Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service(73)
In spring 2007, one of the firefighters I’d met on that first day, Mike Hyland, took me out to Coney Island, to nearby MCU Park, where the minor league Brooklyn Cyclones play baseball. Work had begun on a memorial for the firefighters of Brooklyn killed on 9/11. Mike introduced me to Brooklyn-born resident Sol Moglen, who had dreamed up the idea to put beautiful panels with laser-engraved images of the first responders on the outside wall of the ballpark. About a third of the first responders killed on 9/11 had come from Brooklyn, and standing there, looking at the faces of the first responders who lost their lives, was very powerful. Sol explained how they wanted to expand the memorial to commemorate all 416 active duty first responders killed in the line of duty that day—including firefighters, Port Authority officers, NYC police officers, New York Department of State officers, New York Fire Patrol officers, responders from private emergency medical services, a canine rescue dog, and Father Mychal Judge, a fire department chaplain who was the first to lose his life at the Trade Center on September 11.
A total of 417 faces on the wall.
Right there, I offered to help them raise money to complete the memorial.
On August 11, 2007, I donated my band, and we put on a concert at Brooklyn College that raised the funds to enable the expansion of the memorial, today named the Brooklyn Wall of Remembrance. The first responders memorialized on that wall gave everything. On May 18, 2008, the memorial was finished, and I was honored to help dedicate the wall at a huge ceremony. Rain poured, yet everybody stood solemnly in tribute. It was an amazing day, underscoring what great people serve at the FDNY and what fine work they do. I’ll always feel honored and blessed to have been able to help them establish that memorial to honor their fallen brothers and sisters.
In 2011, for the premiere of CSI: NY season 8, I wanted to do an episode that featured the Brooklyn Wall of Remembrance and pitched it to our executive producer and show runner, Pam Veasey, who loved the idea. Pam assigned John Dove and Zachary Reiter to write the script. Both New Yorkers, John was actually a former New York City detective who was at Ground Zero on that terrible day. This script was very personal to them, as it was to me, and they did a fantastic job. We filmed the episode titled “Indelible” where Mac Taylor makes a speech at the wall. Art imitating life slightly, as Gary Sinise had made a speech at the wall on the day of the dedication. I suggested to our producers that we have a number of real-life first responders and their families standing with me in the scene, and they enthusiastically agreed. So I invited these special friends who had lost loved ones on 9/11 to be in the scene with me, with John Vigiano by my side. The premier date fell two weeks after the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and viewers tell us still today how much they love that episode. To me, it’s one of the best shows we did on CSI: NY, and one of the most special scenes I’ve ever done.
Initially, we’d received a six-year deal for CSI: NY. That’s standard. It’s not a guarantee your show will last for six years, but if ratings show promise, then you’re locked in for that time. About three or four years in, CBS started talking about adding another season. So my agents did a little renegotiating, and we added a seventh season to the contract. It went year by year from then on.
During all those years of TV work, I found the work honed my short-term memory. I could put lines into my head for a scene, deliver the lines, then almost erase my mind like a chalkboard so I could put new lines in for the next scene, then do it all over again the next day. The series as a whole is driven by plot, so we all needed to stay close to the scripts. You can’t really improvise forensic science, and the writers were very specific in how they wanted things delivered.
In the beginning, the show revolved mostly around the work of solving murders—the science, the clues—but as the series went on, we delved into the personal storylines for each character. Melina Kanakaredes starred with me for the first six years. We were in a lot of scenes together and had great chemistry, I thought. Sela Ward replaced Melina for the last three years, and she was terrific too. We had a wonderful team of writers and producers, an amazing crew, a fantastic cast—Eddie Cahill, Hill Harper, Anna Belknap, Robert Joy, A. J. Buckley, and Carmine Giovinazzo—and I felt blessed to be part of the show, deeply appreciative of how well it was received, and forever privileged to work with such an excellent group of people.
I had two linked setbacks on the show. Season 1, episode 21 featured a chase scene, shot on March 17, 2005, my fiftieth birthday. Carmine and I were working at night in an old subway tunnel in San Pedro, California. The two of us run after a suspect down a set of stairs into the subway. I warmed up and stretched out, and we did one take, then we headed back up the stairs and came running down for another take. Up and down we went. Take after take. On take seven, we were running hard down the stairs, and I still felt good, then whack—like a baseball bat walloped me in the back of my calf. I spun around to see if someone had kicked me, but nobody was there, and I collapsed on the floor in agony. Pain shot through my leg, and my whole body started shaking. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t put any pressure on my leg.
I was taken to a car and then to the hospital. I had a gastrocnemius tear in my calf muscle. It was very painful. The doctor gave me crutches, a wrap, ice, and morphine, and the driver took me home to the San Fernando Valley. It was a Thursday night, about eight o’clock, and nobody was home. Moira had taken the kids to a school event. I sat on the couch and put my leg up. I felt blurry, buzzing on the morphine. The house was empty, I felt miserable, and I couldn’t help but mutter, “So this is fifty. Happy birthday, bud.”