Recovered from cancer, FSU's Urich is busy

By Joy McIlwain

Special to the Florida State Times

For one of TV's most familiar faces, his FSU football battles 30 years ago were child's play compared to the battle he has waged this past year. For now, Robert Urich is declaring a cautious victory over the rare form of cancer that felled him summer before last, suddenly sidelining his career and life plans.

Urich

"I'm not ill anymore," says the amiable actor, who holds Hollywood's all-time record for starring in the most TV series. "The doctors say there's no evidence of cancer or a tumor. But the experience has been a life-altering one. I've always felt that my priorities were in proper alignment, but this flirting with cancer has only reinforced my desire to live every day to the fullest."

Life was sweet for the 49-year-old actor in the summer of 1996, when he entered the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for a routine operation. He owned a beautiful 8,000-square-foot home in Utah and a secluded Canadian cabin. His two teen-aged children were doing well at Eastern schools. After more than 25 years in television, he had landed a part he had waited years to play - the mysterious Lazarus Man, a Southerner and Civil War renegade who had forgotten his identity. The show, produced for Turner Network Television, was preparing for its second season when the actor's world collapsed.

Instead of the benign cyst they expected, surgeons found an unusual soft-tissue cancer called synovial sarcoma in Urich's groin. Only 200 cases are diagnosed each year.

The diagnosis called for aggressive action. Urich's friend, Tennessee physician Dyrk Halstead, was enlisted to help, and the actor and his wife rented a house near the hospital to be close to his treatment. After six months of chemotherapy and radiation, hair loss, and yet another surgery, Urich was pronounced free of the disease.

But it had been at a high cost. Because of Ted Turner's concerns about Urich's health, the show Urich had waited for so long was canceled. And six months of chemo and radiation treatments had drastically curtailed the steady income he had grown to rely on.

All those changes led the perennial TV favorite to re-evaluate his career path and life style. Maybe now was the time to tackle some of those other challenges he had always wanted to take on. To that end, Urich and his friend Dr. Halstead launched Computer Sentry Software, a company that designs and produces security devices for personal computers. He's also considering more film work, and he has the rough outline of a book he wants to write about his day-to-day experience with cancer.

But the television industry wasn't finished with Urich.

While he was still in treatment, an offer came out of the blue to introduce and narrate a compelling new series. The hour-long episodes were to feature re-enactments of stories of people who had survived life-threatening medical events against overwhelming odds. The segments also offered the actor a forum to discuss his own illness and to encourage viewers who might be encountering similar difficulties.

With the actor's own medical ordeal still fresh in audience memories, he would lend the series a credibility and humanity no other personality could match.

In the first of six episodes aired Feb. 17 on ABC, shortly after Urich's second round of treatment, he chose to go bald, rather than wear a wig, a decision that brought viewer comment.

One such letter was from a five-year-old boy Urich talked about in one of the segments. The child, whose hair had fallen out from an immune disorder, had written a letter to reassure him that it was "OK to be bald." His mother's accompanying letter told the rest of the story. The child had endured taunting from other youngsters and had been upset about it until he saw Urich on Vital Signs. Then he decided it was "cool" to be bald. Concluding the episode, Urich looked straight into the camera. "You're right, A.J.," he agreed with a grin. "It is cool."

The future of Vital Signs is currently in doubt. Although it aired again in June and July on ABC affiliates, production is suspended. It may continue to return for reruns, however.

In the meantime, Urich is busy in his new role as computer-company executive (in addition to his degree in radio and television from Florida State, he holds a management degree from Michigan State University) and is deeply immersed in other acting projects.

Shortly after finishing Vital Signs, he starred in 13 episodes of Boatworks for PBS, a series about people and boats.

He continues to be host of Turner's National Geographic: On Assignment; is shooting a remake of the classic, Captains Courageous; and is set to star in a series of westerns for the Family Channel.

Since the actor's cancer was caught early, he has a 95-percent chance of beating the disease. He won't be considered cured, though, until he has been cancer-free for 10 years. He's working hard to make sure that happens, walking and swimming laps daily and visualizing himself as his former energetic self.

"I try to project myself into the future - healthy, strong, on that (Lazarus Man) horse," he said recently.

Or, he might as well have said, "back on the FSU football field."

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