Why A Blog Now???!!!

"ON THE STAGE HE WAS NATURAL, SIMPLE, AFFECTING;  'TWAS ONLY THAT WHEN HE WAS OFF HE WAS ACTING"  
                                                 ______OLIVER GOLDSMITH 1728-1774


As I've been writing about college days, I will pause for this post and share with you, my reader, my hidden passion, one that has never come to fruition but has its roots from my early formative years...Acting!  Please allow me this one diversion.

Going way back to my early childhood to when my mother asked me to impersonate Al Jolson or sing "Be My Love" for company just like Mario Lanza did it, to starring in the first grade as Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer where I had my nose covered with, our teacher, Mrs. Camp's lipstick and prancing around the stage at Graham with four little girls behind me dressed as Santas, holding my reins...I have been a ham.
There's something about getting up in front of an audience and being someone other than yourself.  The skill of acting, one which I never achieved, is convincing the audience that you are not acting!

I had grown up going to many Broadway productions, seeing many of the great actors early in their careers.  My dad had a patient who was the treasurer of many of the Broadway theaters and we would get comp'ed on tickets.  Somehow, I managed to save every Playbill from the 1950's on.  These Playbills open a window to the history of that time with advertisements showing TWA Transcontinentals, American ocean liners, and physicians recommending Chesterfields over any other cigarette!

Pre-health warning days

The "Connie"

When the US had a passenger fleet!

 Some productions stick out like Frank Gilroy's "The Subject was Roses".  The young man who played the son, home from the Army, was a newcomer by the name of Martin Sheen.

 Some of these productions were long-lived hits, others, flops.  Another show that resonated with me was "The Fantasticks" which I believe is still running and I had seen it in the 1960's!

I know my dad had an uncle who acted in "Abie's Irish Rose" and my great-grandfather was a theatrical agent for Weber and Fields, but that might have been the only dramatic gene in my body.  We did have a close family friend who was an actor, A. Larry Haines, one of those character actors whose name might escape you but you'd certainly know his voice and face.

Larry in "The Odd Couple" with Jack Lemon and Walter Matthau


He got his early start on radio as "Mike Hammer, Private Eye" and "Gangbusters" but went on to have the longest career of any actor in TV soap operas playing Stu Bergman on "Search for Tomorrow".  He eventually made it to Broadway and film.  I remember going backstage after one of his shows, "Generation", and found myself standing next to Henry Fonda.  He was also in "Promises, Promises" and "A Thousand Clowns".  The funniest and most embarrassing experience was in the the late 70's when he was in a play, "Tribute", that was trying out in Toronto and Suzanne and I decided to drive up to see it from Rochester.  Larry invited us backstage after the show to his dressing room.  I knocked on his door, or at least what I thought was his door.  "Come in" came the response and, as I strolled into the room to greet him, he had a towel over his head, having washed the makeup out of his hair.  "Hi, Larry", I shouted out...as the towel slowly came down his face.  Only it wasn't his face.  I stood before the very familiar face of Jack Lemon, the star of the play!  After a very quizzical look from him, I gulped "I guess I'm in the wrong dressing room!".  He smiled as I made a hasty retreat down the hall.  

Larry and Jack Lemon

Larry and a young Jerry Orbach for you old "Law and Order" fans

Larry went on to play one of the card-playing buddies, the cigar-smoking one, in the film "The Odd Couple".  The last I heard of him was when I saw his face among the departed during the "Passages" section of the Academy Awards a few years ago, he having lived to a ripe old age of 89.

Other prat falls I took on Broadway were literally walking into Kevin Klein on 39th St. and my experience at Circle in the Square, sitting in the first row watching John Webster's "The White Devil".
There was a sword fight between two actors and one of them backed up too far and just about fell into my lap...a very young Frank Langella!  Alas, none of these interactions with fame did anything to further my dramatic aspirations.

Besides the usual elementary and high school productions, when I was in college, I took some risks and tried out for college plays and musicals, and, in the summer, community theater.  I played the policeman (with a solo!) in Leonard Bernstein's "Wonderful Town", a waiter in "Dylan", and a worried father in a homegrown musical in a local musical production.

"Wonderful Town"

Summer community theater

 The acme of my acting career finally came my Senior year of college when I won the role of  Louisa's father in "The Fantasticks", the same musical that had made such an impression on me a few years earlier.  It was my chance to shine with singing and hamming it up and I gave it my all.  We were actually reviewed and to great acclaim!

"The Fantasticks"

The fellow in the red sweater now teaches acting in Los Angeles and was the original M&M Candy Man

My one and only review

But, that was the end of acting for me and the passion lays dormant in the recesses of my brain.
The only "acting" I have done was over the past 40 years, entertaining kids and putting them at ease as I cured their ills, minor or serious, interjecting humor into my interactions with them and their families.  After all, "humor is the best medicine"!

I was honored this past summer to be asked to participate in "The Story Tellers Project", a USA Today sponsored project across the country.  Here in Rochester, I was one of a very diverse panel of story tellers telling our personal stories about our experience with diversity or lack thereof.  While it wasn't acting, it gave me a very rare opportunity to tell my story before an audience here in our Public Market.

NEXT: THE END OF COLLEGE AND THE BEGINNING OF ROMANCE!