◆ SpookStack

| om, "s agent, was lacking | in something. “From an actor’s point of view,” says Stack, a 40-year-old California socialite, whose approach to his career has always been marked by a certain detachment, “it had no Don’t. ask me-what that is, but I can assure you it's a quality that’s mighty important to the leading man, two critics and three other actors.” For this reason Stack was cool about . playing the Ness role when it was first offered him by Quinn Martin, ex- ecutive producer of the Desilu pack~— age, and Phil Karlson, its director and -& long-time friend of Stack’s. Aside from the fact that Martin and Karlson * ought enough ofthim to drop by his house and make the pitch, Stack says two things made him change his mind oa “and agree to clean up Chicago—on ’ film, at least. “For one thing,” he recalls, “Martin and Karison were painfully honest. They told me I was third choice for the part. They had Van Heflin lined "wp, but he conked out to do a picture. | Then they tried to get Van Johnson. Pm not being sarcastic about this. I admired the outfit’s honesty. I thought it they could level with me, the least I could do was to listen." 7 At that time Stack was not inter- -. Desilu. That, says Stack, was the | clincher. Staunchly conservative asa '- ables as # bloody and beery movie. | “I am just as bewildered as you . are,” _ be says today, as the star of .. fnto the skulduggery of the Capone L era. “This whole thing came up in such . z.) hurry. Originally | it was to be a . after Fuselli’s death. “feature picture. We shot it in four -weeks ist season as a feature. It was for European release. It was filmed in 3 ' wide screen. . . “Its American release was going to be on television, but nobody thought anything about that. That wag just ~~ ~ part of the financing. It was to be cut into two one-hour film shows on Desilu Playhouse. Desilu got $125,000 _ for each show. That made $250,000. But the picture cost $500,000. The other $250,000, plus maybe a million or two profit, was to be made up from theater showings. It went on Desilu Playhouse in April, and I put it out of my head. "Phen in July" I was leaving for. | Japan. Desilu called me. The darnedest thing had happened. The sponsor had an option on the time. slot if Desilu would make The Untouchables’ into a weekly series. It was up to me.I had . _ 12 hours to make up my mind. Desilu was willing if I was, and the whole thing came up just like that.” - Before leaving for Japan, where he - had contracted to -star in an inde- pendent picture (Andrew Stone's “The Last Voyage”), Stack called Desilu back and consented, but not without misgivings. “The Untouchables,” a ‘Chicago newspaper’s nickname for a ‘ 7 geven-man squad (reduced to four in the series) of incorruptible Treasury agents, was based on the life of the late; Eliot Ness, the leader. As a picture, Stack was pleased with this rehash of the 1930's, but as a TV series it struck him as a little dated. Then, too, there were other lems. For one thing Fuselli (played by . Keenan Wynn), one of Ness’s agents, . « Was killed in the picture. For authen- .- ticity, he would have to be revived as 7 = a regular in the series, always an awk- ward moment for all concerned. -- That sticky situation had been _ aided however, by having the series begin where the ane bad ended—