(Originally
published 6/6/17)
When Kojak
starring Telly Savalas debuted on October 24, 1973, I was a sixth grader at St.
John’s grammar school in the Bronx. Pleading nolo contendere to charges
of having accepted bribes while governor of Maryland, Vice President Spiro
Agnew had resigned exactly two weeks earlier. President Richard Nixon’s
infamous “Saturday Night Massacre” had occurred several days before. And a
whole lot was happening in New York City, too, with Mayor John Lindsay in the
final two months of his second term as mayor of the city that Theofilides
“Theo” Kojak valiantly endeavored to keep safe.
In the
broader historical picture, the 1970s were not especially good years for the
Big Apple. A fiscal crisis and layoffs of city employees, including cops, left
the metropolis dirtier and less safe than it had ever been. Nonetheless, my
favorite decade is the colorfully groovy 1970s. And it is not because of the
increases in crime and grime. Where I grew up, Kingsbridge, there was a fair
share of both, but it was still a great neighborhood to be a kid. The
old-fashioned urban childhood still existed then, but its days were numbered.
Simply understood, we spent an awful lot of time in the great outdoors back
then—winter, spring, summer, and fall—and thankfully were not preoccupied with
technological devices that had not been invented.
Along with
The Rockford Files,
Kojak is my all-time favorite TV detective
show. On the boxes of the recently released
Kojak DVD sets I just
purchased, the character is referred to as “Bald, bold, and badass.” That is a
contemporary hipster’s description of Lieutenant Kojak, who was wont to say to
a bad guy, “Cootchie-cootchie-coo,” while not-so-gently yanking on his cheek.
He was the epitome of cool in his Bailey Gentry fedora, spiffy three-piece
suits, and stylish sunglasses.
I liked Kojak
for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was its New York ambiance.
McCloud just did not do it for me! It did not matter that the episodes
were largely filmed in Los Angeles and at Universal Studios. Kojak and company
visited The Twilight Zone street, as I call it, too many times to
count. You know the location: the bars are named just “bars” and the jewelry
stores, “jewelry stores.” I was not even bothered that the stock shots of Kojak
driving around Manhattan frequently did not jibe with where he was actually going
in the scripts. I remember him heading north on the West Side Highway to visit
Brooklyn.
So, does
Kojak
hold up for me more than forty years later? In my opinion, Telly Savalas
punctuating his sentences with his Tootsie Roll Pop is timeless. Flipping an
organized crime boss out of his chair never gets old. The Hollywood streets and
edifices can be a bit off putting, I know. Floodlights in the windows of
building exteriors do not exactly enhance nighttime realism. And location shots
filmed in Los Angeles that attempt to pass for Manhattan never work.
Fortunately, the middle seasons of
Kojak—which represent the best of the
show—filmed much more in New York itself.
In fact,
season three’s two-hour debut episode, “A Question of Answers,” is filmed
entirely in New York and features guest stars Eli Wallach, F. Murray Abraham,
Jerry Orbach, Jennifer Warren, and Michael V. Gazzo, who plays a hooligan loan
shark. The year prior, Gazzo won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his
portrayal of Frankie Pentangeli in
The Godfather: Part II. In the
Kojak
episode, there is a scene of Savalas and Gazzo in a parking lot just north of
the Twin Towers along the Hudson River. That is what that area was like in
1975. Run down and atmospheric with parking lots—in some instances—on property
now gentrified beyond recognition. A footnote on the season three opener is
that Telly Savalas’s brother, George Savalas, who played Detective Stavros, is
finally credited with his full name, instead of “Demosthenes,” his middle name,
which was used in the first two seasons’ credits.
Theo Kojak
could do no wrong then and now, with one exception that I have gleaned in
watching the old shows. So far, I have seen him toss his lollipop wrapper off a
building rooftop, throw its stick on the sidewalk, and fling an unlit cigarette
of Eli Wallach’s into the Hudson River. Exiting his car, he has also placed his
empty coffee cup atop a fire hydrant. It was the dirty 1970s after all.
One final
word on Kojak’s legacy: The coolest cop is part of the Urban Dictionary.
“To drive straight into a parking space, improbably available right outside the
place you were headed,” which Kojak consistently did at crime scenes, midtown
hotels, busy courthouses and apartment buildings, is thusly named. You have
“kojaked” if you are so fortunate in your travels to land such a prime parking
spot.
(Photos
from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)
