1980s TV Shows: A Trip Down Memory Lane With…Keith Szarabajka (Mickey Kostmayer in “The Equalizer”)

Exclusive Interview by Karen Beishuizen
Photo credit Matthew Ransom

“The Equalizer” was an action crime television series which aired on CBS from 1985 to 1989. It ran for 4 seasons and 88 episodes. The series starred Edward Woodward as Robert McCall. People in need could contact him through a newspaper ad that said “Got a problem? Odds against you? Call the Equalizer: 212 555 4200”. Keith Szarabajka played Mickey Kostmayer, a former Navy Seal, who helped McCall in his cases.

KB: “The Equalizer”: What was the show about?

“The Equalizer” was a one-hour TV show about an ex-CIA agent who sought redemption for his dark undercover past by coming to the aid of people in need of his kind of help, which usually involved well-planned, surgically applied violence.

KB: How did you get the part as Mickey Kostmayer?

I auditioned for it like any other part. It most probably helped that Maurice Hurley and Joel Surnow who wrote the particular episode I auditioned for, (Season 1, Episode 3: “China Rain”), also wrote the episode of “Miami Vice” in which I guest-starred during its first season (Season 1, Episode 8: “The Glades” as Joey Bramlett). Richard Compton, who directed “China Rain” (and many others), became a lifelong friend.

KB: What did you like about the character and how did you make it your own?

I liked how low key Mickey was, but still very capable, cocky and athletic. He very much was a mirror of myself at the time. The costume designer would mostly copy what I wore every day, though sometimes she would put little frills in that I would rather have done without. I always felt like I could either walk onto the set from the streets of New York or walk back onto the streets of New York from the set without really changing clothes. I was kind of into extreme sports at the time, like rock-climbing, scuba diving and parachute jumping. I got certified as a scuba diver while doing “The Equalizer” (in Hawaii on vacation not while working) and also jumped out of perfectly good air planes for fun. I also dated actresses at the time, which is another extreme sport. One for which I paid dearly in broken hearts, several of them. Mickey, you may recall, got shot every time he kissed a girl on screen. Cosmic justice?

KB: What was it like to work with Edward Woodward?

Edward was a consummate pro and a perfect gentleman. We became lifelong friends. I stayed several times at his home in London after the show closed on my many trips to the British Isles for other jobs. I remember one episode in which Edward was constantly on the phone with the writers in L.A., trying to get a particular speech cut that he found over the top, a speech about the lake of fire around which lost souls supposedly resided by in hell. In the end, they wouldn’t cut it, so he went out and did that speech like it was top flight Shakespeare. It was a true lesson in how to do the job.

KB: How did a week on the set looked like from getting the script to filming?

We would finish shooting one episode one evening (sometimes early morning), and the next morning/day plunge right into the next one. We didn’t have table reads usually, though we did get to see the scripts prior to shooting. Usually our schedule was pretty intense but overall well-managed. As you can imagine, a lot of night shoots till dawn. It lasted pretty much for 34 weeks, from usually late June until March/April of the next year (except when Edward had his heart attack during the third season, which was also shot slightly differently as there was a writers strike scheduled for that summer.

We shot five episodes at the end of season two right away for season three). I was young and full of vim and vigor (and it, some would probably say) so I didn’t really mind. Hey, I was an off-Broadway actor getting paid pretty well to work on the streets of New York City (the greatest city in the Unted States, if not the world). Or so I felt at the time. I still do feel that way. Most of the time. I miss it a lot sometimes. But life goes on, no matter how much we protest to the contrary. I have made peace with my life.

KB: Where was the show filmed?

On the streets of New York and on location around the Five Boroughs (every one of them at one time or another, even Staten island, I think) and the suburbs of northern New Jersey, often In Hoboken. We also had some interior sets built in our main base in the upper 50s off 11th Avenue and 58Th Street in an old slaughterhouse, which I found somehow appropriate.

KB: Do you have a favorite episode?

“China Rain” (Season 1, Episode 3) which was the first episode I did. It was pure Mickey and defined him as a character and a person and charted his relationship with McCall. It was filled with intense action and great interchanges between Edward and me.

KB: I read that you also wrote episodes for the show?

I never wrote an episode of the show, sorry. I did sometimes improvise (a skill learned from my time training in Chicago at The Organic Theater Company of Chicago with people like Stuart Gordon (our artistic director), Dennis Franz, John Heard, Meshach Taylor and Andre DeShields among others who were all my mentors. I was “The Kid” there for six years. I got to travel all over the US, and to Amsterdam at The Mickery Theater (Ritsaert ten Cate was the Artistic Director there) plus a trip to London with the Organic in 1975 doing “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” part one and two (I was Tom Sawyer first and several other characters, then later Huck).

Also twice to New York, once on Broadway with “Warp!” and then off-Broadway with “Bleacher Bums”, a nine inning comedy play about Chicago Cubs baseball fans of which I actually was a writer and in the original cast. It’s WTTW PBS version won an Emmy. Ignore the Showtime version. It was terrible, as MLB wouldn’t allow the use of any trademarked names like Chicago Cubs or St. Louis Cardinals. Let it drop…We made a bunch of money from it as writers, but it’s best left forgotten.

KB: Looking back now would you have played Mickey differently?

I would have liked to do more action stuff and have a deeper relationship with a female. That and do every episode. I did 17 of 22 the last two seasons (though only 12 in season three (I will explain about writers and characters they create later), eight in the second season and four in the first season. Remember, I was a single episode hire originally, but Edward and I got along so well, that I got promoted. One other regret I have is that after the first season, new writers would come in and try to create a new Mickey type character with a different name or sex or race or species every time they wrote a new script. Sometimes I would get relegated to saying, ”What?”, eight times in an episode as a result. Sometimes I wouldn’t be in the episode. But I did get paid for the five I missed at the end of season three. Contracts are sacred, as my agent told me, “Don’t quit.

They have to pay you for every episode for which you’re contracted but don’t appear”. I was mad and did want to quit. Edward made sure I stayed on the show, and then things got better. Remember, tv writers were/are rewarded for creating a new recurring character by getting paid every time that new character they created was used in a new episode whether they wrote the subsequent episodes or not. So the new writer(s) had a big incentive to figure out how to get rid of or work around me. I ‘m sure that they would deny that happened, but it was certainly apparent to Edward and me. No hard feelings. I just wish I’d been able to do more.

KB: How do you explain that the show is still so beloved even after 45+ years?

Is it? I tried to watch the new “Equalizer” with Queen Latifah but couldn’t do it. Sorry. I do know that when I go to fan conventions for other shows I have done, (“Angel” and “Supernatural”), that someone always brings up Mickey. I’m very proud of that character and the work I did with Edward, Robert Lansing, Mark Margolis and all the other recurring and guest stars on the show, even with the ones for which I got shot on the show after kissing.

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