I always knew I wanted to be an actor.
Was it because, at the age of five, when all the audience was heading for the exits, I rushed the stage after a performance of “The Boy Friend” on London’s West End, grabbed a balloon and started dancing?
Or was it because, at the age of nine, when visiting the set of “Tarzan the Magnificent” at the Fourteen Falls in Kenya with my father ( who was interviewing John Carradine and the cast for the East African Standard), I expressed my desire to become an actor to the assembled crowd. “Do whatever you can to dissuade him” came the wise advice to my father from Charles Tingwell, who had made his name in British television.
I neither took that advice, nor came to be dissuaded by this wonderful, yet precarious profession. I came by it honestly. It was in my blood from the start, although I never really knew it at the time. In later years I was to discover I had a relative on my mothers side, who had great success as an amateur actor in Brussells, and there are numerous photographs of my aunt as a young woman proudly standing centre stage, in her Gilbert and Sullivan society productions. Ironically, one of the first musicals I appeared in, (at Bicentennial Junior High School, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, the school I attended after emigrating to Canada in 1963), was “H.M.S. Pinafore”.
A great deal of this chosen profession relies on being in the right place at the right time, or at least trying to manufacture that scenario. After graduating from Dalhousie University in Halifax, in 1970 with a BA in Theatre (they only built the arts centre, and named it so after I left!) Neptune Theatre hired me as an apprentice stage manager. The job gave me the opportunity to learn all the technical elements, (sound, lighting, props), as well as being able to play small roles, eventually choosing to be permanently on stage, rather than off. Offstage was reserved for things like asking my wife Bonnie to marry me during the third act of ”The Matchmaker”. After all, I was already dressed in tails as the waiter Auguste. No one can accuse me of not being romantic!
An audition to become a member of the Citadel Theatre School Touring Company in Alberta was a gamble that, in hindsight, paved the way for my future career. I got the job.
At the same time, so did John Neville. His was as Artistic Director, having just come from running the Chichester Festival. And as luck would have it, we started a professional and personal friendship that exists to this day. He became my mentor, and as I watched and observed all the talented actors that were to work with him, these invaluable lessons were to formulate my grounding as a young actor: dedication, professionalism, honesty, trust, and above all the ability to listen. I found myself in an extraordinarily fertile acting environment, and looking back it was an exciting time to be at the forefront of the evolving Canadian Theatre scene.
But we must always look forward. And so to this web site. In keeping with the times.
There have been great highlights “Equus”, Manitoba Theatre Centre 1976, “The Tempest”, Stratford Festival 1982, “King Lear”, Lincoln Centre Theatre 2004, working with wonderful actors Tony Randall, Dame Peggy Ashcroft, Christopher Plummer, Len Cariou, Brian Bedford, and George Hearn, directors Jonathan Miller, John Hirsch, Richard Monette. My acting has taken me to Broadway, Off Broadway, many seasons with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, every major regional theatre from coast to coast, and in my spare time, television, commercials, radio drama, voice work, all the tools necessary to survive in the entertainment world.
I continue to pursue my dream, in the face of today’s changing cultural attitudes, audience expectations, and economic uncertainty. As long as there is an audience, a play, and a role that matters, I will take my skills and apply them as best I can.
I always knew I wanted to be an actor… I still am.