Luke Andreas

Lou Trevino from The Rockford Files Sylvester from The Rockford Files

Luke is from an interesting category. He started out being someone I liked by association. I was so chuffed with his screentime with Christopher Cary in The Rockford Files episode The Queen of Peru that it wasn't long and I was looking up his other roles in things.

It didn't take long to appreciate him for himself and not just as Christopher's partner in crime. He had an amazing talent! He could be serious, funny, whatever the script called for. His characters felt real, not cardboard cutouts or cliches.

Unfortunately, it seemed that most shows didn't really give him a chance to properly display his talents. Many times, he would appear for one minute and that would be it. Of course, even one minute was always a delight. And he could pack some absolutely priceless material into one or two minutes. One of his funniest turns was the recurring character Lou on Hill Street Blues, who provided the police station with vending machines and became distraught when he felt they were being mistreated. In his second appearance as the character, he tries to cart the machine out of the station on his back in a fit of hysteria!

The Rockford Files was one series that really gave Luke some meaty parts. The character Syl in the season 3 two-parter To Protect and Serve was so popular, they brought him back for a 75-minute special in season 5 entitled The Man Who Saw the Alligators. Luke and co-star George Loros actually have more screentime in the uncut version of the episode than James Garner!

It's interesting to see how Syl develops as a character during those ventures. In To Protect and Serve, he is quite sadistic while at the same time serving as the voice of reason for unstable hitman Tony Gagglio. In The Man Who Saw the Alligators, Syl seems to have gotten over that sadistic streak. He even keeps Tony from murdering that weasel Angel.

Lou Trevino from The Queen of Peru is my favorite Luke character, and certainly the one I've devoted the most time and energy on. I've written literally over one hundred short stories for fun involving him and Christopher's character Ginger Townsend. Unfortunately, one little problem is that before I saw the script, I spelled his last name Trevino, as per IMDB's listing. By the time I saw the script and writer David Chase's intended spelling (Trivino), I was so used to the incorrect spelling and had posted so many things using it that I opted not to alter that. And actually, I have to admit, I think the name looks better spelled the way Mr. Chase had not intended. Anyway, I don't consider everything in the script to be absolute law, especially since some things in it were altered in the episode itself.

It's interesting to note that I believe the first time I ever knew of Luke's existence was when I caught the last part of his Scarecrow and Mrs. King episode, which was another of the rare times when he had a very meaty part. I can't recall if I actually saw any of his scenes then (it was back when PAX aired the show around 2000), but I distinctly remember seeing the epilogue, and that means I saw the credits and his name. I find it really curious how many of my darlings I encountered in some fashion years before I really knew who they were.

Luke was a wonderful man whom we lost way too soon. While I search for people who knew him in the hopes of gaining interviews, I will post a little interview I found from the 1970s that includes him. He sounds like he had a fun, cute personality and was just as real as every character he played.