TV Talk: Pittsburgh native directs HBO special on Steelers great Terry Bradshaw

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for this week.

Part stand-up comedy, part concert film, part biography, the new 75-minute HBO special “Terry Bradshaw: Going Deep” aims to give viewers new insights on the Hall of Fame Steelers quarterback.

“I’m not looking to push anybody in a direction of how they feel about him – that’s up to you, the individual viewer,” said the film’s director, Keith Cossrow, a 1993 Mt. Lebanon High School grad. “But I think when you watch this film, when it’s over, you’re going to say, here’s somebody I see on TV every week who was one of the greatest players in the history of the Steelers in Pittsburgh, but now I feel like I really understand what he’s about.”

A co-production between HBO Sports and NFL Films, “Going Deep” (9-10:15 p.m. Tuesday, HBO; also streams on HBO Max) filmed over four performances of Bradshaw’s stage show in Branson, Mo., in August 2021.

In that stage show, Bradshaw sings, tells stories and jokes with the audience. Bradshaw also sat for multiple interviews with Cossrow, speaking candidly about his three failed marriages, his immaturity when he arrived in Pittsburgh as the No. 1 draft pick in 1970, the difficulties in his relationship with then-Steelers coach Chuck Noll and how he was hurt by his image as a dumb guy.

“That became an albatross that hung on his neck his whole career,” Cossrow said. “And to his credit, he turned that image into a character that he gets to play every week on Fox (during NFL coverage). He may have ADHD and depression and always struggled, but he’s this brilliant person who is obviously a gifted storyteller, a gifted entertainer and one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century.”

As much as he’s known as a football star, in “Going Deep” Bradshaw expresses his devotion to being an entertainer, saying, “If God said you could start your life over again, this is what I’d want to do.”

Cossrow said he approached Bradshaw about making a film prepandemic, when the football star was performing the same show in Las Vegas. Bradshaw didn’t bite. But Bradshaw reconsidered when Cossrow approached him again with HBO on board. It also helped that Cossrow made the 2012 HBO documentary “Namath” about Beaver Falls native Joe Namath.

“(Bradshaw) liked it, and I think it gave him a lot of trust that we were going to handle this in the right way and not try to exploit him or take it in a direction that would be unfair,” Cossrow said.

In the film, a sympathetic but warts-and-all portrait emerges of Bradshaw, who laments that he’s not “loved and respected” like Tom Brady, Peyton Manning or Roger Staubach. Bradshaw also talks about how he didn’t have a relationship with the City of Pittsburgh, the Steelers organization or the fans.

Bradshaw speaks candidly about his relationship with Noll, although he admits, “talking about this wears me out.

“I wasn’t his kind of quarterback, and he wasn’t my kind of coach,” Bradshaw says. “I’m a tough guy, but I do get my feelings hurt. All this (stuff) I had to go through to win his favor. He won because he made me tough. He made me a real (jerk). I got hateful in my spirit on the inside.”

Cossrow said Bradshaw was open during the interviews, even if the former Steelers player was visibly uncomfortable at times.

“He knew he needed to go places and be candid about his life and dig into his past, his career, his life in Pittsburgh and his ups and downs, success and struggles,” Cossrow said. “It’s strange for all of us who think of him as one of the greatest players in football history, the quarterback of maybe the greatest team in football history. … How could you possibly have anything but amazing memories of that time? And the reality is much more complicated than that. He’s got scars, and it’s really difficult for him to reconcile and dig back into that part of his life.”

Cossrow said interviewing the former quarterback proved a challenge at times for other reasons, too.

“You can ask Terry a question and you get four different answers in the same answer, and those four answers might not agree with each other,” Cossrow said. “You have to sift through it and say, ‘Which one is the right one?’ And in the end, I think you realize they’re all right. Terry contains multitudes. That’s the thing I walked away with after spending a week with him.”

Bradshaw was unavailable to discuss “Going Deep.”

Given his role during NFL coverage on Fox, his E! reality series and his cameo as himself in Peacock’s “True Story,” Bradshaw is having a bit of a pop culture moment.

“I think he’s in a place where he’s comfortable in his skin,” Cossrow said. “I think it took him a long time to get to this place. And after decades of struggle — personal struggle, public struggle — and you arrive at a place where you are happy and you are an entertainer, then yeah, why not share it with the world?”