Perfect Brit?

Press, 3 July 1985, Page 15

Perfect Brit?

He appears the perfect English gentleman — cultured accent, courteous, well educated — and he has been called a credit to Britain. But John Hillerman, “Magnum P.l.’s” Sergeant Major Higgins, is, in fact, American. As he tells his British fans: “I hate to disappoint you, but I’m a hick from Texas.” Hillerman’s cultural voice was nurtured and trained at New York’s American

Theatre Wing and is what is called “standard American stage speech.” It is very like the English voice, but with such subtle differences that if it is not done properly it really does offend the ear. Hillerman does the accent so well, however, he has even passed the supreme test. At a cocktail party some 8.8. C. buyers came rushing over to him. “As they reached me, one said: ‘John dear boy, your accent was simply smashing. The only thing wrong with it was that you hit the bloody too hard. We throw it away, you know.’ So I immediately knew that if I got the imprimatur of the 8.8. C. I was going to be all right,” says Hillerman. With numerous stage and film credits and 75 television shows behind him Hillerman is probably best remembered as radio star and super sleuth Simon Brimmer in the 1975 M.C.A. television series “Ellery Queen,” as Betty White’s battling ex-husband and director John Elliot in the 1977 series “The Betty White Show,” and most re-, cently in frequent appearances on “One Day At A Time” as Bonnie Franklin’s boss, Claude Connors.