Mein persönliches Exklusiv Interview mit James Coleman

01. How you'd like your character "T. J. McCabe"? Could you identify in that time with the character itself? And you can say what the first name "T. J." was standing?

I liked T.J....it was my first tv job and they didn't write a whole lot for me to get much acting experience on film. It was mostly an action show though so that was okay. I had been a stage actor for 8 years. I also did a short film with Steve Spielberg when we were both students at Long Beach State College in 1968. It was called Slipstream. He ran out of money though and it was never completed. Fun to work with him though, he's a wonderful guy.

Yes, I could identify with T.J. He was a friendly, professional, honorable character. They never told me what T.J. stood for. I made up my own name: Thaddeus Joshua.

02. How do you feel about the shooting to SWAT? Which colleagues are you they got along particularly well?

Shooting SWAT was a lot of fun. We worked long hours but often we sat around long hours too. Filming can be very boring. You can spend 14 hours...for 2 minutes of finished film!

I got along best with Bob Urich. He was a good and sweet man, very kind, not a typical big-ego actor, and I miss him very much, to this day.

03. Why was the series cancelled after Season 2?

The rumor was that Aaron Spelling didn't like the violence (though he had created the series!). The truth was that he traded our show for Starsky and Hutch because he had too many shows on ABC at the time; and Aaron didn't like Steve Forrest very much, as he had tried to take over the show and make it all about Hondo, though the fans liked the three young guys much more: Street, Luca and TJ.

04. Do you have still contact to Mark Shera or Rod Perry? Was you an Bob Urich freinds over the series?

I haven't seen Mark or Rod since the show. Bob and I were friends after the show, and his wife Heather too who was wonderful. She was in Sound of Music, did you know? Heather Menzies. Very lovely and good woman.

05. In 2003 was in the cinema a remake from the show with Samuel L. Jackson and Colin Farrell. Have you seen that movie? And Steve Forrest and Rod Perry played little cameo roles in it. Why not you? Would you ask?

I saw some of that movie, I thought it was okay although they made TJ the bad guy! Nicht gut! ;-)

The studio that made the SWAT film called me to do a cameo but they never called me back! When I heard they had already filmed it, I called to find out why they didn't call me again; they said they didn't want to pay for the airline ticket to fly me out from New York, where I lived! Can you believe that? I was very hurt and angry...I would have paid for my own ticket just to see the guys again and do a bit part!

It can be a very cold, hard business, the film business. Which is the main reason I didn't stay in it. Too much ego, money consciousness, selfishness, not enough human kindness.

When SWAT was canceled, the studio never even called to tell us. I found out from Steve Forrest's agent, who wanted me to switch to her agency! Amazing.

06. Today your name is James Lawrence. In SWAT was it James Coleman. Why the changing?

Long story. I was adopted when I was 5 years old. I never knew my real father until I was 17. His name was Philip Lawrence. When I got the SWAT role of TJ, I took the stage name Coleman so I would not hurt my stepfather's feelings...he had adopted me. But after SWAT, my wife got pregnant and I wanted my children to have my real birth name. So I changed it back to James Lawrence. You are one of the very few people in the world who know that story!

07. Your last role was in 2012 in "Powers Rangers" in a speag role. Do not work as an actor?

That's a mistake online. There is a voice actor named James Lawrence because I stopped working in film more than 20 years ago - that James Lawrence is not me.

08. You are now a Writer. What are your favorite work, that you do? Why the changing from an actor to an writer?

When the show was cancelled, I had two children to feed, SWAT was canceled, and I needed work. I tried for a few more years and got a few jobs: Magnum PI, Rockford Files, Wonder Woman; the film The Final Countdown with Kirk Douglas, which was fun, etc...but not enough to support a family, so in 1983 I started writing about hang gliding for magazines, because I was a hang glider (drachenflieger?) pilot.

Then I became a power airplane pilot, learned photography and also became a magazine photographer, was an editor for Plane & Pilot and Outdoor Photographer magazines, and I worked in that way for more than 30 years. I shot more than 600 airplane covers for P&P. I also wrote four books: Plateau Light, California, Wild L.A and Celebration of the Land, which is my favorite. The books were about famous nature photographers. Two of them one the Benjamin Franklin best nature book of the year awards.

Now I am writing a science fiction novel series that I hope to finish this year, or early next. It is a big series and very hard...I feel like I am in school learning how to write!

09. Do you have still hobbys, that you do? I see on your pics, that you make sport by fly and something?

Yes, I fly Light Sport Aircraft, powered paragliders, hang gliders and I have flown 3 different electric powered ultralights. I love seeing good films. I went to Aero Friedrichshafen in 2015 and saw many wonderful European electric designs, which I wrote about for a magazine I was editing for awhile. I read a lot: novels mostly, some spiritual books too, such as Journey of Souls by Dr. Michael Newton about life between lives which I am very interested in.

10. Do you have a favorite episode in SWAT? And can you remember on a funny moment between you and Bob Urich?

I think the very first episode was my favorite. Everybody was new, we all worked well together, and I thought the series had a good chance to succeed. I think if ABC hadn't moved it around to different days (a very bad thing they do just to get ratings) we could have run many years.

I do remember many funny moments with Bob. One time, he came to the set with his hair all curly like mine. The studio went crazy. "What are you doing?" they yelled. "I thought TJ's hair looked so good, I wanted to try it." They made him go back to the hair salon and fix it and we had to wait a couple hours which cost a lot of money...tv production is very expensive. I teased Bob about that many times. He was struggling a bit with the show. He'd been told in the beginning he was going to costar with Steve Forrest, but Steve tried very hard to cut us all out of the show as much as he could. He was a very insecure actor. A nice guy...on the surface. But behind our backs, he worked very hard to make our roles smaller so he could be on camera more.

So Bob who was used to getting more footage became insecure himself for awhile. He thought they didn't like him so he was trying to figure out what to do to get more footage. But then he went on to Spenser and Vegas and did lots of super work. And I don't think he ever curled his hair again!
I loved Bob. A super guy.

Thank you so much for this Interview!