The Circle Makes Its Rounds: ‘NCIS’ Producer Chas. Floyd Johnson on Military Service and Hollywood Success

Chas. Floyd Johnson may be one of the most prolific TV producers of which you’ve probably never heard.

The current executive producer for “NCIS” -- the longest-running, scripted, prime-time show in CBS history, which just hit its 1,000-episode mark in April 2024 -- Johnson is one of the first, if not the first, top-level Black TV producers in the industry. His career has spanned more than 53 years on numerous highly rated TV shows and projects, including “The Rockford Files” with James Garner, “Magnum, P.I.” with Tom Selleck, and “Quantum Leap” with Scott Bakula. Indeed, he is credited with more than 900 TV episodes, has been nominated for numerous awards and has won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series on “The Rockford Files.”

Before his success in the industry, Johnson earned a bachelor’s and law degree from Howard University before being drafted into the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. He brought his military service to bear on the sets of “JAG” with David James Elliott and Catherine Bell and “NCIS” with Mark Harmon and produced, alongside the legendary George Lucas, the feature film “Red Tails” starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard and Nate Parker. 

Today, Johnson credits his ability to get along with cast, crew and executives as one of the mainstays of his success. In an interview with Military.com, he reflects on his time in the military during Vietnam, his work on TV classics from “Magnum, P.I.” to “NCIS,” and the challenges he faced along the way.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Military.com: What are you most proud of in your career?

Chas. Floyd Johnson: “Having survived. I’m most proud of having survived and having the privilege of working with so many people over the years. Having gotten along with them and worked through the industry that I wanted to work in since the time I was 5. I think you see that in lots of people who talk about their lengthy careers. I got to do what I wanted to do. I wasn’t sure how to do it and had a little savings. I had worked in theater and for the U.S. Copyright Office in Washington, D.C. It was a 9-to-5 job. Most of my nights were spent working in theater, studying, acting and doing plays. I did local TV before I ever came out here to Hollywood on a wing and prayer. A lot of that involves having ambition and a belief in yourself. You need a lot of help along the way.  

“I’ve had such great mentors in the business. Stephen J. Cannell, Jim Garner, Don Bellisario, Tom Selleck, Burt Reynolds, Telly Savalas, Robert Conrad and Mark Harmon. I spent many years with Mark, and he is a wonderful guy to work with. I got along with everybody and was always asked back. I think except for strikes and a couple of periods, I have worked steadily since 1971. And I’m still working. I’m surprised I am still here and am working on a memoir. I did a documentary on civil rights leader John Lewis called ‘John Lewis: Get in the Way.’ I am getting ready to do a documentary on the Congressional Black Caucus and how it started in the late ’60s. They started with 13 congressmen, and now there are more than 50 congressmen and they are still together. I was one of the first people of color who produced nighttime TV drama.”

Military.com: What challenges did you face in life and the industry?

Chas. Floyd Johnson: “From an African-American producer’s perspective, there were always challenges about how to move forward, always protecting images in the business. African-Americans in our business have been vocal over the years. I tried to be a producer first and a person of color second. I never lost the fact I was a person of color. When I was leading a show, I had to be a producer for everyone. Even when dealing with issues of color in an episode, I couldn’t come at it with my personal view. 

“I always tried to come at it to make people understand what my thoughts were and positions. Some things needed to be corrected, and I was always trying to fight that battle diplomatically. I gained a lot of respect, because I operated in such a professional way. I was on the board of the Producers Guild of America, early on. I was a member of the Television Academy and on several committees there as well. I started the first award show, the Oscar Micheaux Awards, the predecessor for the PGA’s Celebration of Diversity Awards.

“You must be hard-working, willing to put yourself out there and keep pressing. Let people know you are serious, focused and not afraid of hard work. I think my diligence is why I stayed working, and being diplomatic and empathetic helped. I used to joke on ‘NCIS’ by leaving a sign on my door, ‘The doctor is in.’ You deal with lots of personalities on a show. I would like to be remembered as a nice guy.” 

Military.com: How did your military service help you in producing and writing?

Chas. Floyd Johnson: “Going into the second season of ‘JAG,’ I called upon my military experience. Being from Delaware, a small state, they didn’t have a big pool of people to draw from, so I got drafted and my draft number was 65. I graduated law school in June of 1965, and by October of 1965, I was in the military. I hadn’t taken the bar, so I had to go to basic training in Fort Jackson, S.C., and then they sent me to MOS [Military Occupational Specialty] training at Fort Gordon [now Fort Eisenhower] in Augusta, Georgia. I was trained to be a property officer, and upon graduation, I was sent to Fort Dix in New Jersey.

“When I got there, the Army had an enormous amount of Absent Without Leave [AWOL] cases. Stockades were overloaded with guys who went AWOL, and they were overburdened. The Army decided [that] instead of putting me into property, they put me into the Staff Judge Advocate’s office. So I went into the courts and boards division. Since I had a law degree, they told me, ‘You’re gonna run this office.’ I didn’t know anything about that. I learned the Uniform Code of Military Justice [UCMJ], special court-martials and summary court-martials. 

“I worked with officers on the panel with the judges, staffs of captains and lieutenants who were defense counsel and prosecutors. I also learned how to assign cases. Three months into it, I became friendly with all the officers and was a Specialist 5. They said to me, ‘We’re overloaded. We need help. You should come in and be a defense counsel.’ I told them, ‘I’m not a member of the bar yet, or an official lawyer.’ They said, ‘You don’t need to be. The UCMJ states you can be a defense counsel as long as you were requested by the defendant.’ 

“I was carted off to the stockade with the rest of the officers, and they got me three or four young men to be their attorney. That started my run of 360 court-martial cases in a year-and-a-half at Fort Dix. The cases were both special and summary courts-martial. We didn’t do a general courts-martial; that was up at the major headquarters. I learned how to do that, and when I got on ‘JAG,’ the show had been done as an action-adventure series on NBC with Harmon Rabb Jr., the main character, being a pilot and a lawyer. They had no permanent sets.

“[‘JAG’ creator Don P.] Bellisario decided he wanted to do expensive teasers for the show, where one whole day was taken up with the teaser. They were not making a budget and doing these expensive shows. [CBS CEO] Les Moonves bought it and wanted to do more of a legal show. I said to Don, ‘Let’s do a courts and boards division, which is what we need as that is what this is. We need to create permanent sets.’ I knew what they [permanent sets] were and how they saved you. When I was in Fort Dix, we were in a Quonset hut. We had offices at each end with the captains and lieutenants, and in the middle were the administrative people. I knew how to do that when I got on ‘JAG,’ and that is where art and life meet. 

“It was very serendipitous as Moonves wanted to do it that way and Don was fine with it. We suddenly had a permanent courtroom, offices and a place for people working. I would never have known that, having not been in the Army and having not had the experience. My military experience getting there was serendipitous. I didn’t join to go in to be a lieutenant or a captain in SJA [Staff Judge Advocate]. I was just going to be a property manager, and then I ended up running the office and the Army gave me an Army Commendation Medal for doing all that stuff. It was interesting, and then I was able to apply that.

“I’m not the greatest producer, but I learned how to get along with people and how to motivate them. I learned how to do esprit de corps, which is a gift for both working with crews and cast.” 

Military.com: What was it like working with fellow veteran Don Bellisario on so many hit shows?

Chas. Floyd Johnson: “I spent a lot of my career working with Don, and he got his start as a writer on the series ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep,’ which was a Stephen J. Cannell show. Cannell and I worked together on his show, ‘The Rockford Files.’ [Editor’s note: ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ was a TV show about Marine Corps Maj. Gregory ‘Pappy’ Boyington and his USMC Attack Squadron 214, ‘the Black Sheep Squadron,’ during World War II.] Don wrote a script; the agent loved it and sent it over to Cannell. Cannell loved it and hired Don to write for him. Don went on to do ‘Columbo,’ ‘Quincy, M.E.’ and ‘Battlestar Galactica.’ Then ‘Magnum, P.I.’ came around. I just read Selleck’s ‘You Never Know: A Memoir,’ and he spends the last 100 pages or so talking about [his] years on ‘Magnum, P.I.’

“In the book, Selleck mentions how influential [James] Garner was to him. He had appeared on ‘The Rockford Files’ with Garner as a character named Lance White. It was an incredible success that led to the execs at Universal wanting to use him in more shows. Selleck had done a lot of pilots, and Universal thought he was right for this ‘Magnum, P.I.’ pilot Glen A. Larson had written. Selleck wanted some changes to the script, and that’s when Don Bellisario came in. 

“[Tom] had a sense about what he wanted to do. Universal gave Larson’s draft to Don, and the rest is history. Bellisario rewrote the pilot about Vietnam War buddies who came home and did not show the effects of PTSD. They were adapted and integrated back into society. They weren’t broken, and they were just regular guys. Don was very much gung-ho about the military and showed it in a positive light. He created a good pilot, but I had not transitioned over to the show yet. 

“They ran into challenges with producing the show, as it was filmed in Hawaii and the scripts were written in L.A. This was before the internet or cell phones, so it was a challenge to get scripts coordinated and completed. One of the writers would have to get on the last flight out of LAX [Los Angeles International Airport] at 11 p.m. on Pan Am that arrived in Honolulu at 7 a.m. This is how changes in the scripts made it to the set, and if it didn’t get there, then you just didn’t have them.

“Selleck wanted the writing to be better, which led to me being called after completing the first season of ‘Bret Maverick’ with Garner. I was not working … and got a call to do [Magnum, P.I.]. I had many different offers, and then Don reached out and wanted help on his show. He said, ‘Hey buddy, have they called you about working on my show?’ I said, ‘No.’ He replied, ‘Well, they’re gonna call you because I want you on my show.’ They were looking for writers from ‘Rockford’ to come over, but they were already booked. The only person available from the ‘Rockford’ team was me. I had written some stories but was not a writer and not a member of the WGA [Writers Guild of America]. But they needed help, so I got drafted to go on ‘Magnum’ at the beginning of Season 3.

“I initially was going to be in L.A.; however, Don was running a tight ship. When I got into the show, a production member came up and told me that ‘... it’s two weeks from the airdate, and Don hadn’t seen an episode. What’re we going to do?’ I set up a screening to see it, and the next morning, I was informed the screening had been canceled. I asked, ‘Why?’ I was told, ‘Mr. Bellisario does not want anyone to see the show until he has seen it.’

“That wasn’t going to work for me, because we’re two weeks away. I got Don on the phone and asked him, ‘What do we do here?’ We talked, and I said, ‘I’ll go watch it, make some notes, and I’ll send the notes to you. You can look at them. I won’t change anything until I hear from you.’ That’s how we did it.

“After a few weeks in L.A., I was told to go to Hawaii because nobody knew me except Tom. Hawaii is a very particular place, and so I went. Tom’s agent and the head of TV came with me. Tom brought me script notes, and I would call the writers back in L.A. to make the changes. We did that for my first year, and I realized I needed a writer with me in Hawaii. I wanted a writer who could be there all the time, go on set, talk with Tom and work with the studio. The studio brought in Chris Abbott, and she worked on the show. We eventually agreed that every writer who had written the next episode [to be filmed] would come to Hawaii for the filming.

“Don went on to ‘Tales of the Gold Monkey’ and ‘Airwolf’ where I became the intermediary on the show [‘Magnum, P.I.’]. My friendships grew with people on the show and led to many fruitful partnerships. I eventually became an executive producer on the show, as did Tom. When I finished the show with Abbott in 1988, Don wanted us to come run his company. My next job was producing the series ‘B.L. Stryker’ for Burt Reynolds, and Tom served as one of the executive producers. The show lasted two seasons and 12 episodes, as it was in a weekly TV movie rotation on ABC. I helped to develop the title based on Burt’s first and middle names, ‘Burt’ and ‘Leon,’ which led to ‘B.L. Stryker.’  

“Tom, Chris and I formed a company after ‘B.L. Stryker’ ended, and we did several projects, pilots and movies for the week. This was from 1988 to about 1992, and then the phone rang again and it was Don Bellisario. They were in the fourth season of ‘Quantum Leap,’ and they were having challenges. Don thought I could come in and help them. I owe much of my career to Don. I’ve done five shows with him and have been on ‘NCIS’ since 2003. I did nine of the 10 years on ‘JAG,’ one year on ‘Quantum Leap,’ 5½ years on ‘Magnum, P.I.’ and then I did a short-lived series of his called ‘First Monday.’ 

“We went to work on Quantum Leap,’ and that year, Don decided to have the main character, Sam, played by Scott Bakula, jump into real people in history. We did Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Lee Harvey Oswald and a few others. It was an interesting year, and when I finished that around 1993, Universal approached me to do ‘The Rockford Files’ TV movies. The studio wanted the gang back together, so I was the head honcho of them. Stephen [J. Cannell], David [Chase] and Juanita [Bartlett] wrote the movies, but they didn’t do the day to day, except Juanita, so I had to get a whole new group of people. We got [Mike] Post back to do the music and most of the actors, except Noah [Beery Jr.,] who was ill at the time and passed away.

“[Agent/manager] Lou Pitt showed professionalism and kindness when I was a production coordinator. I knew agents in my position and wanted to check out the agent business. I would help find jobs for directors, writers and actors with agents and knew Lou from then. Lou took me to his agency and introduced me to people. They were ready to give me a job. I started out wanting to be an actor and fell into producing. At one time, I thought of working in business affairs as a lawyer. At heart, I wanted to be an actor and had gone to acting school out here. Being a lawyer in BA was a far cry from being an actor. Being an agent was a far cry from that as well. I didn’t want to get people jobs; I wanted the jobs. 

“One of my jobs as a production coordinator was on Rod Serling’s ‘The Night Gallery.’ I worked on it for almost a year and didn’t get to meet him. I did get to see a lot of stars on the lot, like Jack Webb doing ‘Dragnet,’ Cannell, Steve Bochco, [Alfred] Hitchcock and so many more. Bellisario was given the old Hitchcock office when he was doing ‘Magnum, P.I.’

“When I was finishing up the second season of ‘The Rockford Files’ TV movies, I got a call about ‘JAG.’ Years later when [producer] Howard [Kazanjian] was on ‘JAG,’ he left it and they asked me to work with Don again. I have traveled the world with Don Bellisario -- in Europe, Australia, Mexico and been with him socially in Italy. … We worked together for years, and we are still friends to this day.” 

Military.com: What was it like working on “Red Tails” with George Lucas?

Chas. Floyd Johnson: “I started ‘Red Tails’ with [George] Lucas in 1988. We didn’t start that film until 2008. We could never get a script that George liked. He wanted to do a dogfight movie. The initial people who he had as writers had a different vision for the movie. George wanted to cover important parts but wanted the air battles. HBO got a script they liked, and they called George up about five years into development. Development wasn’t every day; I was doing TV and was called at the end of ‘Magnum, P.I.,’ and they called me to go up to the Skywalker Ranch. We worked on the script for four or five days. Months would go by, and then we’d do it again. When HBO decided to do their film, they asked George if he wanted to do it, and he passed on it. He wanted to do a feature. HBO did a movie called ‘The Tuskegee Airmen,’ which was wonderful, and after that came out, George went to work on the ‘Star Wars’ prequels, which took him 10 years.

“We would talk occasionally about ‘Red Tails’ during this time, and I had never done a feature. When I was doing ‘Magnum,’ the phone rang one day and Charles McGuire, the production manager for Lucasfilm, called me. He said that Lucas wanted me to come to the [Skywalker] Ranch. I said, ‘That’s nice but why? I don’t do features. What is it?’ He said, ‘I can’t tell you. Mr. Lucas must tell you himself.’” 

Military.com: What else could you have done with your life?       

Chas. Floyd Johnson: “One of the things I wanted to do when I left law school was to be in a diplomatic role. Don used to say about me that, “You would be great in a diplomatic role.” I didn’t go that route; I was going to Johns Hopkins at the time and switched careers. I have always wanted to be in the business since I was 5 or 6 and knew nothing about it, except what I saw as a kid. Growing up, my mom was a schoolteacher and then an administrator. My father worked in the Air Force after he got out of the military as a real-estate manager for properties on bases. They were wonderful people and were both entrepreneurial. They had a soda fountain when I was 5 or 6, and it reminded me very much of the ‘Happy Days’ soda fountain. 

“An impactful sermon I heard as a child was: ‘The Circle Makes Its Rounds.’ The subtext of the message was that the good things in the circle of life reap their own rewards, and conversely, the things that we do that are not so good also get paid back in kind. I keep remembering the minister adding words like the following: ‘The things we do one by one come back to us two by two.’ The wisdom he shared has guided my actions in my life and career.

“We were the first family on a segregated block, and this was in the 1950s. We were the first people with a television on the block. All the people from the churches would come to the soda shop and watch the boxing fights with Joe Louis, Max Schmeling and all of those who were fighting. They would come and watch ‘The Ed Sullivan Show,’ too. I learned about TV through these experiences and then used to go to a little theater in my town, Middletown, Delaware. 

“I would go there on Saturdays, and we kids would have to sit on the balcony. The area down below was for white people. The town was segregated, and we didn’t integrate into schools until Brown vs. Board of Education [1954]. Now Delaware was not a heavily southern kind of state, but there were slaves in the 1800s. I don’t know if that was my family background, but I remember hearing my grandmother talking about working on plantations with her grandparents. 

“However, Delaware was segregated in its schools and public facilities. So we would go on Saturday, and the white kids would sit on one side of the balcony and we’d sit on the other. We’d watch Roy Rogers, and all the serials and Superman. I used to be one of those kids who sat on the white side, and the kids didn’t care like it was down below where the adults were concerned. There was a bar that separated the two, and I would sit over on the other side [white side] of the bar. My Black friends told me I would get in trouble, but I never did. 

“I was highly influenced by these experiences in the theater and on TV, which I would watch after I was done with my homework. I came out to Hollywood to be an actor. When I worked on ‘JAG,’ I recurred as Dr. Bruce Gasden four times. I did a little on ‘NCIS’ as a medical examiner, and Don wrote the episode. He told me, ‘You can play a doctor on our show. I’m going to put you on here.’ 

“I did an episode of ‘Toma’ with Tony Musante and an episode of ‘Kojak’ with Telly Savalas, which was one of the few television things that [Sylvester] Stallone did. This was before ‘Rocky.’ Stallone played a cop, and the episode is called ‘My Brother, My Enemy.’ Stallone played a cop who accidentally killed a kid on a roof, and it wasn’t his character's fault. He was drummed off the force. I played Det. White, who comes in and replaces his character in the episode. My only scene is with my character putting his stuff in his locker and Stallone is taking stuff out of his locker as he is leaving. My character runs into Savalas [Kojak] and Kevin Dobson [Det. Bobby Crocker] at the end. I met Stallone at the time as well.” 

Military.com: What plans do you have for the future?

Chas. Floyd Johnson: “‘A Gathering of Voices: Stories from the Longwood Writers Workshop’ is a book that is coming out, and I am excited about that. It features writers from my writers group that started before and kept going during the pandemic. My book’s working title is called ‘Color Correction’ -- a double entendre. Because when I started, I was one of the few people of color in the room. I would have to speak up when needed and provide a different perspective. I always tried to give back, and everybody, when you get here, you stand on someone’s shoulders.”

Joel Searls is a journalist, writer and creative who serves as a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve. His writing has appeared in Military.com, We Are The Mighty, Leatherneck Magazine and The War Horse. Joel has completed the Writers Guild Foundation’s Veterans Writing Project, is a produced playwright, a commissioned screenwriter and an entertainment consultant. His most recent feature film-producing project is “Running with the Devil,”  written/directed by retired Navy SEAL Jason Cabell. His most recent TV series producing credit is with “Top Combat Pilot,” hosted by Dennis Quaid. 

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