We got the beat: Sam Melville, Georg Stanford Brown and Michael Ontkean, The Rookies
Question: I used to have a huge crush on Michael Ontkean, when he was on The Rookies (way before he was on Twin Peaks). What was his claim to fame before that? And before you even ask: Yes, I still have a crush on him.
Answer: You and half the girls in my second-grade class, Melissa. (Me, I had a thing for Kate Jackson, but no self-respecting boy of that age would've admitted girls were anything but really gross back then.)
Ontkean, who, as you say, would go on to play Sheriff Harry S. Truman on Twin Peaks in 1990, was an actor and, of all things, a hockey player in his earlier years.
Before playing the role of Officer Willie Gillis on ABC's Rookies from 1972 to 1974 (his character was replaced by Bruce Fairbairn's Officer Chr
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