In a third season episode of Starsky & Hutch ("Death in a Different Place") I played a bystander walking by a crime scene and wincing. The director told me not to overdo the wince, but I overdid the wince, and damn it, I knew it better than anyone. So I asked the director for another take, and he, David Soul and the actor who played Huggy Bear came over and told me to get the f--k out, the take was a keeper. "Fine," I said. "It's your funeral."
The Barnaby Jones crew was so much more professional. It took me half a dozen takes to get my liquor store owner character's raised eyebrow just right in season four's "Deadly Reunion" -- and guess what, Buddy Ebsen insisted I keep at it until I got it down. Mr. Ebsen was a class act.