Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!
This week, Jonathan meets a man who is desperate for money.
Episode 3.20 “The Hero”
(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on February 18th, 1987)
In desperate need of dental work that the VA refuses to pay for, disabled Vietnam veteran Joe Mason (James Stacy) considers stealing money from work and spends his time getting drunk and getting into fights in parking lots. Luckily, Jonathan is his new coworker and is able to show Joe that he truly deserve to be called a hero.
This was a standard Highway to Heaven episode but some people will find it interesting just because it features James Stacy. Stacy was the former star of the western series Lancer, the one that played a central role in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. (In that film, Stacy is played by Timothy Olyphant.) In real life, Stacy lost both his left arm and his left leg when he was hit by a drunk driver while he was riding his motorcycle. (Stacy’s girlfriend at the time was killed.) Stacy continued to act, appearing in roles, like this one, that were specifically written to include his disability. Stacy was nominated for a few Emmy Awards after his accident and he gives a good performance in this episode.
Unfortunately, James Stacy’s career did not have a happy ending, as he struggled with alcoholism after the accident. He retired from acting in 1991 and four years later, he pled “no contest” to inappropriately touching an 11 year-old girl. (I’ve come across a lot of different version of what happened, with some saying it was a misunderstanding and others saying that it definitely wasn’t. What everyone does seem to agree on is that Stacy was drunk at the time.) Due in court in California, Stacy instead fled to Hawaii where he attempted to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff, just for the wind to slam him into a ledge below. Stacy, who had been looking at probation, was instead sent to prison for six years. After his release, Stacy lives in seclusion until his 2016 death.
Stacy’s appearance on this episode is another example of Highway to Heaven giving work to veteran actors who were not necessarily working on a regular basis. In many ways, this show was like The Love Boat or Fantasy Island, in that its guest cast leaned heavy on nostalgia. Landon was a Hollywood veteran himself and one gets the feeling that one of his main motivations for doing this show was to help out his friends and acquaintances, the ones who weren’t necessarily at the top of Hollywood’s casting list anymore. The use of so many veteran actors, even someone who eventually became rather problematic like James Stacy, just adds to the earnestness that was this show’s defining characteristic.
Through the Shattered Lens 