Sometime next season, Emmy Award winner Woody Harrelson may find himself looking for laughs on NBC`s ”Cheers” while his father, Charles, is convicted of murdering a Texas federal judge on ABC`s new ”FBI: The Untold Stories.”
The two fall series, scheduled at 8 p.m. Thursdays, could pit father and son in a bizarre face-off that has caught ABC executives off-guard.
”It`s a horrifying coincidence. I was totally unaware that that was Woody Harrelson`s father,” said Bob Wright, head of ABC`s West Coast publicity department.
Wright, informed last month of the Harrelson ”FBI” episode, called ABC Entertainment President Robert Iger, who Wright said was ”taken aback. He had no idea.”
ABC`s tape of ”FBI” that was sent to TV critics in June shows actor Pernell Roberts introducing and narrating a half-hour episode on the May 29, 1979, murder of San Antonio-based Judge John Wood, who was shot in the back.
Charles Harrelson, convicted of the murder on Dec. 14, 1982, is briefly interviewed on the ”FBI” episode and is played by an actor in dramatic re-enactments. Harrelson is serving a life sentence in the U.S. Penitentiary at Marion, Ill.
ABC`s Wright said: ”It just would make me cringe if people thought we would exploit this for reasons of a sleazy celebrity tie-in. My PR sense is such that it would look cold, calculating and publicity-seeking. I would just hate to see it air as the opening show.”
But Wright said the Harrelson ”FBI” episode is likely to be shown opposite ”Cheers” at some point next season.
”Unfortunately, it probably will air, just for economic reasons,” he said. Wright added that he hoped the episode ”would just slide by unnoticed in terms of any undue embarrassment to Woody.”
The Harrelson episode of ”FBI” was made before the show`s producers knew whether it would make ABC`s fall schedule and where it would air, if it did. ”FBI” is being paired on Thursday nights with ”American Detective,”
another half-hour crime series starring real-life law officers.
In a 1988 People article, Woody Harrelson, a native of Midland, Texas, talked openly of his father and described his conviction as ”a travesty.”
Father and son had been estranged since Charles left the Harrelson home when Woody was 7. But they were reunited after Charles was indicted on charges of murdering the judge. In 1987, Woody stood in for his father during a wedding by proxy to a woman he had known before being imprisoned.
”This might sound odd to say about a convicted felon,” Woody Harrelson told People. ”But my father is one of the most articulate, charming people I`ve ever known. I`m just now gauging whether he merits my loyalty or friendship. I look at him as someone who could be a friend more than someone who was a father.”
The ”FBI” episode portrays Charles Harrelson as a cold, calculating hit man who killed Wood as part of a business arrangement with the Chagra brothers, Jimmy and Joe. ”Maximum John” Wood was to hear a case against Jimmy Chagra.
An actor portraying Charles Harrelson is shown meeting with Jimmy Chagra
(also played by an actor) in a Las Vegas casino.
”You ever hear of Judge Wood?” Chagra asks.
”Listen, if I can help you with that, you just let me know,” Harrelson replies.
A real-life witness who placed Harrelson at the scene of the crime says he ”had eyes that were unlike anybody`s eyes I had ever seen before or since. They were so compelling. They were so piercing.”
Charles Harrelson, interviewed briefly at the end of the program, says,
”I have deep regrets about a lot of things, but I`m only ashamed of one thing I`ve ever done, and that was put cocaine up my nose. But I didn`t kill Judge Wood.”
The show, however, leaves scant doubt of his guilt. Charles Harrelson is portrayed as amoral and more than a little crazy.
Meanwhile, Woody Harrelson continues to make a far better name for himself, as simple-minded bartender Woody Boyd on TV`s No. 1-rated series. Neither Harrelson could have imagined that he might someday be caught in the crossfire of a prime-time ratings competition between ”Cheers” and ”FBI:
The Untold Stories.”
