Call to Glory

Call to Glory
Genre	Action
Written by	Ronald M. Cohen
Directed by	Thomas Carter
Starring	Craig T. Nelson Cindy Pickett Elisabeth Shue David Hollander Gabriel Damon
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	23
Production
Location(s)	Beale Air Force Base, Marysville, California, USA
Running time	120 minutes
Production company(s)	Paramount Television
Distributor	CBS Television Distribution
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC
Original run	13 August 1984 – 1 February 1985

Call to Glory is an American television series that aired 23 episodes during the 1984-1985 TV season on the ABC-TV network. Starring Craig T. Nelson as a USAF pilot, Colonel Raynor Sarnac. In the course of its production run, it drifted away from its original reasonably authentic setting and storyline which was centered at Edwards Air Force Base in the early 1960s time period. The show was cancelled at the end of the season, because of low ratings (due to having to compete with the Top 20 hits Scarecrow and Mrs. King on CBS and TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes on NBC).

Somewhat inspired by the test pilot accounts in the Tom Wolfe book The Right Stuff, it was the first post-Vietnam War television show to portray the military in a favorable light.^{[citation needed]}

Heavily promoted during ABC's broadcast of the 1984 Summer Olympics; its pilot episode, which aired August 13, 1984, related to the U-2 flights over Cuba during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The pilot episode was filmed at Laughlin Air Force Base, near Del Rio, Texas, which was the Air Force's original U-2 base and where the initial U-2 flights during the Crisis originated, prior to their shifting to McCoy Air Force Base, Florida for the remainder of the crisis.

Much of the show's early episodes related to the loneliness experienced by wife Vanessa Sarnac (Cindy Pickett) while stationed on base and what she would do to spend time in productive pursuits while enduring the Antelope Valley's then more noticeable isolation from civilization. One of Mrs. Sarnac's acquired desert pursuits was painting - one of several realistic touches seen in the show.

It also helped start the career of actors Elisabeth Shue, who starred as the Sarnacs' daughter, Tom O'Brien as neighbor Patrick Thomas, as well as younger co-star Gabriel Damon, but also marked the last series for former child star David Hollander.

The series, produced by Paramount Television, aired from August 1984 to February 1985.

Trivia

• Craig T. Nelson received familiarization rides in USAF jets at Edwards Air Force Base during the filming of the series, including flights in the T-38 Talon, the F-4 Phantom II, and the F-16 Fighting Falcon. On one particular flight in the F-16, the aircraft suffered an electrical failure. Nelson and his pilot prepared to bail out, however, the pilot was able to safely land the aircraft.

See also

• Edwards Air Force Base
• Antelope Valley

External links

• Call to Glory at the Internet Movie Database