You Never Know: A Memoir (2024)

Tom Selleck’s memoir is more career based so not a ton of talk about his personal life although you do get a good sense of he is as a human being. Given he’s been a working actor for over 50 years the book is a fascinating read. It’s very detailed starting with his early days as he managed to nab some bit parts in tv and movies and thru his entire run of starring on the hit tv show, Magnum P.I. My only criticism is not much is written about his career post Magnum, a few pages devoted to Blue Bloods but that’s about it. I was surprised he didn’t discuss his guest appearances on Friends. Still though it was an enjoyable read as I love learning about the tv and film industry.

Thank you Dey Street Books for sending me a free copy! All thoughts expressed are my honest opinion.

It was just okay. Or Oh-kay as Selleck wrote repeatedly in the book which drove me crazy after a while. There was far too much about every single episode of Magnum, P.I. and not enough about his personal life. I didn't really need to know about every script revision or the changing of the show runner or writer. So it was a bit dull.

hot dad idc

easy going autobiography of Tom Selleck from his college days through his various film/television career , found it interesting in parts

There was a lot in this book that I liked. I enjoyed hearing about how he got started and about the people he has worked with. There were some really interesting stories.

I did find it a bit repetitive. There were many phrases that were used over and over. But what was really disappointing was that I was most wanting to read about Blue Bloods, and he didn't even mention the show until the epilogue. If Magnum P.I. is what you want to read about, this is your book.

3.5 stars rounded up.

It is a very sugar-coated biography. He seems to like everyone he comes into contact with and works with. I get the not wanting to burn any bridges thing, but a little truth would have been nice - refreshing really. There is very little about women or his love life which was disappointing.
How anyone can this memoir “candid” is beyond me. Interesting read if you are a massive fan of Magnum P.I.

By no means comprehensive and lacking in the kind of gory details people may expect, this book was exactly what I wanted it to be. It covers his early life and his long, slow climb to stardom but the lion’s share of the book is focused on Magnum (my favourite show) and a select few of his movies that he starred in while shooting magnum. He pays the most attention to his first feature film “High road to China”which is a really great movie that never found an audience.
The book pretty much ends at the end of the last season of magnum, skips the 90’s and 2000’s all-together and has a brief epilogue about blue bloods.

Perfect.

There's a comfort level to Selleck that reminds you of many actors who made their bones on network television... nothing revolutionary, but you can watch them act and know you will be entertained. This book is like that. It isn't too profound, but you aren't disappointed by what's in here. Is it the best thing ever? Nah, I think James Garner's autobiography is better. But I can see picking this up again in a couple of years, and whiling away a few hours revisiting Selleck talking about Magnum, PI.

A very refreshing book. Tom Selleck will always be Magnum to me. Even though I was too young to watch the series or remember a single episode fully, everything I have seen him in over the decades, my first thought is always it Magnum.

If you are looking for a tell-all, name, and shame story, this is definitely not the book for you. I say this book is refreshing because it is almost universally accepted how toxic and cut throat the film industry is. Here Tom shows another perspective the camaraderie between actors coming up, the joy and excitement of creating great movies or tv series.

These experiences might be coloured by Tom's humble personality, thinking the best of people or his mindset to always make the best of every situation he is in. This makes Tom Selleck an extremely likeable person. Yes, serendipity and luck had a hand in his success, but he is the one who "layed the bricks," learned his craft, and did his best in the situations.

Tom keeps his personal life (and army career) very close to his chest. He hardly talks about these except key milestones. He does give full credit to all the people he worked with and met over the years. One thing that made me lose a lot of respect for another actor was in their autobiography. They wrote a chapter where a veteran actor (who they name) saved their life by getting stuntman to do a stunt before them, the stuntman that dies his their place is not named. The fact that Tom did name people who took bumps for him or (indirectly) pait the ultimate price for him is a great show of humanity.

This book spans from Tom's serendipitous start in acting to the final season of Magnum. His post work after that is done in a chapter of him looking back. This is an excellent book, of a good person, but also sees good in others, but is not afraid to stand his ground.

I'm sad to say I'm really disappointed with this book. I love Tom Selleck and had been looking forward to this book. However it was 300 odd pages with a blow by blow account of every episode of Magnum, a paragraph about Three Men and a Baby, one line about Three Men and a Little Lady and absolutely nothing after the end of the 80's. I get that he was Magnum and that's what made him, but he did so much more that was so memorable. Where was In and Out, where was Richard from Friends? I'm so disappointed that none of that was covered? Does it mean there will be a second book or does he consider Magnum to be the only thing worth talking about. I would have liked a bit more personal life also as after college years there wasn't much from that either.

I chose to read this book because as a Friends fan I always loved Richard Burke and Monica together.
Sadly I don’t think Friends is mentioned in this book but I am still enjoying learning about him.

Selleck tells his story from high school through the end of Magnum. Mr. Baseball and Quigley Down Under are mentioned just once. The Jesse Stone movies are not mentioned at all. The epilogue is all about his ranch which once belonged to Dean Martin and Blue Bloods which has eclipsed Magnum in episodes and seasons.

He was screwed by CBS. No sooner did he get his first leading man role as Magnum then he was selected by Lucas and Spielberg to be Indiana Jones. CBS could have allowed him to do it but exerted their contract. Rather than be angry or bitter he just moved on. He achieved the rank of sergeant in the infantry of the California National Guard. He was even in OCS but got disenrolled by a general over his haircut. He moved on over that too. He learned to pick his battles and considered James Garner from Rockford Files a mentor. He was in his mother's car as a senior in high school when it ran off a cliff on Mulholland Drive and went down 200 or so feet. No seatbelts then. He and his two friends walked away. Talk about lucky. Lucky Man might be a better title for this book. Pretty insightful into his philosophy of hard work, no complaining, moving on, and picking your battles.

“I know what you’re thinking…..

As a lifelong Magnum PI fan - I have admired Mr. Selleck’s work since he first smiled at the camera and then fishtailed the Ferrari into our lives.
This read is simply a great read and well worth the time.
Thank you for sharing this with us.

Very nice memoir for fans of Tom Selleck. What a true gentleman who didn’t let them change him. I read the book but then thought it would have been nice to wait for the audio version and listen to Tom tell his story.

I really enjoyed Tom's book, he gives a lot of insight into his life, up to and through the end of Magnum, PI. His next book might be titled, "You Just Never Know", covering his time from the end of Magnum PI to the end of Blue Blue Bloods. The first half of the book, takes you through his life, growing up in South California and going to college at USC. Well, at least being registered for classes at USC, but sleeping until noon made going to classes a challenge for Tom.
Tom started doing ads and commercials and his agent got him an interview with a studio actor training program. He got more commercials, some small walk-ons for TV, and bit parts in movies. After landing an audition for a TV movie, "The Sacketts", Tom's career was on the rise, and after guest starring on "Rockford Files", he landed the lead on what became "Magnum, PI", set in Hawaii. Along the way, he had several failed pilots, but he "kept laying bricks" and he finally got his huge break.
The second half of the book is pretty much dedicated to his successes and frustrations with being the MC on a top-rated TV show. Part of his frustrations were self-inflicted, by doing movies between seasons of "Magnum, PI" and hosting and attending award shows throughout the year. He also took on the role of producer, stretching his days late into the evening, it's almost like he's becoming a bit of a control freak. Tom says warm and wonderful things about all the people he has worked with over the years, his biggest frustration/disappointment being the loss of his head writer after the third season.
I personally enjoyed his movies, "High Road to China", "Lassiter", and "Three Men and a Baby" which were filmed when "Magnum, PI" was on hiatus. Tom really did push his limits filming those pictures in Europe and Canada, so far away from his home base in Hawaii, kinda like self-inflicted wounds. While filming in Hawaii was great, traveling to and from LA for meetings and industry events, put a crunch on his time doing a weekly TV series. As a big fan of "Blue Bloods," I'm sad the series might end next year, at the same time, I expect Tom to "keep laying bricks," and looking forward to his next opportunity.

I enjoyed the book but would have liked to read more about Blue Bloods.

I can’t rate this book because it was a DNF for me. I was about 175 pages in and although Selleck seems like a very nice, genuine and loyal person I was bored.

It was interesting hearing about bits of his younger days growing up in the valley in California, but just far too much about old auditions with people I just don’t know and really did not need to know.

I got as far as his start as Magnum PI and since I never watched the show I just could not go any further.

I did speed read through the book to catch glimpses of Blue Bloods and Friends, but found no Friends and very little about Blue Bloods. Of course, like I said I WAS speed reading so it is entirely possible I may have missed some things about each.

Mostly, from what I did read, this is just a nice, sappy story that seems a bit sugar coated about the Life and Times of Tom Selleck, just without any juicy details. He speaks highly of everyone. I do so love a good Spill the Tea session in a biography, but this was more like Sip the Tea and endure someone going through their life story, but leaving out any drama. We ALL have Drama…it’s what makes up Life!

If you are a Big Magnum PI fan or a super huge Tom Selleck fan this book may be just what you want.

It’s well written and I don’t know if it comes in the audible version but I do so love TS’s voice, so that may have helped, but if you are looking for back stage stories about his current work this book may not do it for you.

Sigh….. for me I suppose it’s just Blue Blood reruns in my future until sadly the last episodes of the series drop.

Tom Selleck doesn't disappoint. This book confirms why we love him and admire him. His moral fiber, fair-mindedness, and work ethic are evident in everything he does.

I am a fan of Tom Selleck so nice to read his memoir. He keeps his memoir "Nice" no dirt slinging. He writes of the first 50 years of his life. Writing of his happy childhood, born in Michigan but mostly grew up in California. he writes of his career. Of course his years on Magnum P.I. a good read for those who like the actor. I hope he writes another memoir that continues his career and other acting roles in his career.

As a memoir this book lacked anything personal and revealing. Every actor he worked with was great or really great, everyone was a "friend". Either he has no insight or he doesn't want to share it so why write a memoir?

This is an often-mediocre and extremely limited career memoir that spends the first third on his really dull pre-fame years living in California, then has a surprisingly detailed and lengthy section on Magnum P.I., but Selleck intentionally avoids anything too personal. The book basically ends in 1988 with only a couple of pages mentioning Blue Bloods, leaving the reader to wonder what about the other projects he was involved with over the past 35 years? Or almost anything about half of his adult life?

Selleck writes, "There are a lot of things I'd like to share...but I won't." He adds, "When I undertook this project, I made a commitment to share my private, personal emotions and feelings primarily about my work." Get it? This is intentionally about his work, not his private life. But even then he falls way short of covering most of his career.

So if you're looking for details about his many alleged affairs while he was married to his first wife, you'll be disappointed. He barely mentions her, then says nothing about anyone else he dated or slept with until he meets his second wife. Or if you want something about his bad reputation for being very, shall we call it, "picky" when dealing with others in Hollywood, you won't see him apologizing for that here (though he does jab at a couple of the people that created and produced Magnum P.I., then in the final pages jabs again at those involved behind-the-scenes with Blue Bloods).

The first third is so boring that I'd recommend you just skip to page 138 (though I realize no one will do that). He doesn't get to Magnum premiering on CBS until almost 200 pages in. You have to decide if you're willing to take that long quiet walk with him. There are only a couple paragraphs about his childhood. His high school and college years, as well as the first ten years of his career, are insignificant but verbose and written in such a way that I literally dozed off a few times getting through them.

Not until he receives the Magnum script (which he's not interested in), along with the amazing simultaneous offer of doing Raiders of the Lost Ark, does the memoir shift into temporary overdrive. Those fifty pages covering the conflict between the two offers, along with a few other chapters later in the book about making Magnum, are riveting. There are a few surprises included. If only the entire memoir could have been that interesting and vulnerable.

Once he becomes an overnight success with Magnum, Selleck comes across early in the first season as a jerk who thinks he knows what's best for scripts or how to produce a show (though he has never been the lead in a TV series before). He also thinks himself to be more important than he really is by avoiding people wherever he goes, hiding himself from others and never accepting the public part of fame. A lot of people around him tolerate this but can't be happy about it, especially his agent, publicist, lawyer and in-laws--all of whom were not told about his clandestine marriage to his second wife, finding out about it a month later in the tabloids. Doesn't Selleck see that his way of hiding only encourages more media gossip that he claims to so much hate?

In one eye-rolling section he says about starring in Magnum and making movies during the summer, "A lot of (film) actors may have been in a series earlier in their careers, but as far as I could figure, no one else was trying to do it at the same time." Namely, he thinks he's the first performer to star in both TV and movies simultaneously. Funny how he forgets John Travolta, who just a few years earlier did Welcome Back Kotter while making Grease and Saturday Night Fever. Or Dick Van Dyke having one of the top sitcoms of the 1960s while starring on the big screen in Mary Poppins and other films.

No, Tom wasn't the first, nor the greatest. Most of his movies really weren't that big anyway (the exception being Three Men and a Baby topping the box office just months before the Magnum finale was #1 in the TV ratings).

While devoted older Magnum fans will love the bulk of this being about the original series, this misses the mark in terms of a well-rounded memoir. Selleck claims to forget an awful lot of details about some very important moments in his life. His guard is way up and he fails to answer many of the questions fans have had about him over the years. I'd even say that in some ways this raised even more questions in my mind about his social life or why he runs from public view. What exactly is this guy hiding?

At his heart Selleck is simply a second-string high school and college athlete who wants to be one of the guys on the team, always feeling a bit insecure about stumbling into the profession of acting without any true preparation for it and uncomfortable with the attention that comes with fame. As he says too often throughout, he just wants to "do good work" and "keep laying bricks." The problem is that with this book "you never know" what the workhorse laborer is really like.

Tom Selleck has written one of the better star/celebrity memoirs. Unlike some famous people, Selleck doesn't take himself too seriously and he generously gives credit where credit is due to those who helped him along the way. His memoir follows a traditional chronological format and actually offers some worthwhile and serious reflection on his more than 50-year career as an actor, writer and producer. A significant portion of the book covers the lengthy lead up to and actual eight seasons of his career-defining role as Thomas Magnum on Magnum, PI. Even though I don't recall watching any of the series, I understand now that the show broke new ground in how a series could develop characters extensively and offer backstories about Vietnam veterans that most shows couldn't and didn't touch. My husband and I have been fans of Blue Bloods, Selleck's current successful 14-year series that doesn't win Emmys like Magnum,but continues to attract big and loyal audiences. Selleck had a cowriter for this memoir, but the voice is entirely Selleck's -- unpretentious and direct -- just like his character, NYPD Commissioner Frank Reagan on Blue Bloods. I learned a lot about television/movie and the acting world from a reliable source. Definitely a good read.

I have just finished reading a very good and detailed memoir by the actor Tom selleck. It tells you how he began his career in Hollywood and television and how he became the biggest box office success he is today.

Loved it. I want to rewatch magnum from start to finish

I’m generous with 3 stars. He said early on this book is about work not about his personal life. Why write a memoir!

I really enjoyed reading this memoir, but I am also a big Tom Selleck fan. This enters strictly over his acting career through to the end of Magnum, with just a bit of Blue Bloods at the end and has the feel that he really had a hand in putting his thoughts and memories to paper, even though another author helped. If you’re a Selleck fan, and particularly a Magnum fan, then you will love this memoir.

This book was 80% about his life on the 8 seasons of Magnum PI with a few movies and walk ins in between. I liked him in Jesse Stone movies that he never mentioned. I really like him in Blue Bloods and he only talked of that in last chapter. That series has run longer than Magnum. I was a little disappointed.

I have been a fan of Tom Selleck for years. I spent my teen years glued to the TV watching Magnum (I’m leaving off the “P.I.” as Mr. Selleck does). I adored watching him as a jewel thief in Lassiter. I love Three Men and a Baby and his scene where he reads the graphic account of a boxing match to baby Mary. I envied Monica on Friends as she got to date my teenage crush. I faithfully watch Frank Regan and his family solve crimes and have Sunday dinner on Blue Bloods--and I will be incredibly sad when the show ends. And Tom Selleck is the reason that my poor husband has never been allowed to shave his moustache (sorry, Brian!).

So, for me to rate his memoir two-stars? If you know me and you know my love for Tom Selleck, you know this is incredibly painful. While I appreciate Mr. Selleck’s desire to keep his personal life personal and focus on his career and acting work, reading this account was just plain tedious. Until his stories about Magnum began, the timeline jumped from here to there back to here and over to there. It was incoherent and often difficult to follow. Constant references to “my friend (fill-in the name of celebrity)” and “bricklaying” and the (nonexistent) actor’s handbook where so numerous I started to groan when I read them again and again. I still have a hard time believing that it took me two and a half weeks to read his book. I had expected to sail through it quickly then pass it off to my mom to read.

Fans need to be aware that the memoir ends with Magnum. There are a couple mentions of Blue Bloods but, if one was unfamiliar with Tom Selleck’s vast catalog of work, you’d think he stopped acting after he lifted Magnum’s eyebrows the last time. Yes, he said he wanted to step back and live a private life with his wife Jillie Mack. But there are 35+ credits listed on iMDB.com between Magnum, P.I. and Blue Bloods including his entire catalog of Jesse Stone westerns. I guess this means there will be a sequel memoir. Will I read it? Well, yes, because Tom Selleck . Will I buy it? Nope. I purchased this one but I’m not keeping it—nor am I sharing it with Mom.

I loved this book. I've been reading some heavy stories lately, and this was a welcomed break.

Here's the thing, I'm Team Richard on Friends. It is what it is. It wasn't until reading this book that I suddenly realized I haven't really seen much of Selleck's other works. He only appeared in nine episodes, but I've seen that show so many times, my brain assumed I knew the guy. Whoops.

This book is focused on his career and doesn't get too deep into his personal life, which I respect. His career and life are fascinating. Like this man literally had a secret plan to go play at a volleyball national championship game in Memphis when he was on an important trip to DC. Who does that? So cool.

I've never watched Magnum, but feel like I need to. Same with Blue Bloods. I did finally watch Three Men and a Baby this weekend, though!

I didn't expect to read about Cats (the musical), Princess Diana, and Sam Elliot all in the same book.

It was also fascinating how he (in his words at least) was a strong negotiator and figured out how to improve scripts and projects in a professional manner. Negotiating isn't my strong suit, so I enjoyed reading how he built his confidence in that area, and really how he focused on continually getting better at whatever he wanted to.

This read almost as a career advice book and was just pleasant because Selleck seems patient, analytical, and caring about those around him.

A few favorite quotes:
🎬 Risk is the price you pay for opportunity.
🏐 You can’t control the outcome, but you’re fully in control of the effort.
🌟 It doesn’t matter how you think the performance went. If the audience liked it, say thank you.

3 ⭐️⭐️⭐️. Let me start by saying I am a big fan of Tom Selleck. I am always leery of reading memoirs and autobiographies because I’m afraid it will change my opinion in a negative way (especially for actors). I’m happy to say that is not the case with this book. He is still one of my favorite actors.

The reason for only 3 stars is because the book is mostly about his career and not much about his personal life….and that’s okay because it’s nice to hear about how someone became who they are but I guess I just expected a little more about his personal life to get a better feel for who he is as a person, not just an actor. Another disappointing thing for me was that there was no mention at all of his time on Friends and very little about Blue Bloods. The pre-Magnum info was interesting but I had hoped to read more about the shows I was familiar with…so of course I enjoyed the Magnum chapters…just felt a little bored with some of the rest. Don’t get me wrong I’m very glad he didn’t write a book bashing other actors. He honestly seems like a very kind person. I might not feel like I “know” him more after reading this, but I still absolutely think he’s one of the best in the movie/TV industry.