Kojak

Telly Savalas as Theo Kojak

Kojak was a US detective TV series which ran between 1973 and 1978 on CBS, starring Telly Savalas as bald New York City policeman Lt. Theo Kojak who had a fondness for lollipops and the catchphrase: "Who loves ya, baby?" Kojak's Greek heritage, shared by actor Savalas, was prominent in the series, which was one of the most popular television programs of the mid-1970s. At work, New York City's Thirteenth Precinct, he had several working partners who always trusted and had supported him as their favorite boss: Cpt. Frank McNeil (Dan Frazer), Sgt. Bobby Crocker (Kevin Dobson), and Det. Stavros (George Savalas, Telly's younger brother, a.k.a. Demosthenes).

The character of Theo Kojak was introduced in a 1973 TV movie, The Marcus-Nelson Murders (in which his last name was spelled "Kojack"), and was popular enough that a series was quickly commissioned. In the early episodes of the series, Kojak smoked heavily; in order to reflect the anti-smoking sentiment then gaining momentum on American TV, it was decided that Kojak had decided to quit smoking, sucking on lollipops as a substitute.

Years after the series ended, Savalas reprised the role in a TV movie adaptation of the John Loftus novel The Belarus File (Kojak is not a character in the original book); this was followed by more TV movies, and in 1989–1990 Kojak returned to television as part of a short-lived rotating series of TV movies that also featured fellow sleuth Columbo.

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Music for the series and TV movies were written largely by John Cacavas (ASCAP).

Mario Puzo's original script for the 1978 movie, Superman, had a scene where a flying Superman is using his super-vision to look for bald criminal Lex Luthor. Identifying a bald head, Superman drops from the sky and then realises that it's Telly Savalas, who greets the hero with Kojak's catchphrase, "Who loves ya, baby?" This scene was cut from the final script.

In 1980, a low-budget Hungarian movie was made titled Kojak Budapesten (Kojak in Budapest) about Kojak (played by Savalas' look-alike László Inke, who had also dubbed Savalas' voice for the Hungarian distribution of Kojak) visiting the country and solving a murder case there. The film posits that Kojak is in fact a Hungarian immigrant to the US, and not of Greek extraction. The movie was both a parody of Kojak and a satire of the socialist system of Hungary.

2005 series remake

In March 2005, a new Kojak series debuted on the USA Network cable channel (and on ITV4 in the UK). In this "reimagined" version, Ving Rhames, an African-American actor, portrays the character. The bald head, lollipops, and "Who loves ya, baby?" catchphrase remained in intact, but little else remained from the Savalas original. The series lasted one season.

In the new series, the character is still called Lt. Theo Kojak, but a portrait from his early days in the police captions "Captain Theocrates Kojakias", suggesting that he shortened his (presumably Greek) family name.

Trivia

The series was a favorite of Archie in the comic Dinosaurs For Hire.
A perfect parking spot in a crowded area is called a 'Kojak', because the detective was always able to find a spot in the middle of NYC.
'Kojak' is the name of a dog who plays a prominent role in Stephen King's novel The Stand.
Parts of the set built for the 1989-1990 Kojak mini-series are still in use to this day as the squadroom set for Law & Order.

External links

[Savalas.TV] - official Savalas family website

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