HOLLYWOOD ICON TOM SELLECK - ON HIS 'ACCIDENTAL' ACTING CAREER, ROYAL ENCOUNTER AND IDYLLIC LIFE WITH WIFE JILLIE

He’s been gracing our screens for nearly half a century, but, unbelievably, Tom Selleck didn’t always have dreams of being an actor. In fact, he tells us, the mere thought of performing for an audience was once enough to send him into a cold sweat.

- SARAH TRUMBLEY

“Growing up, I was usually the shy kid who broke out in a rash if he had to give a speech in class,” the longtime TV star, 79 – who rose to fame in the early ’80s on the Hawaii-based crime drama Magnum P.I. – confesses to Hello! Canada. His true childhood ambition, he says, was to become a professional baseball player. “Or, when I was very little, I probably wanted to be a fireman,” he adds with a laugh.

It wasn’t until he got to college that Tom – a business major – was introduced to acting while taking an “easy A” American theatre history class to improve his grade point average. To his complete and utter surprise, the professor ended up giving him the name of an agent after suggesting that he’d be a “good type for commercials.” And the rest is history.

“It was a total accident,” he says, while looking back on his storied career, which he details in his new memoir. “It was serendipitous and fortuitous, and that’s why I named the book You Never Know. Because fate just kind of stepped in and gave me an opportunity.”

DANCING WITH PRINCESS DIANA 

Although the life of an actor isn’t one he ever pictured for himself, Tom feels lucky. “I’ve come to realize this is where I belong,” says the star, who’s found joy in playing myriad characters over the years, including Courteney Cox’s love interest on the beloved sitcom