TV actor Tom Selleck quits NRA board of directors

(Reuters) - Actor Tom Selleck, star of such TV crime dramas as "Magnum, P.I." and "Blue Bloods" and an ardent gun collector, has resigned from the National Rifle Association's board of directors.

“Tom Selleck has stepped down from the board of the NRA due to his work schedule," his publicist, Annett Wolf, said in a statement emailed to Reuters on Wednesday.

"Mr. Selleck remains a member of the NRA,” she said.

In his re-election to the board for a three-year term in 2017, Selleck, 73, received 110,000 votes, nearly 20,000 more than the next closest candidate.

Asked in a telephone interview whether Selleck's resignation from the board had anything to do with NRA policy, Wolf declined to comment.

The Trace, a non-profit website covering gun violence in America, reported Selleck has been a member of the NRA since he was 8 years old, has served on the 76-member board since 2005 and has donated rifles and revolvers from his acting roles to the NRA's National Firearms Museum.

The NRA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)