Tom Selleck Is Still The Man

Tom Selleck doesn't casually sit down at a table; he takes ownership. At a larger-than-life 6 foot 4, absurdly handsome in a corduroy shirt, jeans, and boots, he looks like a cowboy trimmed and tidied for a day off from the ranch. When he pulls up a chair at a Los Angeles bistro, everything from the silverware to the stemware appears to shrink. But it's more than just a physical impression--there's a warmth, a presence, a glow of easy confidence. The truth is, the 65-year-old star with the 1000-kilowatt Thomas Magnum smile is indeed spending a day away from his ranch. When he's not acting, Selleck kicks back--and clears brush--on the 63-acre spread near Santa Barbara he shares with his wife of 23 years, British actress Jillie Mack. With its 1920s Spanish-style house, 20-acre avocado grove, and barns housing five horses--including 25-year-old Spike, from Selleck's 1990 film Quigley Down Under--it's the perfect retreat for a gentleman rancher with a lifelong love of Westerns, a place to "dig a hole or plant a tree and get my mind off stuff," the actor says. But today his mind is on his new CBS series, Blue Bloods, in which he plays New York City police commissioner Frank Reagan, a man who commands respect at both City Hall and the Sunday night dinner table, where he anchors a three-generation NYPD family...more