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. In the Heat of the Night became so popular in its season 2, Tuesday night time slot on NBC that ABC pulled HEAT's competitor 'Moonlighting' out of its lineup and replaced it with its hottest new series 'Roseanne.' . It took 20 days to film In the Heat of the Night's season 1 pilot. It was March 3, 1992 when NBC canceled both Matlock and In the Heat of the Night due to a combination of 'low ratings' and the desire to reach a younger audience. At the time, ITHOTN did well in Nielsens by ranking a respectable 28th among 112 series that season. Carroll O'Connor disputed the claim that Heat was canceled, stating that they asked for more money and NBC wouldn't provide it.
Since ITHOTN wasn't under contract for another season with NBC, O'Connor said they accepted a deal with CBS. Shortly after, NBC came out with the story that they dropped In the Heat of the Night. It was February 18, 1992 when CBS announced that it had acquired the rights to In the Heat of the Night to debut the series' 6th season that fall as six two-hour telefilms, with the option to renew as a weekly series. NBC quickly refuted the claim by announcing they were still in negotiations. CBS, however, claimed that Executive Producer Fred Silverman had gone to them to declare that the show was in fact available. But it was then MGM Chairman David Gerber who stated that after many requests to NBC for an answer regarding a renewal, NBC told Gerber that he would have to wait until the network made up its mind. With an offer from CBS on the table for an initial 6 two-hour telefilm deal, Gerber stated he couldn't risk having nothing happen with NBC and had to make the practical move to CBS for the sake of the show.
Two weeks later, NBC officially announced it was dropping ITHOTN (and Matlock) due to low ratings. Introduced and performed by Ches Collins (Bobby Short) in the episode, 'Ches and the Grand Lady,' (S7/Ep16) the song 'Gray Sundays In' was lyrically written by Carroll O'Connor. After production for Season 1 came to a close, Canton, Mississippi had become a strong contender for the series to relocate and commence production with Season 2. But when Canton was no longer in the running, producers decided to smooth things over by naming Lois Nettleton's new character, Joanne St. John, after the Canton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau's Executive Director Jo Ann Gordon.
Harriet Delong Gillespie
Alveda King, who briefly portrayed the mother of Gaylee - the Sparta High cheerleader involved in the fatal drunk-driving accident - is the eldest niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It was November 18, 1992, when 'A Frenzied Affair' premiered as a two-hour movie, marking it as the 100th episode of In the Heat of the Night. It was November 6, 1993 when Carroll O'Connor and Denise Nicholas filmed the interracial marriage of Bill Gillespie and Harriet DeLong for the season 7 episode, 'Dangerous Engagement'.
This made them the only mixed couple in a primetime television dramatic show. It was a little more than two weeks after the O.J. Simpson murder trial verdict, when WGN Television dropped a scheduled rerun episode of In the Heat of the Night's season 2 classic 'Walkout' from their October 20, 1995 programming. After the network observed the uncanny correlation between the grisly elements of the episode's storyline and the trial of the century, WGN officials decided that the timing would be inappropriate to air O.J.' S one and only appearance on HEAT.
Harriet Delong Actor
In reference to the powerfully dramatized season 3 premiere episode 'Rape,' Anne-Marie Johnson once said that she was glad In the Heat of the Night didn't go for what she described as 'a titillating Charlie's Angels' rape' that could have been a how-to guide for rapists. She credited co-producer Nancy Bond's first-rate script that allowed Anne-Marie to devote a substantial amount of her performance to the guilt that rape victims often feel after the offense. Bond interviewed 32 rape victims in various stages of recovery for background, in addition to various psychologists before writing the script. Heaters remember the late veteran actor Claude Akins as the vengeful father who kidnapped the D.A.' S daughter as revenge over the death of his son who committed suicide in the pen after losing a parole bid. Cast and crew remember him as a multi-tasking foodie with selfless lunch-serving capabilities.
Before serving himself, Akins donned an apron each lunch break and served the cast and crew from a food truck during the entire shoot of the season 5 episode, 'An Eye For An Eye'. Akins said he did it to show appreciation to the crew for their hard work on the series. Have you ever asked yourself, 'What ever happened with character Patrolman Junior Abernathy from the first season of In the Heat of the Night?'
According to LeBlanc, Carroll O'Connor had informed him that beyond season 1 he was replacing Christian with his son Hugh O'Connor to be closer to him. While seven scripts were written for the 8th and final season of In the Heat of the Night, only four of them went to production. In the Heat of the Night made its CBS debut with the season 6, two-part opener 'A Small War.' Sims 4 eve body.
In the Heat of the Night closed out its five-season run with NBC by ranking a respectable 29th among 123 series aired during the 1991-92 season. Heat's transition to CBS came at a time when the network ranked No. 1 while Heat's former home ranked no.
CBS had desired more development of romance for supporting characters. The 39th Annual Eddie Awards nominated Buford F. Hayes for season 2 episode 'The Hammer and the Glove' for 'Best Edited Episode from a Television Series' by American Cinema Editors, USA (1989). In 1992, veteran actor James Best, known to millions as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane from the CBS television series 'The Dukes of Hazzard', won a Crystal Reel Award for 'Best Actor in a Dramatic Series' in view of his portrayal of retired sheriff Nathan Bedford in the season 5 episode 'Sweet, Sweet Blues'.
Season 2 premiere episode 'Don't Look Back' originally aired as an NBC two-hour telefilm entitled 'In the Heat of the Night: The Case of the Voodoo Murders'. This movie would later become edited as a two-part. television episode and renamed 'Don't Look Back'. 16 million viewers tuned in for Heat's second season premiere, according to Nielsen. Robert Goulet, who portrayed fictional country music crooner Eddie Larran in the season 6 episode 'When the Music Stopped,' used a six-string Martin acoustic guitar from Randall Franks' personal colle ction. Interestingly, he didn't even know how to play guitar.
It was Mike Rogers and his band Steele Road who performed on the season 5 episode Love, Honor and Obey. The featured song 'Bullet of Love' was written by singer and songwriter Mike Rogers. Mike still receives royalty payments from BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.) for every rerun of this episode. Many of the scenes in the season 5 opener 'A Woman Much Admired' were filmed in downtown Long Beach, CA. The Long Beach locations are supposed to represent Gulf Port, Miss.
It was September 17th, 1989 when Carroll O'Connor won an Emmy in the 'Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series' category for his role as Chief Gillespie on In The Heat Of The Night. This was his first Emmy in the dramatic field.
Lois Nettleton was nominated in the 'Supporting Actress in a Drama Series' category for her role as Joanne St. Pops was in Covington, Ga., dozing off while reading a book on Robert E.
Lee and Ulysses S. Grant when he received a call informing him of his win. Early in the series, Sparta, Mississippi had a population of 11,700. Toward the end of the series, Sparta had a recorded population of 30,000. Barbara Lee-Belmonte who portrayed Newman County Sheriff's Deputy Christine Surillo (Seasons 7 & 8) is married to Heat co-star Harvey E.
Ken Covey, Seasons 6-8). They actually didn't meet on the set of In The Heat Of The Night. They met in Los Angeles after Harvey had already established himself as Officer Covey. They became engaged and kept it a secret until after Barbara landed her role on Heat. When they revealed their engagement to Carroll O' Connor, he was pleasantly surprised and told them they get to keep it in the family.
Elisabeth Omilami who portrayed Mrs. Earl in season 2 episode 'Gunshots' and Mrs. Willins in season 3 episode Citizen Trundel: Part 1 has been married since 1985 to Afemo Omilami whom Heaters know as Jimmy Dawes. More than $1 million was spent on each of episode of In the Heat of the Night, with 40 percent going back into Covington and the Atlanta metropolitan area. Dee Shaw once said she had misgivings about Alan Autry going to work with native Atlanta comic Brett Butler on the ABC sitcom Grace Under Fire be cause she'd had heard Butler was difficult to work with. But after viewing episodes of the sitcom, Shaw observed that Alan never looked better and both he and Butler had a great chemistry on the show.
Carroll and Hugh O'Connor were classic car aficionados. After Hugh's untimely death, Carroll decided to live out their dream of opening a classic car restoration business and named it Carroll O'Connor's Classics. Season 3 debut episode 'Rape' was written by series co-producer Nancy Bond, who interviewed 32 rape victims in various stages of recovery for background. During a bar scene in episode 'Accused' (S02/Ep18) the producers wanted Bubba to have a beer in front of him.
Alan Autry refused by stating that he wanted Bubba to have iced tea since his character didn't drink. Producers suggested that all rednecks drank booze. Autry gave them two choices: Let Bubba drink iced tea, or get another actor. They eventually put the iced tea in front of him. This fit Autry's no-alcohol lifestyle reality and Bubba's recovering alcoholic past. When In the Heat of the Night was prepping for season 1 production in Hammond, LA, the role of Virgil Tibbs came down to Howard Rollins and Richard Roundtree. While Virgil Tibbs was offered the position of 'Chief of Detectives' by Sparta Mayor Jim Findlay during the Pilot episode, it was episode 'First Girl' (S3/Ep04) that Chief Gillespie referred to Virgil's rank as 'Captain.'
. Carroll O'Connor insisted that everyone on the set call him 'Pops'. It was April 26th, 1994 that Howard Rollins a/k/a Virgil Tibbs pleaded guilty in State Court to driving under the influence of cocaine while on a suspended license. He was sentenced to six months in jail, fin ed $3,000 and ordered to stay out of Georgia counties Rockdale, Newton, Walton and Morgan where In the Heat Of the Night filmed. The sentencing judge indicated to Mr.
Rollins that the court felt Rollins needed a change of scenery, and that maybe in some other part of Georgia or the United States he could 'start anew.' When asked by reporters about the sentence, Rollins replied, 'It was fair.' . Season 5 episode 'Odessa' is Denise Nicholas' (Councilwoman Harriet DeLong) screenwriting debut. She wrote a total of 6 episodes for In the Heat of the Night. It was episode 'Heart of Gold' (S04/Ep06) that a new hair artist for In The Heat Of The Night decided to give Randall Franks (Officer Randy Goode) a different look. Given that Heart of Gold was one of Randall's prominent feature appearances early in the series, he did not particularly like how his hair looked on camera.
It was at this moment when Randall had come to the realization of how much a hairstyle had to do with how an actor is seen by the public. Carroll O'Connor's pen name 'Matt Harris' came from an Irish ancestor of his who served as a British Parliament member from Galway around the turn of the century. Bill Gillespie's dog, Beauregard, was a black Labrador retriever with a speck of rottweiler. Offscreen, Beauregard's actual name was Hunter. Hunter knew about 100 tricks and liked to play with tennis balls for motivation. Most viewers never noticed that Beauregard didn't have a tail - he had it docked while young. The biggest challenge the series had with filming Beauregard was the lighting.
If it wasn't just right, Beauregard could barely be seen onscreen, especially on the dark couch in Chief Gillespie's office. When the series relocated to Covington, GA, Carroll O'Connor's ITHOTN stand-in, Grady Spradley, was actually not the first choice to double as Bill Gillespie. At the time, James 'Red' Palmer, owner of Major Appliance, was initially approached for the position before turning it down.
So the job went to Palmer's appliance salesman, Grady Spradley. He was paid $125.00 per day and earned up to $300/day whenever Gillespie's role involved a stunt. In the season 7 episode 'Every Man's Family', Alan Autry's daughter, Lauren Autry, makes a brief appearance as the girl who asks Bubba for her Frisbee back. After having spent 5 seasons on the series, GeoffreyThorne quietly left In The Heat Of The Night over his discontentment with how he believed the series was not using his character Willson Sweet. The series eventually asked him to return to the series to get his character Willson Sweet 'killed off.'
Geoffrey told the producers that it would never happen. If you rearrange the letters in the words 'In The Heat of The Night' you can spell 'Heathen Thief Got Thin'.
How Did In The Heat Of The Night End
The TV adaptation of In The Heat Of The Night starring Carroll O’Connor and Howard Rollins celebrates its 30 th anniversary in 2018. But did you know that the story of chief Bill Gillespie and detective Virgil Tibbs has been going on for more than half a century?From book to film to television to stage and (maybe) back to TV, In The Heat Of The Night has become one of America’s most enduring stories. And the TV adventures of the Sparta, Mississippi Police Department – including Bubba ( Alan Autry), Parker ( David Hart), Lonnie ( Hugh O’Connor), Sweet ( Geoffrey Thorne), Randy ( Randall Franks), and Luann ( Crystal R.
Fox) – have become a getTV favorite.So pour yourself a Mason jar of sweet tea and enjoy these surprising facts!1. In The Heat Of The Night began as a novel.John Ball was a 54-year-old columnist and music critic when he wrote the whodunit In The Heat Of The Night in 1965. He was also a first-time novelist, which makes his Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America even more impressive. Ball would go on to write six more Tibbs novels, plus four short stories. The last novel was Singapore, published a year before the series began.2.
The film adaptation was the Best Picture of 1967.Screenwriter Stirling Silliphant adapted Ball’s novel for the screen in 1967, changing the setting to Sparta and moving Tibbs from the Pasadena P.D. To Philadelphia. Rod Steiger was cast as Gillespie and Sidney Poitier took on the role of Tibbs, with Norman Jewison directing. At the time, Poitier was best known as the first black performer to win an Academy Award for Best Actor (for Lilies Of The Field). Steiger took home the Best Actor Oscar for his performance, one of five the film won (including Best Picture).3.
Tibbs returned for two sequels.In 1970, Sidney Poitier returned as Tibbs for a follow-up film. They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! Gets its title from Virgil’s most iconic line (which he actually says in the first movie).
Tibbs is now a San Francisco cop with a wife (Barbara McNair), daughter (Wanda Spell), and son (George Spell ). Gillespie is not in the second film, nor are the actions of ITHOTN referenced. Tibbs was back again a year later in The Organization, a drug trafficking drama featuring Poitier’s final appearance in the role. Neither sequel matched the success of the original, and both ignore the issue of race (a key component of In The Heat Of The Night).4. The TV show was a sequel, not a reboot.Two decades after the film, Tibbs and Gillespie returned in the TV adaptation of In The Heat Of The Night produced by Fred Silverman Productions and MGM/UA for NBC. In the pilot, Virgil and his wife Althea ( Anne-Marie Johnson) come to Sparta for the funeral of Virgil’s mother.
“When Virgil came back to Philadelphia after his last visit he could hardly talk about anything else,” Althea says to Gillespie. Virgil mentions it’s been “a couple of years,” and their uneasy interaction duplicates the cautious comradeship Gillespie and Tibbs built in the film. The series ignores the sequels, except for Virgil’s twins, who were created for the movies and are born in season four.5. Simpson was almost cast as Tibbs.In an interview with the Academy of TV Arts and Sciences, O’Connor said he auditioned five prospective actors for Tibbs, including O.J. “Fred Silverman thought O.J. Was pretty good, very good in fact.
And Brandon Tartikoff (head of NBC) was pleased with O.J,” O’Connor recalled. “But I wanted Howard from the start.” Simpson would go on to guest star in a season two episode.6. O’Connor quit after season one.O’Connor’s contract stipulated that he would be story editor (using the pseudonym Matt Harris) as well as star. But “they wouldn’t let me change anything,” he said.
“So I told the studio, ‘I’m out. I don’t want to come back and don’t ask me. You’ve breached the contract.’” Only when executive producer Juanita Bartlett left did O’Connor return. After conflicts arose with her replacements, O’Connor himself was named executive producer for season three onward.
He also wrote the story or scripts for 27 episodes and directed three shows.7. There were two Spartas.Season one was filmed on location in the small town of Hammond, Louisiana. For season two, production moved to Covington, Georgia. There were no soundstages in Covington, so producers retrofitted two warehouses for standing sets like the police station. Covington would later “play” Mystic Falls, Virginia in The Vampire Diaries.8. O’Connor missed the end of season two due to illness.O’Connor was diagnosed with a life-threatening coronary artery blockage during season two and underwent sextuple bypass, forcing him to miss four episodes.
Joe Don Baker ( Walking Tall) stepped in as acting chief Tom Dugan. O’Connor wanted the show to explain his disappearance with a heart attack for Gillespie, but producers Jeri Taylor and David Moessinger refused, leading to their dismissal. Despite only appearing in 18 of 22 shows, O’Connor won an Emmy for season two.9. The series survived two cancellations.When NBC chose not to renew ITHOTN after five seasons in 1992, CBS quickly picked up the series. A year later, Rollins left and was replaced by Carl Weathers as new chief Hamilton Forbes. The series was cancelled (again) after season seven, only to return (again) for an eighth season of four TV movies. While there was no finale, season seven concludes with Gillespie marrying girlfriend Harriet DeLong ( Denise Nicholas).
That DeLong was an African American woman gives Gillespie’s story a touchingly redemptive ending.10. One of the stars of In the Heat Of The Night now lives in Sparta.
Sort of.After playing Cpl. Dee Shepard on ITHOTN for five years, Dee Shaw bought property in Covington. She later built a home, where she lives today. “I call it ‘The House That Carroll Built,’” she said in 2016. Covington also hosts cast reunions and location tours and maintains a ITHOTN museum at the the Newton County Visitors Bureau.11. In The Heat Of The Night lives on.In 2010, In The Heat Of The Night was adapted for the stage.
Theater Works production toured during the 2014-2015 season and the play continues to be produced nationwide. In addition, a contemporary TV reboot is in the works from writer-producer Joe Robert Cole. Cole’s previous project was FX’s American Crime Story, a docudrama about O.J. Simpson, the man who nearly played Virgil Tibbs.For more information.