Great interview I did with Jack...hope you enjoy!
"I recently sat down with Jack Stauffer... Jack on the west coast, myself on the east and had a little chat about Battlestar Galactica and just as importantly his other various works on television, cinema and theater...the insights on All My Children will be very interesting I think! Enjoy!" - Shawn O'Donnell
BGR: First off, let's look at Bojay or rather the character of Bojay...when you went into that role what things do you think you brought to it or what was the outline for that particular character?
JS: The character of Bojay, the reason he was brought in was to stir the pot, The plot dynamics at that point in time seemed to be the same every week – the fleet vs. The cylons. They wanted a very dynamic force to come into the Galactica fleet, and create chaos.
"The Living Legend" introduced the Pegasus and its crew. Cain, Sheba, and Bojay were all strong characters. They immediately challenged the power structure of the Galactica. Commander Cain challenged Adama, and Bojay challenged Apollo for authority. Sheba, aside from her warrior and leadership qualities was to be a love interest for Apollo. Anne Lockhart was hired to be a full-time cast member from the beginning. I wasn’t. In the original draft of "The Living Legend" Bojay got killed!
So when we actually got into filming, it was obvious the Richard and I got along very well. We really bounced off each other. The line producer, Guy Magar, noticed this right away and sort of became my champion. I assume it was he who suggested to Glen that I be kept on board. So, about the third week of shooting – somewhere in the second hour of "Living Legend" I get summoned to Glen’s office. Naturally, I figured I was going to be fired – typical actor paranoia.
But, as it was, Glen said to me "Look it's very obvious that you would be a great asset to the show...I'd like you to stay on". I can still remember the first thing that flashed in my head. I wasn't available! I was booked to go off and do a two hour "How The West Was Won" right after "The Living Legend". Unbelievable! All the time you sit around waiting for your agent to call. It never rains but it pours!
So I explained all this to Glen and he was very, very gracious to me. He said that, in reality, he had no idea what to do with me anyway. The show was really man heavy! If you look at it, you had Richard, Dirk and Herb - three pretty strong personalities. What are you going to do with another strong male personality? There wouldn’t have been enough dialogue to go around.
Also, I think it would have raised havoc with the female leads whose characters by this time had been ripped apart. Laurette's solicitator, which was a wonderful role in the pilot, was now because of network censorship, a med-tech! What is that? Maren Jensen got less and less to do every week. So basically there were no strong women’s parts. Annie’s character at least gave some dignity to the females. But, there was no way you could have immediately added another male presence.
Glen told me that my immediate unavailability would be a blessing. He would include me in several episodes as a presence and in the second year Bojay would become a regular character.
So it was always my understanding that Bojay would eventually become an integral part of the show. My guess, and I'm only surmising, because we never got to that second year, is that they would have eliminated some lesser characters. I have nothing to base that on, of course, except my own intuition.
This is the reason why there are no cards or toy figures of Bojay. The merchandising rights belonged to Universal, and I wasn't contracted to Universal. I was just hired to do the show as a weekly player.
BGR: So that was the Bojay story?
Yep – although I am told the episodes that the fans seem to like most are "The Living Legend" and "War of the Gods" - four out of the five I did.
BGR: I guess another question is of course, what do you personally think the future of Battlestar Galactica is?
JS: I remain optimistic. I think there's a tremendous opportunity for it. You couldn't have better timing than you have now. I think as I said in the three-part interview on BattlestarGalactica.com, Babylon 5 is off the air, Star Trek is gone, Star Wars has been played out. There's really nothing really good sci-fi wise on the air right now, in my opinion, with the exception of The X-Files.
Now, again I'm not a die-hard science fiction fan. For me to watch it, it has to be really, really good dramatically and not just CGI effects. I thought Stargate was good when it first started, but to me the quality of that show has deteriorated - and Richard Dean Anderson is a fine actor! I tried watching all the sci-fi cable shows. Now, I hesitate to bad-mouth other shows and other actors - I am the one who is out of work. But, I can't watch! I just don't understand, with all the good actors and writers that exist, why they don't put better people in these things.
And here comes the old man talking, maybe it's because they make twenty-year-old children, with no acting experience, the stars! The best thing you could do with a show is take new people and put them in with veteran actors that can help them. I will say that till the day I die.
One of the great things about Galactica was the presence of Lorne Greene and when I came on the show, the addition of Lloyd Bridges. These two incredibly good actors set a standard that the young people had to adhere to. I've said it many times; I would have been scared to show up on the set not fully prepared with those two people there! And it's not a matter of intimidation; it's a matter of professionalism.
I was fortunate. I had been well trained from my theatre experiences and from my four years on "All My Children". I was taught to show up knowing all my lines.
But, getting back to your question - what do I see as the future of Galactica? If the rights issues can be resolved, there are endless possibilities. I see this as a terrific series of mini-movies or even as a weekly series with Richard's concept of combining the original cast with a newer cast of younger warriors born in space. This will allow for all sorts of plot scenarios other than just kicking the Cylons around!
The people born in space don't all necessarily have to be humanoid either. If the fleet in its journey came upon other civilizations, you could have other races of individuals. But again, I support the generation aspect of the show. When you combine older actors with younger actors, you just have more to do. That's where I see the future of Galactica going. The CGI effects will take care of themselves - they always do! Look at the special effects in the trailer. They were wonderful.
BGR: What do you think makes Galactica work?
I think it was probably the mythology of the show. If you go back to the original three-hour movie, it was the highest rated movie in the history of television. It was the one that beat "Brian's Song". The fact is - it wasn't supposed to be a television series. They rushed it into production. That’s why some of the early episodes leave a little to be desired.
But, the mythology of Galactica, this search for origin, I think offers up a scenario for the viewers that challenges their imagination. I think that's what really makes Galactica special. You could explore all sorts of philosophies and could go anywhere. That's why Galactica: 1980 was such a travesty, because they found their origin!
I think what made Galactica good was this long-range scenario that kept viewers coming back. I think the closest thing to compare today is the long-range aspect of The X-Files. Every four or five episodes or so of The X-Files, they will come back to the original plot line - "The Great Conspiracy". In between, Chris Carter writes wonderful individual episodes. But, I don't ever see Carter solving that plot line till it goes off the air.
To me, a lot of the sci-fi stuff is just shoot em up - local threat and stuff without any long range scenarios.
Along with Galactica’s premise, you also had very likeable and interesting characters. You also had good actors in the show, like Lorne and Lloyd. Richard's a good actor. Dirk's a good actor. Herb, Annie, and Laurette are certainly fine actors. Hell, John Colicos is renowned Shakespearean actor. And, why not - I think I'm a pretty good actor! You had quality people in that show. Good acting will hold a show together; it'll hold viewers too.
BGR: Let’s change the subject. All My Children - I'm sure that you have some interesting stories!
JS: I have lots of them! I can honestly say my years on All My Children were the happiest. If I could go back and undo one decision, it would be my decision to leave that show.
"All My Children" was unique. This was the first time daytime television ever attempted to make young actors the stars of the show. This is no big deal now given today’s television lineup, but in 1970, this was a huge risk. ABC went out and got four untested actors in Karen Gorney, Susan Lucci, Richard and myself and said we're going to build a daytime drama around you.
However, as I so adamantly stated before, they took us four young people and surrounded us with the creme de la creme of daytime television. Rosemary Prince, Mary Fickett, Ray McDonald, Ruth Warrick from Citizen Kane Fra Heflin (Van Heflin’s sister), Hugh Franklin, Kay Campbell - all these people were veteran daytime actors. AND THESE PEOPLE TAUGHT US! These people set a standard for us, they helped us, they were on our team, and they were our mentors. I learned most of what I know about acting from these people.
Now today - take a look at the teen shows. Do you really think the acting is good? Take a look at shows like Pacific Heights and stuff like that – you tell me.
AMC was a family environment that lent itself to being really, really creative. The producers and writers of All My Children were incredibly good about giving us creative freedom with our characters. Our suggestions and ideas about character, dialogue, etc were always listened to. Sometimes they agreed with us and made changes; sometimes they didn’t. The point is, THEY ENCOURAGED US TO THINK! I can remember years later when I was doing another soap, I raised several questions about character and dialogue. I was told to shut up and just say the words that were written. I left that show after nine months.
I don’t want to give the illusion that we ran the show on AMC. Once decisions were made, we stuck to our scripts. But even then, in rehearsal, we could transpose a line or change some wording if we felt it helped our character, as long as it stayed in the storyline. It wasn't - Do it this way! Do as your told!
OK – stories. One thing that most people don’t know today is 1970 was the early days of videotape. AMC was done "live on tape". What this means basically is we did the show live. Unlike today where every show has its own tape facilities, we shared with "One Life To Live" and ABC News. We had forty minutes to do a half-hour show. Then we lost the tape facilities!
The show was shot from beginning to end - like a play. And like doing a play in front of an audience, if you made mistakes or forgot a line you had to get yourself out of trouble. There wasn’t a lot of time to go back and edit. Editing also cost extra. So - you had to know you're words and your blocking, because if you didn't, they fired you!
There were several very well known actors who did not make it on that show. Robert Urich was one. Joanna Miles, the original Anne Tyler - wonderful actress - couldn't handle the stress of doing the show and not being able to make mistakes. It drove here crazy. They had to let her go. A year later, Joanna Miles won an Emmy for "The Glass Menagerie". She just couldn’t handle the stress of daytime.
We had forty page scripts to learn every day. You blocked and rehearsed it in the morning. You got into your makeup and wardrobe and had a dress rehearsal. Then you shot it like a play. They rolled the tape, and they went from beginning to end - and you tried not to screw up!
Naturally there were goofs - and, there were some wonderful, funny stories of stuff that happened!
A classic sequence was in the Martin living room with Tara, Phil, Chuck, Ruth, and Joe coming in on a winter day when it's snowing outside. There were big rollers up above the set, full of foam or ivory snow or whatever it was up in there, and they would turn them, and the snowflakes would come down outside the windows. The sequence was that Ray McDonald and Mary Fickett, (Joe and Ruth) Karen and Richard and myself come into the Martin living room, and the dialogue was something like, "Kids, give me your coats and I'll hang them up," and Ray hung them up in the closet. Richard and Karen (Phil and Tara) were having some teen crisis, and they went around the fireplace to have this secret conversation. That was kind of the whole sequence.
Well, we walk in the door and Ray McDonald says, "give me your coats", and Richard and Karen give him their coats. They then walked to the fireplace. Ray says to me "Chuck, give me the coat, and I give him my coat, and he opens the closet door - and it's snowing in the closet! THE ROLLER HOLDING THE SNOW IS EXTENDED TOO FAR. Now the tape is rolling and Ray McDonald never bats an eye. He looks at me and says "Chuck, y'know, when the storms over we gotta get up and fix the hole in the roof!" Well, that did me in! I just blinked my eyes! Mary Fickett choked - she was laughing so hard. I thought, My God, they're going to have to stop the tape! BUT THEY DIDN'T! I'm dying - 'm dying. - it was my line. I couldn't say it. I didn't know what to say! So Ray said my line. Then Mary Fickett started to gag, and went up to the bay window and started looking out the window, and all I could see were here shoulders going up and down, she was laughing so hard. So Ray said all of her lines. Then Richard walks up and just stands there with his mouth open, so Ray said all of Richard's lines. Ray just did this monologue, and finally everybody got laughing so hard, they had to cut. That was one of the few times that we stopped! That was a classic example of stuff that could go wrong!
BGR: Did they manage to keep any of the sequence?
JS: No, that was one they had to redo. There are a couple other classics. My Grandfather on the show, Hugh Franklin, played the elder Dr. Charles Tyler. Ray played Dr. Joe Martin, and I think this was the third year of the show, and I was a young intern at this point. Now, for some reason Hugh always got the medical terminology, and he had the worst time saying those eight syllable medical terms. And naturally Ray knew this, and he would look at Hugh with this "I know you are going to screw this up" expression on his face. And, of course Hugh would screw it up.
The sequence has Chuck going into the doctor's lounge, and his Grandfather and Joe are there, and he says, "Grandfather, I'm having a problem with this diagnosis, can you help me out?" Hugh's line was, "Chuck, it's very simple. That’s a classic case of myocardial infarction." Well, Hugh couldn't say it!
He would go "Chuck, it's a classic case of myocranial infriction, myracladial infraction, iocardiowhatchit - OH SHIT!!!
This goes on through every rehearsal, and Ray is just standing there with "the look", and Hugh can’t look at Ray without laughing. So we get all the way to the air show, and now the tape is rolling. We get up to this scene, and I'm standing outside the door to walk in, and I realize the entire crew is now standing around this part of the set - to see if Hugh can get the words out. I walk in the door and I go "Grandfather, can you help me with this diagnosis?" and Hugh goes, "Well, Chuck, it's a classic... Joe, I taught you...why don't you tell him?" And Ray looks at me and goes, "Why, sure, that's a classic case of miocarido...miocarido...miocardiowatchit!..Chuck, why don't you just go look it up?" So I blinked my eyes and say, "Well okay, I'll do that!". and I walked out the door! And I had about ten more lines I was supposed to say. That went on the air! And if you listen to the tape you can hear the crew choking and spitting trying not to laugh out loud.
Another classic one was the day the building blew up next door to the studio. It did! They were tearing down an old building next door to make way for an addition to the studio, and a gas main, I guess, blew. We were on a soundstage that was sound proofed, .so you didn't hear the explosion - but you felt the concussion. And the flats that were the walls ( like on a stage) - when this thing blew up next door, this pressure wave went right through the studio. All these flats started to wave back and forth. Ray McDonald and I were doing a scene - on the air - and all of a sudden - "Whoomp! Whoomp!" And the flats are going "Whoosh! Whoosh!", and Ray just put his hand against the wall and kept going. I stared in awe at him. That went on the air!
I remember learning the hard way about memorizing your lines and not reading stuff off the prompter. A teleprompter has the entire script printed on a role that scrolls down as you say the lines. It’s there to help the actor pick up his line in case he forgets. Anyway, I got lazy one day, because I had this whole phone conversation with Mary Fickett. I thought, I’m all alone in the room with the phone. There isn’t any other actor to relate to. I'll just read it off the prompter!
Okay, so we do it in rehearsal – fine. Now the tape was rolling, and Mary and I are having this conversation and I’m reading my lines off the prompter. All of a sudden somebody comes up and taps Irwin on the shoulder, and he turns around to see who it is. AND NOW THE PROMPTER IS FACING THE WRONG WAY! I can't see it! I've got no idea what my lines are! So Mary Fickett said all her lines and all my lines. Basically it was something like this. She would say, "What are you doing this afternoon?" and my answer would have been something like, "I'm going with Phil to the movies." - something like that. I've got no idea what to say. I haven't got the prompter! So Mary would say, "What are you doing this afternoon?" and I'd go, "Well...uh...uh..uh..uh.." And Mary would go, "Didn't you say something about you and Phil going to the movies?" "Yeah....yeah, that's it...that's what we're going to do!" It went on like that. "Are you going to see that new movie at the Coronet?" "Yeah. .I guess we could do that. . mumble... mumble. Mary just paraphrased all my lines, said all her lines, they kept the camera on her and it went on the air like that!
Today they would just stop and do it over again - Not in those days, you kept going!
Finally, there is my favorite Susan Lucci story. I don’t know how I got away with this. I think I was just about to leave the show or something. Anyway I wasn’t actually fired for it. The scene was for Chuck and Erika to meet in the park and discuss some nefarious plot that Erika was hatching. They built this little mound on the set to look like I was coming up a hill. Now in rehearsal every time I walk up this mound to meet Erika, all I can think about is that this whole scene reminds me of something out of a bad Nelson Eddy Jeanette McDonald movie. So right before we go to tape I sneak into wardrobe and find this Mountie hat and a red coat. And I walked on to the set dressed like that, whistling "I’ll be Calling You". Susan just stared. Nobody said anything. The crew is dying. Finally, over the PA I hear, "Jack, will you come into the control room please". So anyway, those are a few All My Children stories!
BGR: So, how was it to act with Susan Lucci? This is actually kind of a two part question...besides acting with her, how did you feel about her finally getting the Emmy?
JS: Well, we all started together. In fact, Susan and I did our very first scene together. I can still remember half the dialogue. Susan Lucci bet me two Jefferson Airplane albums that she could break up Phil and Tara before Christmas!
Erika and Chuck did a lot of scenes together in the first years. Susan and I worked together all the time. We were very close friends. Her husband and I were very close friends. I still get Christmas cards from them. If I go to New York, I call Susan to see if she's on the set, and I go say hi to her. She's just an incredibly nice individual!
How glad am I that she won the Emmy? It was way, way overdue! A lot of this is jealousy. A lot of it is payback. Susan is the number one person in Daytime TV. In fact a few years ago some woman’s magazine did a survey on the most recognized women’s faces in the world. Number 1 was Princess DI. Number 2 was Susan Lucci. She is the highest paid performer in daytime and probably nighttime too. You don't have as much power as Susan and not create ill will within your peer group. I think a lot of people voted against her simply because they were jealous of her status.
I think after a while too, it became the "in" thing not to give it to her, and Susan always made jokes about it. But, if you looked at her face and watched her emotional turmoil when she finally got it, it became very obvious how much it hurt her all those years that she didn't get it, and how glad she was that she finally won it.
So, I was incredibly glad for her. However, there was a part of me that wished that they had had enough foresight to do something truly spectacular. She won it on the nineteenth try. What they should do now is create the Susan Lucci lifetime achievement award for excellence in daytime drama. And give her the first one! That's what I'd like to see happen.
BGR: You've been professionally acting since '68, and you started with All My Children in '70. What did you do those first two years?
JS: My Father was a producer. He did not want me to go into show business, but it was in my blood. It was what I wanted to do since I was seven years old...I always knew it!
My graduation present from college was a car, which I got in my junior year for my senior year. When I graduated my father said, "Look, your a big boy". You want to go and be an actor, you're on your own. You gotta sink or swim. Go sell your car and move to New York, become an actor if that's what you want to do. I'm not going to subsidize you". He did say, "What I will do is, if you want to take acting classes, or anything educational...I will pay for that...other than that, you're own you're own."
So I moved into New York with a friend of mine into a studio apartment and I started pounding the pavement. I also met my first wife, who I had actually spent four years at Northwestern with but had never known. Figure that one out. Her mother was a manager, and she took me on as a client. I think I had sold my car for $1,600, and I was down to $36 in the bank when I got my first commercial!
I started doing commercials and then in 1969 I did a season at the Coconut Grove in Miami, and then I started doing stuff like the auto shows - you did what you needed to do!
The auditions for All My Children started around September of 1969, so it was basically a year and a half before I landed All My Children. I did enough commercial work to keep my head above water, but All My Children was my big, big break.
BGR: What was that first commercial?
JS: The first commercial I ever did actually was something for the Heart Fund. I think the first big commercial I ever did was for Clearasil. I remember getting out of the phone booth and looking at these two teenagers next to me and going, "Well...I got MY date!" It was because my skin was clearer with Clearasil! You always remember the first one...and I think since then I’ve filmed around two-hundred and fifty commercials.
BGR: Why exactly did you leave "All My Children?"
Ah – one of my greater career decisions. When I started the show I was dating my first wife, an actress by the name of Renne Jarrett. We actually broke up when she moved to the West Coast to further her career. Bicoastal romances don’t do very well. She immediately became a hot property of Columbia TV and starred in a TV series called "Nancy". It was about the daughter of the president of the United States. It starred her, Celeste Holm, and an actor named John Fink. The show lasted a year and a half.
Anyway, she was out west filming, and at some point she came back to visit. We got together, told each other how much we missed each other, yadda yadda yadda, and decided to get married. But there was this big condition. Renne made me promise that when my contract expired on All My Children, we would move to the West Coast. Now, at the time (in hindsight, that was a very bad decision) at the time it didn’t seem like such a big deal. Daytime was not what it is today. All My Children was the bellwether of all modern daytime. But it wasn't till 1976 and General Hospital's Luke and Laura that it crossed over into fully big time. Ok, so at the time, I never made any bones about it. I always wanted to be a star and to achieve that goal you had to be on the West Coast. I agreed.
Renne and I got married in the fall of 1971 and my contract ran through 1973. Renne went on "Another World" for a year - we lived in New York – every thing was fine till my contract came up for renewal, and the All My Children producers took us to dinner. We go to this fancy restaurant and have a little gourmet food, some vintage wine, and over coffee, Doris Quinlan (the executive producer of AMC) says, "Jack we certainly want you to remain on the show, and I know you are planning to move to LA, but what if we doubled your base salary right away and then gave you 20% raises every year for the next three years?" Then she turned to Renne and offered her the same package. I almost fell of the chair. This was 1973 folks, and I can tell you that between the two of us, our base salary would have been over $100,000. And that was just the base salary. You always worked more than that. This also didn’t count commercials or anything. Now a hundred grand ain’t chicken feed today – hell I’d like to make a hundred thousand bucks this year. Figure what this was worth in 1973-74 dollars. – at least half a million, probably more.
I was calm – Oh yes, I was calm - I WENT CRAZY! It was the first huge fight that Renne and I ever had. I thought we were nuts to turn this down. I wanted to take the money! And then cam the tears, and the screamin', the yellin', the weepin' and the wailin'! So I called Doris and turned down the offer. I had to honor my promise.
BSR: I also wanted to touch on the episodic stuff you've done on television. What were some of those?
As I said, at the time Columbia Television wanted Renne big time. I was the player to be named later in the trade - y'know know how you trade for a big baseball player? - You get the slugger outfielder and two utility infielders - I was the utility infielder!
But, after we got to LA, Columbia Television kept every promise to me – and I will always be grateful to them for that. I wasn’t the one they really wanted, but they put me to work. In fact they put me to work before they put Renne to work. The very first thing I did on the west coast was an hour and a half movie of the week for daytime which was me, DeForest Kelley, and June Lockhart – Star Trek and Annie's mother of all things!
Anyway, we both just started to work. The whole system was different then. The studios had casting departments. Quinn Martin was a big production company. He had like five shows on the air. Universal Television had all these shows on the air. And you got in with these people. I was a regular with Quinn Martin. The very first show I did for Quinn was "The Streets of San Francisco". I did all the Quinn Martin shows every year. And I played the same character in every show! I got killed in every show! I was the victim.
Funny stories - One day, I was sitting in the commissary with the head of casting for Quinn Martin, and Quinn came over and sat down at the table. I looked at him and said, "Can I ask you a question?" He said, "Absolutely". And I said, "Why can’t I play the hero or the bad guy and be around till the end of the show? You're always killing me on page fifteen." Quinn said, "Nope! Never happen! You're the best victim I ever saw!" So, I got killed in every Quinn Martin show!
But that's what you did. You did a lot of episodic television. The television shows lent themselves to that in those days. If you go back and look at a "Streets of San Francisco", or a "Barnaby Jones" or any of these shows, each hour was an individual unit. There were no anthology shows. The anthology shows with big resident casts started with Dynasty. When that started, episodic television went the way of the dinosaur. If you weren’t a regular cast member you rarely got a chance to be on the show. Except for maybe a one line part or something like that. But I think over the years, I’ve guested on over forty different shows! I did four Streets, two Barnaby's. I did all the Quinn Martin shows. I think I was on every Bionic Show for Universal. I did The Six Million-Dollar Man, The Fall Guy, The Bionic Woman. I did The Rockford Files twice. I did all the Universal shows.
I did Police Story. That won an Emmy. In fact I did three or four Emmy shows. Police Story won it for best show of the year. I did Eleanor and Franklin, which won for best show of the year. Police Story will always be special to me because I became good friends with David Jansen. Now - there are some stories – The David Jansen stories. We will save them for another time.
I did pilots for my own series three times. The first one was a thing called "The Steamers" later renamed "Mobil Medics". It starred me and an actor named Ben Masters and really is what ER is today. It wasn’t picked up. The second pilot I did for my own series was called "The Incredible Island". That lasted two episodes and went down the toilet! I remember everyone in the cast called it "The Incredible Turkey".
That was another Columbia show. Then I did "Alex and the Doberman Gang" which was the Doberman Gang for television. That show was actually on the schedule and was replaced with Benji at the last second!
So, if you do three pilots and they don't sell for one reason or another, the studios and the networks feel you aren’t a bankable actor. They simply stop hiring you. You see - they always blame it on the actors. God Forbid the show they wrote, produced, and conned the network into doing was a piece of shit. If it fails, blame the actor. That’s why actors come and go but the producers always stay. Anyway, my status started to fall.
But, I had some great years. Galactica came along when I was working all the time. I think I have said before that I was hired because ABC thought it would be good to put Richard and me back together.
I would say that what notoriety I may have had reached it’s high point in the late 70’s and ended in about 1980-81. Then it just kind of slid downhill, and it kept sliding and sliding - until you're kind of an also-ran. But, I went back and started doing a lot of theatre, a lot of musical stuff - just whatever it took to pay the bills!
BGR: Another big thing to touch on is the Theatre work that you've done. What are you're thoughts on that?
JS: My roots are in theatre. If you're trained as an actor in college, you're roots are always in theatre.
My true love will always be theatre. I love theatre much more than I love television. There is immediacy to it. The audience is there in front of you, the instant feedback - it's wonderful. You get to go from beginning to end. You run the gamut of the emotions every night. I just love live performance. I also like being in front of the audience. I started out as a theatre major, did a lot of musical stuff early on. Then I had my throat ruined by a singing teacher in New York, and it wasn't till 1990 that I went back and started doing musicals again.
I founded my own theatre in 1983 - APTA - with my sister. We kept going for two years. I lost my shirt. You always lose money in theatre unless you’re endowed. For a while it was a tax write-off. When my studio income deteriorated it became just lost money. But I learned some valuable lessons. The success of any theatre production is in direct proportion to the size of the cast. They all bring relatives!
But, it was a great love. I learned how to produce. I learned why I hated producing! I lost money on APTA, but it was a wonderful experience. I remember fighting so hard with Equity. I tore up my Equity card and threw it in they're face! The cabaret that I do at the conventions is all show tunes from musicals that I've done. I'm always looking for a musical to do, or a good play to do.
BGR: You're a co-director of the Northridge Young Performers, right?
JS: Yes, I love to direct. I don't direct as much as I like to, but every summer I co-direct a youth musical for young people from seven to fifteen. I've been doing that for seven years. I avoid being the head director because that involves dealing with all the parents. Never deal with stage mothers. I stage a percentage of the show, but mainly I focus on dramatic interpretations of the music and dialogue. Until the last week – then it’s just walk over here and say it like I do. I have a confession though. Directing is a lot of fun till everyone goes up on stage. Then I stand in the back and bounce from one foot to the other and wish I were up there too!
BGR: You directed at the Westchester playhouse as well?
JS: I directed "Mr. Roberts" at the Westchester playhouse. It is absolutely my favorite play. I’ve done it four times and directed it twice. I think it's one of those rare perfect plays and it really strikes a cord in me. I think I've done practically every role in it except for Doc, and one of these days I'll do Doc in it!
BGR: it must be gratifying that Meilin Tu (former student) was the U.S. Open Junior Champion...what are you thoughts on that?"
JS: Meilin was a wonderful experience. She was one of those rare prodigies. Her older sister played tennis and went on to play for UCLA. Meilin started when she was 11 I think. She couldn't get enough of the game. Her mother was the pushiest Chinese lady I ever saw. The family didn't have enough money for lessons so her mom literally badgered everyone she knew to teach Meilin for free. And we did. I was part of a tennis club at the time. Mrs. Tu would schlep Meilin over after school. She wanted to play with everybody. If there wasn't a game, she did her homework. Five days a week for four or five hours she would be there. I know of at least four pros who taught her. Plus there were at least a dozen So. Cal. ranked players at that club, and they all played with her. I worked with her till she got too good for me. She then became part of the USTA junior program and went on to more prestigious instructors. I have the picture of the scoreboard at Flushing Meadows proclaiming her the US Open Junior Champion. The girl she beat in the finals - Martina Hingis. Unfortunately, Meilin never quite made the final jump to greatness. She plays alot in satellite tourneys, but just wasn't able to make that final step up to the big time.
BSG: What are your future plans in the acting profession and are you continuing discussions with David Kelley's people?
JS:I have been asked two or three times for availability. David changes his scripts and adds and deletes characters up till the last minute. I can only surmise that the part they wanted me for got written out.
"I want to thank Jack for the time he took out to chat with me...this has certainly been a show biz eye opener!"
