A JOYOUS LIFE

Chapter One

A Joyous Life

   I believe it began, this quest of mine, as a young man wanting to serve others, as an acolyte in the Episcopal Church. It brought joy which I could share with others. Then, in my last two years of high school, I performed on the stage as an actor and in a local night club, as a stand up comedian. I also wanted to be an officer and a gentleman, and was accepted into Kings Point Military Academy, but fate would turn. I grew up the son of a first generation Italian father and a first generation German mother. My father was an alcoholic and beat both my mother and I. I sincerely thought he wanted me dead, especially when he refused to take me to the hospital when I was crippled over in paid from a ruptured appendix. Fortunately, my mother successfully took me in only to hear the doctor tell her that I had a twenty percent chance of living, even if the surgery was successful. I guess I was an optimist from that time on, because I decided I would live and that twenty percent was better than no percent. I learned then to make the positive choice in life, that I would always treat others with dignity and compassion, especially children I knew I would have later in life, and that I would never strike a child, or adult. I became an Eagle Scout, got a part time job, and found my way into performing, if no other reason to bring joy to myself and others.
    Which is why I am writing this book. I could have been an officer in the Navy, had my father not prevented me from pursuing that interest, by stealing the money I had saved for college to make his mortgage payment. I understand he resented me and wanted me to pay for that, and now, in retrospect, from his viewpoint, he considered he was entitled to some repayment for my lack of obedience. He wanted me to work my last summer, and I went to Scout camp to achieve a gold palm for my Eagle Award, forsaking my part time job, as I had saved the money already. However, I am grateful my life took a turn, after enlisting in the Navy, being sent to Pensacola, Florida to train as an Naval Aviator, which was thwarted on my first day after gaining a new-found friend in the program who was excited about his first solo flight and invited me to watch him take off. Now, I had studied aeronautics and knew the basic principles of flight, one of which you need to lower your flaps on the wings to get sufficient lift on take off. I sat in horror as he taxied to the runway without lowering his flaps and began screaming at the top of my lungs to lower them. He could not hear me of course, and proceeded to take off without lowering his flaps. I witnessed him crashing at the end of the runway and found out later that the engine went through his body, leaving a pool of blood and tiny bones. I was shocked to think that one error might cost someone his life and decided to bail out of the program, another major turn.    I began to study history and philosophy in the Navy, and after my four year tour, applied to universities to study history. I decided to start at a small junior college in Louisburg, North Carolina, since I was stationed in Norfolk, Virginia at a naval air station, and had trained as a radio operator on P2V’s - patrol planes. 
    I had no fear of flying, only the fear of being a pilot, so letting someone else fly the plane was fine, and after three years of flying, I was ready to live on the ground.
    So I was accepted and decided to major in history and philosophy, writing as my first assignment, the History of Utopian Thought. My professor was duly impressed and ratified my interest in becoming a historian, or at least, a professor of history. But my first semester presented yet another turn of fate, as I was eating lunch in the cafeteria and an older gentlemen joined me, announcing that he was looking for a carpenter to prepare a theatre for his drama classes. Since I had learned as a child to do carpentry, and later used that skill to pay for graduate studies in New York, I asked if it came with a scholarship, and it did! So, I solved a financial problem I was facing, paying my tuition in my second year, as I had saved enough from the Navy to pay my first year’s tuition and now I could save enough to get me through my second year.     I loved carpentry work, and began to rekindle my joy from being in theatrical productions, and was asked to play a small part in Elmer Rice’s Adding Machine!
    I built a small coffin (because of the small stage area) and then climbed into it, before the audience arrived, and had to remain quiet for the entire first act until my cue came, which prompted me to rise up in white face make-up and shout “Won’t you shut up and let a man sleep!” It created a shocking moment just before the lights went out and intermission began. I went on to act in several productions for the next two years, and transferred to the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, still intending to major in History. But the first production that fall in my Junior year was My Fair Lady, in which I played Doolittle, and sang “Get me to the church on time” to a thunderous applause in the 1800 seat theatre. I thought to myself, “What am I doing in History, I can make history in Theatre!” Again, the joy it brought to both myself and the audience was special, unique and provocative.    After graduation, I went to Europe seeking more information about the arts, and was curious about fine artists I witnessed at the Louvre in Paris. I watched them working on reproducing the great masters, especially DaVinci. There was no criticism in their countenance, only looking at what they liked about what they did, evaluating the color, line, shadows, light, and composition. Then, after doing that, they searched the canvas for something they would change or add to it. It struck me, that it is the only true way to proceed as an artist, to evaluate what you like about what you do, getting everything you liked and then asking yourself, what would you change? I went to London, and checked out different drama schools, thinking that I would like to further my education, but my money ran out and I had to return to the states. Once I got back, I looked up a girl friend in San Francisco, and we went to Berkeley, to check out the University programs. I found a theatre set up in a store front, called the “Berkeley Repertory Theatre” and got a job as a carpenter and stage manager. It was their first season! After all, it began my interest in college, so why not continue it? It seemed a great way to introduce myself to the area, help them build the theatre’s reputation, and I met some fine actors, one of which I would meet later in Los Angeles on "Hill Street Blues," Joe Spano, who stayed at Berkeley Rep for several years. 
Berkeley Repertory was terrific! I acted in several plays, once in Norman Mailer’s Deer Park, as Herman Teppis, a sixty year old man (I was 26). I had learned make up in college, and was a dancer and singer, and was considered a “triple threat.”
I brought such joy to the part that my age transformed and after the show, no one recognized me, in street clothes and out of make-up. I enjoyed bouncing out of the theatre as a young man, instead of limping my way through life as Herman Teppis did. Even now in my late sixties, I have the same energy I had then, having just completed my sixth production at the Egyptian Theatre in Park City, Utah as Mayor Shinn in The Music Man. I realized some years ago, that whenever I was either in a film, play or musical on my birthday, I would not age, and it’s true! Spreading joy has its rewards!   After two years at Berkeley Rep, I got hired as an actor as Richard II at the Mill Valley Shakespeare Festival, and was noticed by a director who offered me the role of R.P. McMurphy in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, which was picked up by a producer who offered me my first union contract at the Little Fox Theatre in San Francisco. That was 1969, and I have continued to act to this day! In fact, I have two pensions from acting, one with Actor’s Equity and another with Screen Actor’s Guild. From that production, I moved to New York City, and played the same show Off-Broadway as Cheswick, as McMurphy was played by Billy Devane, and Martini was played by Danny Devito. Peter Yates saw our performance and I was cast in my first movie, The Hot Rock , with Robert Redford and Zero Mostel, joining SAG in 1971. It’s usual to be a member of more than one union. In fact, I joined AFTRA, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists shortly after that. It prompted me to frequent the downtown Actor’s Equity lounge to gain insight on older performers. Often they were bitter, sarcastic, and critical of other performers, directors and producers. I couldn’t understand how they expected to get hired with such negative attitudes, and decided then and there that I would not let sarcasm and bitterness get the best of me. I would retain the positive choice in life. For two years I performed eight shows a week, and also studied with Uta Hagen, Robert Lewis, and Mira Rostova from the Moscow Art Theatre, but decided I needed to increase my education and started a master’s degree at Hunter College, in Directing, to gain another viewpoint of the profession, and especially since professional theatre people were teaching: Harold Clurman, Lillian Helman, Arthur Miller, and Joseph Anthony, a Broadway Director.     It was the best two years, I thought at the time, of my professional career. Just before I graduated, I noticed that the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art was holding auditions for their one year post graduate program in the classics. I had prepared several Shakespeare monologues and submitted an application. I had so much joy in that audition, they asked me to do seven monologues, one right after the other, and invited me to join them in London! It’s a rare occasion when you’re offered a role or invitation to participate on the first meeting. Fortunately, after graduation I was hired to act in Ibsen’s Masterbuilder at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut in the Fall, the time I had set aside for going to London. So I called LAMDA and asked if I could come the following year, 1974-75, and to my surprise they said yes! Once again, the joy saved the day. 
    When I arrived at LAMDA in September of 1974, I went up to the headmaster, introduced myself and asked him a very important question, following this remark, “I have performed and studied for the last ten years with some of the top people in Theatre, but not one of them could say in a nutshell what the secret to acting is!” He smiled and said, “It’s quite simple, it’s knowing what your attention is on, moment to moment.” My jaw hit the floor. It’s a matter of viewpoint. That year turned out to be the best year of my life, because it made me aware of the source of the communication, and what absorbs the character’s ATTENTION. That simple truth has made sense out of every performance I have done since then.
    On my return to the states, I arrived in New York, and flipped a coin (talk about fate) and flew to Los Angeles, where within three weeks I secured an agent as I was already a SAG member. Two weeks after that I was called to audition for Jackson County Jail opposite Yvette Mimieux and Tommy Lee Jones (his first movie). After three weeks of auditions, they were worried that such a kind guy couldn’t play a rapist cop and Ms. Mimieux had doubts. I asked her what did she need to know (what was her attention on?) and she said we needed to arm wrestle, which I gladly did, convincing her that I could physically overwhelm her. It was my first starring role in film. 
   Once I was established, offers came in to do other similar roles and I turned them down, because I didn’t want to be pigeon holed as a sexual deviate. But the word got out that I knew something about acting, and people began to ask me to help them learn how to act, so I started an acting class in my apartment, which became so successful the neighbors said I had to take it elsewhere, and so I did, I opened the Los Angeles Academy of Dramatic Art, which Neil Simon used in I Ought To Be In Pictures! Neil became a friend of the Academy, which lasted eight years, and the Academy produced some fine actors, who are working to this day. We produced several plays at the Academy during those late seventies and early eighties, and had three theatres operating simultaneously. I continued to work in film and on television until I left again for New York, as I knew my true wife would be there (I had married once in San Francisco and once in Los Angeles) so it was time to find the right one. As fate would have it, I married in New York to the wrong one, and because of her career and children, we moved back to LA after three years teaching at Hunter College in the Theatre and Film departments.     Back in California, the work picked up, but the marriage failed, and so I went back to New York, where I taught at a small theatre company close to 14th Street. I had a sudden interest in opera, (another wonderful turn of fate prompted by providence as one of my actresses was hired by City Opera at Lincoln Center and recommended I audition. I did and was cast in Carmen. Sure enough my first rehearsal answered my lifelong question, as I saw the woman I had sought for many years. I was cast as the priest and she was cast as the nun, because her young son was in the children’s chorus, and, rather than sit backstage, she signed on as a supernumerary, although she is really a wonderful soprano who had done several professional leading roles herself. She had real joy in her work, even as an actress! It was love at first sight, and I made the mistake of telling her. I said, “Where have you been? You are my true wife!” That freaked her out, and she stood me up so many times, even for concerts at the New York Philharmonic. (I was hired to promote concerts, call patrons and sell season tickets, for which I was paid well and received complimentary tickets, many of which I gave away after waiting for her to arrive.) 
    She finally told me she was in a relationship with another man and was reeling from a recent divorce and had no room in her life for an actor! That did it. Although I loved her, and told her so, I could no longer remain in the same city knowing that the woman I’ve looked for most of my adult life would not consent to be my wife. I returned to Los Angeles to continue my career, even though I knew my agent was completely fed up with me and I would have to find other representation. So several months went by and due to a freaky motorcycle accident (the bike fell over and I extended my leg to catch it, which torqued my knee and I was laid up for a spell. I called her and she was excited to hear from me, as she had broken up with the other man. I asked her what we should do with 3000 miles between us. She asked if I would write her, and I jumped at the opportunity. After several months of writing letters back and forth, one of her friends read one of my letters and she told her, “This guy loves you, if you don’t marry him, I will!” Like I said, it’s always a question of viewpoints! That was another spiritual moment, one which convinced her to move out to Hollywood, marry me and begin our life together.
    We ran a studio teaching vocal performance at Beachwood Arts & Music for almost three years with some notable success, but a handful of students. We were prompted to visit Utah, where Debra worked for seven seasons at Utah Opera as a soloist and had graduated, where she had taught for eleven years, with honors, a Masters Degree in Vocal Performance from Brigham Young University. We drove to Provo, which was okay, but nothing special in terms of living there, and then to Salt Lake City, which was covered with a temperature inversion, much like smog in LA. She recommended that we drive up to Park City, and I thought “A city of parked recreational vehicles?” But as we came up Parley’s Canyon I told Debra that “for the first time in my life I couldn’t see the air!” Then I said, “What are we doing with our lives? Let’s move here!” So we sold our house in Hollywood, bought another in Park City, and wondered what we should do. I said, “We should go to the local music store, pick up some sheet music and do a duet!” There wasn’t a local music store, the nearest store was thirty miles away in Salt Lake City. We knew why we moved to Park City and established Park City Music twelve years ago, and music instructors came out of the woodwork wanting to teach in our store. So we did, out of a little seven hundred square foot store within the Treasure Mountain Inn on Main Street, which grew to over one hundred fifty students in three years. We applied for a non-profit organization named Park City Arts & Music Conservatory and opened in June, 2000. We received a few grants to do concerts but had a difficult time raising funds and decided after four years to relegate the non-profit to a scholarship program depending upon support from the community, which we continue to do every year, and have opened up the opportunity to students of other teachers in Salt Lake City. We added a studio in Salt Lake City and changed our name to Utah Conservatory. Recently we added the Paul Green School of Rock as an experimental program to encourage performers to prepare and improve their skills for audiences. Currently we have over 400 students with several students winning competitions and gaining paid performance work. Moreover, Debra has been teaching actors how to sing and perform for the last nine years at the University of Utah, which is where I studied in the Doctoral Education Program for seven years and finally graduated from Rochville University with a PhD in Educational Studies in 2004. 
    Age should not be a factor in our lives. It is essentially mind over matter. The prospect and progress of our lives is to have enthusiasm and joy, which sheds light over darkness, brings optimism instead of criticism, ushering in hope to the equation. I consider this the responsibility of the performer. Like a race horse, performers need to guard and protect themselves from negative influences so that they are able to feel, express passion from a viewpoint, maintain compassion for others, forgive people rather than harboring resentment and ill will. Performers should desire a life of joy so others can follow. Performers can be leaders. It is a choice one makes. Performers are capable of instilling courage, hope and happiness.