LARRY BLAMIRE'S STAR TURN
SERIES: THE ROOKIES Episode: “Three Hours to Kill” Guest star: Jacqueline Scott Role: Rita King
Original airdate: 2/12/73
Jacqueline Scott’s career began near the start of TV’s Golden Age and she quickly estab- lished herself as a fine character actress with enough stretch for leads. Genre fans may recognize her from William Castle’s MACABRE (1958) or as Cliff Robertson’s unhappy wife in “The Galaxy Being,” the pilot episode of THE OUTER LIMITS, but she’s probably best remembered as Richard Kimble’s de- voted sister on several episodes of THE FUGITIVE, or for her genuine and earthy portrayal of the title character in the GUNSMOKE episode “Abelia,” about a tough frontier widow surviving with her children— a role so successful that, in an unprecedented move, two more episodes were written about her. With all these accomplishments under her belt, why the hell am I talking about an episode of an often goofy Aaron Spelling cop show from the tail end of the Golden Age? I will explain. THE ROOKIES was a not-very-credible cop fan- tasy that bordered on soap, almost counter to the gritty realism of concurrent 1970s cop movies.
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Occasionally, however, they did grab a hint of that flavor, and thanks to Hal Sitowitz’ savvy script and Michael Caffey’s tense direction, it’s on display here. We also have a rare instance of television giving us an effective female desperado.
In “Three Hours To Kill,” an armed Rita King attends a police awards ceremony intent on offing the aging captain (Bill Williams) who put her man, Claude Samples (KING DINOSAUR’s William Bryant), in the slammer. Before she can act, the captain collapses with a perforated ulcer, so we soon find her hatching a plan to hold his operating room hostage, demanding the release of Claude, a helicopter, and 100k. Assisting her is Claude’s brother, small time criminal Arnie (Paul Carr), in it strictly for the cash.
But not Rita. With a taunt, Arnie perfectly en- capsulates her motivation: “With the man you love in the joint, and the man you hate dead, what have you got to live for?” This is a woman driven to ex- tremes by love and hate. As I stumbled on this epi- sode recently, I reveled in a Jacqueline Scott I’d never seen. Her ferocity and intensity are a revelation as she hands us a character buffeted by emotional typhoons.
Scott is fascinating from the start. We first see her checking her gun in the car with Arnie at the wheel and they have a sly rapport—Arnie laughing that he’ll burn rubber at first sign of trouble, her
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