GIVE this guy an Emmy!
What guy?Martin Sheen, that ‘s who.
I was amazed to learn recently that Sheen,the Olivier of TV,has only won one Emmy in his whole life.And that was for a guest-starring appearance on “Murphy Brown ” in 1994. I ‘m sure he was terrific,but a guest-star Emmy for a television actor of his caliber has the hollow feel of a consolation prize. Incredibly,Sheen,64,has never won for playing President Josiah Bartlet on “The West Wing,” though he ‘s been nominated four times for the role.
And he richly deserves a fifth nomination this year for the work he did on “The West Wing ‘s ” just–completed sixth
season.
But he has richly deserved nominations and awards for years.Besides “The West Wing ” and “Murphy Brown,” Sheen has been nominated for Emmys only two other times,for playing a cab driver in “Taxi!!!,” a TV movie from 1978 written by Lanford Wilson,and for the title role in “The Execution of Private Slovik ” in 1974.. That picture – about the only U.S.soldier executed for desertion in World War II – is one of the best-remembered made-for-TV movies of its era.And that era,the early to mid-’70s,was a veritable golden age of TV movies,thanks in no small meas-
ure to Martin Sheen,who starred in many of them.
TV movies of that period were especially numerous due to ABC ‘s “Movie of the Week,” an ongoing series of mostly 90-minute telemovies that ran on Tuesday nights from 1969 to 1974.
In 1972,ABC added a Wednesday-night “Movie of the Week ” that also ran ’til 1974. The movies were so memo-
rable that people old enough to have seen them can still recite their titles.
Sheen ‘s best included “That Certain Summer,” “Letters from Three Lovers,” “Sweet Hostage ” and my two favorites,”The California Kid,” about a West Coast hot-rodder,and “The Story of Pretty Boy Floyd,” with Sheen as
the Depression-era bank robber.
And everybody remembers him as Attorney General Robert F.Kennedy in “The Missiles of October ” (1974)and,later,as John F.Kennedy in the 1983 miniseries “Kennedy.”
Today,Sheen is playing another president – one who is in his final year in office and also struggling with the pain and
fatigue of multiple sclerosis.
It should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed his career that he ‘s been doing a magnificent job on “The West Wing.” And this most–recent season was perhaps his best ever. If he doesn ‘t win an Emmy this time,it ‘s the Emmy voters who should be impeached.
