Pigskin to bare skin, we saw Bradshaw
Pssst. Wanna see Terry Bradshaw naked?
The former football star bares all in “Failure to Launch,” in which he co-stars with Oscar-winner Kathy Bates as the parents of a 35-year-old man (Matthew McConaughey) still living at home.
They’re reduced to hiring a woman (Sarah Jessica Parker) to seduce their son and induce him to leave.
Once he’s out, his room becomes daddy’s Naked Room.
In his playing days, the ex-quarterback got undressed innumerable times in locker rooms with plenty of people around, so he didn’t fret too much before walking to the movie set.
“It was fun to do,” says Bradshaw, 57. “I wish I was about 90 pounds lighter, but it was fun to do.”
Bradshaw has joked about being ugly, but that’s always just been shtick, he says.
“Now if I’m next to Matthew McConaughey, am I ugly? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I’m ugly. But so are you,” he says, laughing uproariously.
It’s been a quarter-century since Bradshaw appeared in “Smokey and the Bandit II” and “The Cannonball Run.” He has signed on for one other movie gig, and that’s only because Oscar-winning screenwriter Billy Bob Thornton told him he’s writing a dramatic scene especially for him.
He has made his name in sportscasting, first on CBS and now on Fox, after winning four Super Bowls with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Bradshaw, who lives in a Fort Worth, Texas, suburb, is signed to do “NFL Fox Sunday” for six more years. He also raises quarterhorses in Oklahoma and hopes to “eventually downsize” and spend a few months a year in Hawaii.
He openly talks about being diagnosed with clinical depression and ADHD – a combo, he says, that “makes for a pretty screwed-up dude.”
Bradshaw says he’s been through “tons of therapy” and Paxil CR has worked for him, but he’s been off it for eight months – which has led to some recent headaches, chest pains, rapid pulse and shortness of breath.
He knows he’ll get back on it, but in the meantime, he says, “I’ll just deal with it. I’ll just deal with it through prayer. I’ll just pray about it. Me and God. God’ll get me through this. … (It’s) not going to kill me.”
What’s the one thing people would be shocked to find out about him?
“That I’m quiet,” he says. When he golfs with friends, he says, “I’m not screamin’ and hollerin’ – I hardly say a word.”
The football Hall of Famer feels some people always will think of him as the Bayou Bumpkin, even though no quarterback has more Super Bowl rings nor has done better on TV over the years.
“If Peyton Manning never wins a Super Bowl, he’s gonna be smarter than me. Elway, Montana, everybody’s smarter than me,” he says, then laughs:
“Yet I’m the one that’s on the ‘Tonight’ show.”
The birthday bunch
Singer Al Jarreau is 66. Singer-actress Liza Minnelli is 60. Singer James Taylor is 58. Actor Jon Provost (“Lassie”) is 56. Singer Marlon Jackson (The Jacksons) is 49. Actor Courtney B. Vance is 46. Actor Titus Welliver (“Brooklyn South”) is 45. Actress Julia Campbell is 43. Actor Samm Levine (“Freaks and Geeks”) is 24.