A Very Belated In Memorium: Wesley Lau

This is two months overdue. I felt very bad when I realized that I had completely, inadvertently missed the date of Wesley’s death. I decided to post it now both because it is the 30^th (Wesley passed away on August 30^th, 1984) and because this coming week is when we think a great deal about the dead. It seems an appropriate time to remember another dear friend long gone.

Quite a few of the cast members died far younger than they should have—both Williams were also cut down in their prime. More information is available on them; by contrast, it is almost impossible to discover anything about Wesley Lau’s death—and his life, for that matter.

I am not happy with changes, particularly changes in the cast of a beloved show. I had long been leery of these other detectives who came in when Ray Collins’ decreasing health forced him to slowly begin to back out. But at the same time I was curious, especially since I knew that at least one of them, Andy, was supposed to be more permissive and genuinely friendly. (I love Tragg so very dearly, but sometimes it’s hard to know when he’s being friendly for real and when it’s just a façade.)

I believe I saw both Andy and Drumm years ago, but the memories had not stayed with me. Recently I “re-met” Andy in, I believe, The Golden Oranges. Aside from being quite an awesome episode in and of itself, I found I liked Andy. It was interesting to see a younger detective, more contemporary with Perry and company. And I was surprised and amused to see him admire a pretty girl with Paul.

While I liked Andy, however, and continued to do so, I had not fully accepted him as one of the regulars. Strangely enough, it was when I saw Wesley Lau portray the troubled Amory Fallon in The Impatient Partner that I realized I liked him and Andy very much, more than I had previously thought. I welcomed Andy with open arms at last and began looking up some of Wesley’s other roles.

It seems that, aside from Perry, he often played villains. I watched an episode of Bonanza entitled Desert Justice, in which he fools the Cartwrights into thinking he is a good person when in actuality he deliberately caused the death of a federal marshal’s wife and quietly taunts him about it when they are alone. It was a very different performance, but very chilling and very effective.

Wesley played other good guys too, however. Twice he played law enforcement officers on Alfred Hitchcock Presents. And he starred as a World War II pilot possessed by an Egyptian pharaoh in an episode of One Step Beyond. There are others as well. From all that I’ve seen, he played both good and bad guys marvelously.

Wesley’s Perry character was originally not conceived as being his own person so much as he was a replacement for, or at least assistant to, Lieutenant Tragg. By Wesley’s own admission, many of his early episodes had him speaking dialogue that was written for Tragg. It definitely shows. In The Left-Handed Liar, he has an extended conversation with David in which he parrots Tragg’s speech pattern and words. And at the end of The Melancholy Marksman, when he walks in on Della and Paul role-playing what happened during the murder and Paul says that now Della’s dead, Andy comments, “Aww, what a pity.” I can just hear Tragg saying that. It is not a Lieutenant Anderson statement. Nevertheless, Wesley handled these early episodes well, delivering the material he was given in a professional and realistic way.

By season 6, commonly pinpointed as beginning in The Hateful Hero, Andy is finally being written as his own person, not as Tragg’s surrogate mouthpiece. Though hints of his unique personality came through before, now he is truly allowed to shine. But while perhaps more permissive in some ways, he is still not going to tolerate any bending or breaking of the law. And though the writers were eventually worried that he was too friendly and they needed someone more by-the-book, Lieutenant Drumm in season 9 is honestly just as friendly (even though yes, he’s by-the-book). So with that in mind, I can’t understand why they kicked Wesley Lau off the show. I miss him in season 9, although I’m fond of Drumm too.

According to one article I read, Wesley was married with a small child when he first began playing Andy. He was grateful for the steady work, as the money was certainly needed. He and his wife felt he looked terrible in hats, and he tried to wear one as little as possible. I disagree with them; I think he looked awesome and dashing in that fedora. But then, I'm probably biased. I think everyone looks good in them!

I don’t even know how or why Wesley Lau passed on so young, in his early sixties, in 1984. His gravestone has a beautiful epitaph that reads “Beloved husband, father, actor, writer, friend, soldier, reader of books, and believer in the human race.” And to that, all I can really add is that he is loved and missed by many, including fans old and young.