him and made him apologize to the store owners he had ripped off. Days later, "out of spite," he returned to the store and "ripped off a big bag of Nestlé's Crunch bars." Observes Field: "I feel he's still a rebel, sort of a mischief maker, but not like a Hell's Angel. He wouldn't hurt anybody."
Mom and Dad weren't so sure. "Brian was the one [of four kids] who was always thinking of ways to get into mischief," says his mom, Elaine Moore. "We said if he ever gets through high school we'll be lucky." He did, and went on to earn an acting degree from the University of Southern California film school. Moving to Oregon, he worked as a forest ranger and in a dog-food factory. When his girlfriend of three years headed to New York to model, he followed. They broke up not long after that, and Kerwin, then 25, consoled himself with booze for three months. "I had to hold one eye shut in order to find the bed," he recalls. Now, he says, "I'm a very lightweight drinker."
He briefly appeared on The Young and the Restless in 1976, and in 1979 landed the role of Deputy Birdwell Hawkins on TV's Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, a show never mentioned in discussions of what a wonderful medium TV can be. While doing Lobo, Kerwin took up drugs. "I don't do cocaine anymore," he says. "After a while you don't enjoy it. It sort of peters off and you stop."
In 1983 Kerwin appeared as a bisexual in two West Coast productions of Torch Song Trilogy, braving the possibility of stigma. "Everybody in the business knows which actors are gay," he says. "It's not a prejudicial thing in acting, even with all the bugaboo over AIDS and who's kissing whom." Kerwin turned down a part on Falcon Crest. "The only reason to do it was for the money," he says. But he invested well, "and I've got enough left from Lobo."
No one would ever guess that from the looks of his white clapboard tacky shack in the San Fernando Valley. It is polite to call the five-room house unfinished. Among other decorative touches, a wall heater is missing its cover, the place is in sore need of a dusting, and a brown paper bag fastened with a rubber band serves as a lampshade. It's lacking a woman's touch. Badly. In 1982 he had a four-month fling with actress Linda (Happy Days) Purl and he has just broken up with music video producer Ellen Pittleman, 26, also after four months.
Murphy's Romance has earned him respectability as an actor. But it has done nothing to diminish his rascal tendencies. Not long ago, he began flirting with a married teller whenever he dropped by his bank. At one point he gave her an autographed glossy. When she told him she was taking the photo home, he was horrified. "Oh, don't do that," he pleaded. "What about your husband? What if he has a gun?" Responded the teller: "I just got divorced and what are you doing for dinner?"
Kerwin pauses and shakes his head. "Hell, it was just a joke." Spoken like a true wise guy.
- Contributors:
- Frank Sanello.
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