April 30, 2024 • 40 mins
Born a gifted athlete, life almost took James Naughton down another path…until he found his home in the theater. The actor earned his first Tony for the musical City of Angels – and his second as the originator of the role of Billy Flynn in the hit Broadway revival of the musical Chicago, now the second-longest running show in Broadway history. As a director, he helmed the Tony-nominated Arthur Miller’s “The Price” and Thorton Wilder’s “Our Town,” the latter of which was featured on PBS’ Masterpiece Theater. Naughton also regularly brings his talent to the small screen, like in his roles on “Who’s the Boss?,""Ally McBeal,” and “Gossip Girl,” and in films “The Devil Wears Prada” and “The First Wives Club.” James Naughton shares with host Alec Baldwin his experience directing - and being directed by - his good friend Paul Newman, acting at the famous Williamstown Theater with an all-star ensemble, and how he’s working to enact change through legislation today.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's
the Thing from iHeart Radio. James Naughton is known for
his decades of stellar work on stage in American classics,
from Tennessee Williams to Eugene O'Neill. The Drama Desk winner
made his off Broadway debut in nineteen seventy one in
(00:22):
Long Day's Journey in Tonight, which earned him a Theater
World Award. He directed the Tony nominated production of Arthur
Miller's The Price and Thornton Wilder's Our Town, which was
later broadcast on PBS's Masterpiece Theater. Naughton is equally comfortable
with the Great American Songbook. He won his first Tony
(00:44):
for the musical City of Angels in nineteen ninety. He
then originated the role of Billy Flynn in the hit
Broadway revival of Chicago, alongside Anne Rhymeking and B. B. Newworth.
It earned him his second Tony and became the second
longest running show in Broadway history.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I don't care about expensive things, cashmere coats, diamond rings,
stunt made a thing.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
All I care about is long That's what I'm here for.
I don't care for, where it's silk cravats.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
This is James Naughton with all I care about, from
the Broadway cast recording of the Chicago Revival, with all
of his theater bonafides. Naughton is no stranger to film,
appearing in the Devilwears product, nor television working on Who's
the Boss, Planet of the Apes and Ally McBeal. I
(01:43):
wanted to connect the dots between his great theatrical success
and his beginnings in Middletown, Connecticut.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I was born there, but grew up where in West
Hartford and West We moved to West Harford when I
was three and a half, and it was it was
the halcyon days of the early fifties. It was spectacular,
you know, playing baseball, football, basketball outside every day all
year long, depending on what the season was. That's what
the sport was. And your parents were both teachers. What
(02:14):
do they teach? My father would say, students, that's my father.
They taught everything, you know. He actually said, well, I
said to him, so when we moved to West Hartford,
you got a job teaching at a school that I
eventually went to a junior high school. And he said, yeah,
I was. I taught English, I taught math, I taught
social studies. I thought I taught students. And my mother
(02:35):
was a business head person. She could do typing all
that stuff. Yeah, and my dad told a straight economics.
Of course, it's like contemporary problems they called it. Where
you got himself in a lot of trouble. Oh yeah, well,
I Massapeaker was not Paris. It was not open minded
place on earth.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
But the cultural scene in your home. Were your parents
into movies?
Speaker 3 (02:56):
That?
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Were they theater goers? Loved music concerts? Why did that
get into your bloodstream? Well?
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Music was I think a part of the deal. There's
an old story in the family that my father, Bob
and ray Eberly had a hit called Pennies from Heaven
in the thirties I think, and they went to some
dance and it was a dance band, and somebody challenged
my father to get up and sing Pennies from Heaven
with the band. And the person with the challenger went
(03:24):
up to the band leader and said, we had Bob
and Ray Everley's younger brother, Jimmy Everley here in the house,
you know, would you like him to get up and
sing a song? So they said, and he got up
and sang Pennies from Heaven. So that was an old
story in the family, and of course it was one
of the first songs I learned.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
But for you, how did it begin? Like school productions or.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, you know, we used to do plays in school,
elementary school and you had.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
An interest in that, yeah, in and around sports. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
And we remember in the cub Scouts we had these
pack meetings like once a month, and our den mother
was interested in that stuff, so she used to put
these little plays together. I remember playing King Arthur pulling
the sword out of the rock, and I was probably
nine years old. I was very authoritative, though.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
But for you plays while you were athletic.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Well you know the story. My story is in high
school I was playing soccer and basketball and baseball, but
I quit basketball. I wasn't really very good at it,
but I was playing soccer and baseball and in my
junior year I went to my coach and I said, Coach,
I have a problem. He so what I said, Well,
mister Lawer, who is the director of the choir and
(04:34):
the director of all the musicals, wants to cast me
as the lead in the musical this spring. And he says, Jimmy,
that's great, you have to do it, and I go, well, yeah,
but I want to play baseball. He said, well, let
me talk to mister Lawer, so that later that day
he comes back. He says, Bill Lawer, and I are
going to make it possible for you to do both
in May, right, We're going to let you. And so
(04:56):
what was the part I was playing? I was a
sixteen year old am Beck. I thought I was really
I was really on it. And then I saw a
picture of myself a couple of years ago that somebody
gave me. Looked like a little boy with a little
white crap in his hair, you know. And anyway, they
did it, and so I played baseball, which meant I
always left rehearsal a little bit early after school, making
(05:18):
mister Lauer unhappy. And then I'd get to baseball a
little late, which made mister Key, who was a tough guy,
very unhappy. But the next year they did it again,
and we did Carousel, and I played Billy Biglow and
played baseball at the same time. So I've always done that.
What did you like about it?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
About? What about getting up in front of an orders?
You like performing in front.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Of people well, you know you should know something about this.
You know, they say, if you're Irish or Irish American,
you either want to sing or fight, or possibly both.
And I think the deal is first you fight and
then you sing about it.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I mean, you sing and then you got to punch
somebody out. And I don't like you're saying.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Right, But it's always been that way. And even when
I was in college, I didn't get into the theater
until really late, and all my friends were jocks. My
roommate was a hockey player and a football player, and
I was a soccer player and a baseball player.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
You went to Brown for American civilization was your major?
American literature actually, is what I wound up being. I
went there thinking I was going to be in pre med.
But you couldn't do pre med and do labs in
the afternoon and go to soccer practice. So you know,
if you're like me, were you you had really lofty
goals that were very academic in lecture, and they.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Were like, nah, I go becoming active. Lofty goals are
chief I'll go to law.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
School and I'm like, nah, maybe not that yeah, but
when you go to Yale, I mean you go to
one of the great drama school drama schools in the world,
and you go for there for the MFA. By the
end of the Brown thing, what's making you want to
go get an advanced degree in theater?
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Well? I walked into the theater for the first time
in my junior year because this girl at Pembroke, which
is now part of Brown, had told me, Hey, by
the way, there's something going on at the theater today.
You should you should come by tonight. I had never
been in the theater out time there it's November. I
wander her in there auditioning for a musical Guys and dolls,
(07:05):
and the guy he said, okay, who's next, and she
did one of these you know, she pointed and get
him up there. So the guy said come on, and
I said, I'm not here to audition. He said, don't
be shy. What have you done? I go, I haven't
done anything. I did a couple of high school musicals.
He goes, all right, we'll sing a song from one
of those. I don't have any music. I'm not here
to audition. I'm just here to visit my friend Judy.
(07:26):
He says, get up here and sing a song. So
I got up and sang a song. He said, okay,
here go take this scene and go out in the
hall and look at it and come back in ten
minutes and read it. So I did, and he said,
all right, everybody, take five. He said, come here. You've
obviously been on the stage before. What are you a freshman?
And I said no, I'm a junior. He goes, well,
where the hell have you been, That's what he said,
and I said, I've been playing soccer and baseball and
(07:46):
he said, oh, one of those he actually did, and
I said yeah. He said, well, i'd like you to
be in the show and I said I couldn't do both.
We're still playing. We're in the NCAA tournament. We played
to get eliminated. I couldn't do both. He said, no,
you couldn't. Will you come see me in January? So
I forgot about it, and it was Christmas vacation when
I went back, and I was trying to find an
arts course that would satisfy I had to take one
(08:10):
for a graduation, and I don't have any visual artistic
ability at all, graphic ability, so I thought maybe maybe drama.
So I went and found him and he opened the door,
and he sat me down and he said, Jim, I'm
glad you came.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
I think if you wanted to, I think you could
do this. And I said, what you mean for real?
And he said yes. And I said, how do you
know that? I just sang you a song and read
a couple of pages. He says, cause I've been doing
this for forty years and I'm telling you if you
And I said, so, how do I get there from here?
He said, should take my class. It's a scene study
(08:44):
class that meets three hours every afternoon, four.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Days a week.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
I said, wow, that's a lot of time. He goes, Yes,
it is, he says, and when you graduate in a
year and a half, you go to Yale Drama School.
And I said, just like that and he said, yeah,
just like that done. So he didn't tell me you
had to audition. But a year later I audition and
I got in and I went with the idea, well,
we'll see how this goes, right, me too? But I
was there two days and I went Finally I found
(09:09):
out where the hell I belonged, because while I was
in college, I didn't know where, you know, I didn't
know what to do, like drama school, law school, go to.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
It's a tough time. It's a tough time that you
when I did it, Remember I said to my dad,
I mean the joke in my family. I've told this
joke on the show before, which is I call my
parents and I go. I got offered a full scholarship
to go to and drama tuition scholarship. It's a need
based scholarship. I go, but I auditioned and I'm going
to get a full scholarship and I'm gonna leave after
three years at GW, only one more year left to go.
(09:38):
I'm gonna go to NYU for drama. My mother is
screaming on the phone.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Are you out of your mind?
Speaker 1 (09:43):
So you go to Yale? What's that like? Hard?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Well, you know, basically, I think all drama schools say
what we're going to do is we're gonna break down
all your bad habits and then we're going to build
you back up. And they're very good at breaking down
your ego, and you know, like, oh, we're at a
time we try and then then I don't have a
clue as to how to do the rest of it.
So you kind of have to go there and survive it,
(10:08):
and you know, it's kind of like the survivitoro you want. Yeah,
and if you get through it okay, it maybe makes
you a stronger person because you've had to survive all
that tearing down of your of your self confidence and
everything else. My classmates were Henry Winkler and Jill Iikeenberry.
Henry and I got hired into the al rep out
(10:28):
of the school. So that was my first job, and
that was wonderful because I had a wife and a child,
and you and Pam had your daughter Greg Greg, ye,
he's older than Kira. Yeah. And I was looking for
a job that could pay me some money. And of course,
you know, the options were go to the Guthrie and
work for fifty dollars a week and become a journeyman
(10:50):
for seven years and then maybe you'll be an equity
act fort and bross, you know what I mean. And
this was all of a sudden full equity card.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Bam.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
I'm you know. I was making big money, like one
hundred and sixty dollars a week, which was a lot
in New Haven at the time in nineteen seventy. Yeah,
and then a year later I was working in New
York and you know, I've been lucky enough to keep working.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
So when you leave Yale, what's the first job you
get the play you mentioned? Oh, I got so lucky.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
I was at Yale rep from the someth We worked
all summer out at Guildhall in East Hampton. That was
our first something. We did the whole summer season, and
then we came back to New Haven and we did
a bunch of plays and I was impossibly the worst
production of the Scottish play that's ever been done. But
everybody I know says no no. I was in the
Worst Scottman and it was directed by Robert Brustein, who
(11:42):
was not a director, he was a critic. And anyway,
we got hammered. My friend David Ackroyd played McDuff and
I played the guy and we had a sword fight together.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
I can't even remember the character.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Who who is the thinge?
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Lee Richardson, Lee Richardson, do you remember him? Yeah? And
Carmen de Lavalla played Lady McDuff, the dancer. She was
a lovely woman. Anyway, I got hired out of that
show to come to New York and do Long Day's
Journey in Tonight with Robert Ryan, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and Stacy
Keach playing.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
My That was my audition monologue. I did Edmund and
the guy in the auditions like sag oh Jesus, everybody
did Edmund.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Yeah, where'd you do it? At the Promenade Theater which
doesn't exist anymore? In seventy six and Broadway and Arvin
Brown directed it, and yeah, it was like sort of
starting at you know, at the top of the game
if you're.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Doing on Robert Ryan and Geraldine Fitzgerald.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
She was the most fun to be on stage with.
She used to come in if I did something a
little differently, you know, instead of coming by the numbers
what we always did. I could see the fire would
light up in her eyes and she'd go, oh boy,
here we go. Yeah, And so she would come in
to me every night before the show and she goes, well, Ducks,
what do you want to do different tonight? And you know,
she loved it, and that was fun because then we
(13:02):
were playing with each They call us the players, right,
we were playing with each other.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
That's I like that too. I like it when you
I try as the as it goes on, just as
a as an exercise maybe, but it does lead to
something which is to expand my relationship, not just with
the other actors on the catch, but with the set.
You know. I used to do this thing. We did
a play where the guy came in and the guy
was his childhood home and his family's poor and he's
rich now, and the place repulsed him. He wouldn't touch
(13:27):
anything or sit down. He thought you could catch a
disease from every just being in this space with us.
This is entertaining mister Sloan and with his sister and
her father's father, and the whole play unfolds and my
character is this rich guy that comes in. He's paying
for everything and maintaining them. And I'd come in and
by the end of the play, I was like rubbing
the couch and not going on this couch. So many
(13:48):
memories of this couch, you see, just something to play,
I mean. But when you would do that with her,
she was cool with it. Oh, she she welcomed it.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
She thrived on it. Yeah, so did Joanne Woodward when
we did Glass and Aerie. You know, Joeanne plays Amanda Wingfield.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
When did you do that?
Speaker 3 (14:05):
We did it at Williamstown in the eighties and then
we did it once again at Long Wharf like six
months later, and on closing night, I came into the
theater at Long Wharf in New Haven and joe Anne
said she grabbed me, pulled me in the corner. She said,
I figured this is going to be you know the
end right, And she said, we're going to make a
movie of this and Paul's going to direct it. You
(14:27):
want to be in it? Did you sure? Laura was
Karen Allen and Joanne was Amanda and we had three
different times. John Sales did it first the movie Directory
Writer Treat Williams, The Late Treat Williams did it second
at Long Warf and Malcovich did the film and Michael
Ballhouse shot the film and Paul directed it.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
You did the thing with Joeanne. You did it at
Williamstown first? Was that your debut at Williamstown? No, you've
been at Williamstown before?
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Yeah? What was it about that place that everybody made
that a home for a period of time?
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Well, I mean, you know, we all talk about a
company making a company, we talk about an ensemble, but
that's what it really was. And we all came back
there every summer together and Nicos who was I mean,
he was a gifted entrepreneurs what he was? You know,
he really was waiting for your explanation. Well, he was.
He could be a terrific director, but he was a
(15:23):
producer in addition to that, and so he put people together.
He was trying to get Joanne to come up, and
so finally they did and he said to me, what
are you doing for the rest of the summer. I
was in like the first play of the summer, and
I said, well, I don't know. I hope we're going
to go to Maine for a while because my family
we grew up there. He said, well, will you keep
(15:43):
August open because I think Joanne's going to come. We
might do glass Man Azri and if we do, i'd
like you to come and be in. Said, oh, okay, yeah, sure,
I'll see what I can do. Keep my schedule open
for that. And that turned out to be a home run.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
You know, actor and director James Naughton. If you enjoy
conversations with musical theater greats, check out my episode with
the legendary Patty Lapone.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
I don't go out there going They're gonna dig me.
I go out there and I do know that the
people that have come to see me know that I
have them in mind and that I already have them
on my side. They know that I'm doing it for them.
It could be a persona could be a body language thing,
but they know that I know they're there. And the
difference is when actors don't acknowledge the audience, the audience
(16:35):
can't come. When an actor acknowledges the audience, then you
can have a moment of ecstasy.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
To hear more of my conversation with Patty Lapone, go
to Here's the Thing dot Org. After the break, James
Norton shares his experience being directed by and then directing
Paul Newman. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to hear
(17:15):
the thing. James Naughton starred in the nineteen eighty seven
film adaptation of the Tennessee Williams classic The Glass Menagerie.
The movie was directed by Paul Newman and began a
lifelong friendship for the two actors.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
I met Paul after because I was doing Glass Menagerie
with Joanne and we were up in Williamstown doing it,
and you know, he'd come up for a couple of days,
like the husband right of the actress, and he felt
so out of it. And you know how Paul could
be socially awkward and shy and all those things, and
because he was basically ye talk about that, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
And so he'd.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Come up and I realized we'd all felt kind of crazy,
like there's Paul Newman. And you know, Joanne was a
part of our company. She was like, you know, someone
I'm I'm working with, I'm playing with. We felt great together,
but then Paul would committed and everybody be so awkward.
And then I realized he's the one who feels really
awkward because he's not a part of the company. He's
(18:12):
the husband coming up to visit. So anyway, when we
started to when they said he's going to make the film,
he's going to direct the film, he insisted on a
couple of weeks of rehearsal, and I think it was
partly so that he and we could all break down
that stuff, you know, And and he'd come over. Karen
and I'd be sitting there together because we were playing
(18:33):
all the scenes together, and he'd come over and he'd
tell us some ridiculous jokes, and and then he turned
around and walk away, and we look at each.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Other like, whoa is that he's gotten this far with
that man? We were so we were so everybody was
so awkward. But in the course of a couple of
weeks that broke down and then we became really close.
And then he discovered that he and I live five
minutes from each other in Connecticut, and he discovered, oh yeah,
I like to shoot pool too, and I like to
drink beer two and so that's what we did.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
So you go and do the film, and he wants
a couple of weeks of rehearsal. And you hadn't directed
anybody yourself by then, had you? No?
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Not at that point. The first time I directed anything,
I directed Maria Tucci, my friend who had translated Filomena
by Eduardo di Filippo for the stage, and then she
played it, and I directed her because she and I
had done a lot of stuff together on stage the
Crucible and at Williamstown and Yet and Rose Tattoo and
(19:33):
a whole bunch of stuff, you know, at Williamstown. And
so that's the first time I directed.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
What was Newman's directing technique was he light? Was he
really straightforward? And to the point. Yeah, he was.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
He was remarkably light handed, gentle, not a lot of
crazy stuff, and you know, not a lot of direction.
But he spent some time with Michael Ballhouse, who shot it,
and he was about as good as it gets. Yeah,
and a wonderful guy. Yeah, yeah, as you know, and
they'd be they'd discuss stuff, and then you know, he'd
committed say blah blah blah, Okay, I want to do
(20:09):
that again. Yeah, okay, anything different, No, it was okay,
that was good. You just keep doing that, you know,
that sort of suff.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
And then the tables turning, you direct him. Yeah, how
did that go?
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Well? That that went awfully? Well? Yeah, we did Our
Town at the Westport Playhouse. Well, actually, Joanne called me
up one night in about two thousand and three, after
nine to eleven, and she said, Jimmy, you know i've
aw She was the artistic director of the Westport Playhouse.
She said, you know how I've always wanted to do
a production of Our Town. And I said, yeah, actually
(20:41):
you have talked about that before. She said, well, I
think now's the time. I think we could all use
a little our Town right now. After nine to eleven
she said, and Paul wants to play the stage manager.
I go, what she and I have been I was shocked.
We'd been after him for twenty years to try to,
you know, to do something on the stage, and he
(21:02):
would go, oh, no, no, I can't. My brain's all foam,
that's what he'd said. But he was excited about it,
and she said, I just walked out of the room
and he said I want to do this. And I
was out of the room for twenty five minutes. I
came back in and he had learned the first monologue,
and I said, you got to be kidding. She said, So,
we were wondering if maybe you'd like to direct it.
(21:24):
You say, no, my brain is all phowed. Well, you
know what I said to her, It was true. I said, Joanne,
I'm probably the only American actor who's never seen a
production of this play or read it or worked on
a scene from it in an acting class. So why
don't I have a copy of it in my library?
Why don't I read it tonight and I'll call you tomorrow.
She said, Okay, So I read it that night and
(21:46):
I and I said, wow, I had just somehow I'd
escaped ever working on it. You know up to that point,
and so I called her and I said, okay, I'd
love to Paul hasn't been on the stage for thirty
six years, so that's going to take a little doing.
And I don't think it would be helpful for him
to just be in a room with tape on the floor.
(22:08):
We got to find a place where you can actually
get up on the stage and be in and so
we rehearsed it at the White Barn Theater over in Wilton,
and that was a great idea because he was very
uncomfortable being up on the stage and he used to
do this he crossed his arms like this and sort
of looked down at his feet.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Well, Spencer, Tracy's calling acting.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Well, he's standing on the stage supposedly, and he's addressing
the audience. And I actually went up to him and
I said, you know, this would even be a lot
better if you kind of share some of this way
with the audience. And he goes, you know, I know,
he said, but I'm just terrified that I'm going to
make eye contact with somebody in the audience. So I said, okay, look,
(22:53):
you know you're going to be on the stage and
there's going to be a lot of lights shining on you.
It's going to be hard to see the audience. And
you know how a balcony at the playoffs, and the
facade in front of the balcony the bars, you know
what I mean. I said, if you just look at that,
it'll look like you're looking at the metal. Yeah, and
you know you'll be protected. So I mean, over the
(23:15):
course of the first couple of weeks while we were
playing it in performance, that had eventually kind of started
to come up a little more and a little more
and a little more. And we shot it. By the way,
we shot it for Masterpiece Theater and a co production
Masterpiece Theater and Showtime.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
I want to find that it's wonderful. I saw the show.
I went and saw it.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Well, he's even better in the film version. And he's bigger.
He's bigger in the film. And I said to him afterwards,
I said, you know, the book is that when you
get on film, you don't have to be as big
as you are on the stage. But you've gotten bigger.
You're actually doing more and I can will you explain
that to me, because this guy is a guy we
know is a wonderful film actor. And he said, Oh,
(23:58):
I don't know. It just seemed like was just the
camera there. So I guess I had to. I just
felt I ought to do more. It's contrary to everything
we think about, right, he was more at home there.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, he was more at home there.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Anyway, his performance is quite spectacular, and so are the
other people in the Jeff Demon and Jane Atkinson and
Jane Curtin and Frank Convers, Frank.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Converse, who I thought was the best Mitch I've ever
seen in Streetcard. In Nicos's production, Blythe was probably, you know,
one of certainly one of two or three of the
best Blanches I've ever seen. Blithe was a great Blanche.
Aidan Quinn was They did a Lincoln Center and zachar
Ropp was. I auditioned and didn't get the part, and
Aiden got the part, and Aiden and blythe Frank and
(24:43):
Francis McDormand Is Stella and she was good. But Frank Converse, Yeah,
Frank Converse, man, he was great. I loved anyway. I
said that a million times now, God that I go
up to that camp. I've got so many memories of
that camp. I haven't been up there in a while.
Since he was there. But you know all those the
lifestyle things are going to the pizza place after the show,
(25:05):
and knew man just being like so kind. He didn't
have to be kind. And the people I've got to
meet there, I mean, especially as he got older. This
is not me making fun of him, but Tony Randall
would sit there in a chair like he was a
toy you had to wind up. He would literally sit
there and he wouldn't move. He'd be on the couch
in the green room and there's all the snacks everywhere
and the shit everywhere, and his kids are on the
(25:26):
floor and Heather's on the other side of the room
and his kids are like coloring on the floor and
he's to sit there and kind of stare at them
very quietly. I'm assuming he's husbanding his energy. Then all
a sudden they say, Tony, you're on. He'd be like hello, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
He was wonderful.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Oh he just turned on.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
He could make the most out of bad to mediocre material.
He was very funny, so charming. I'll tell you a
funny story about Tony. He had his first child when
he was seventy eight years old. He had married Heather
and who had been an intern of his when he
founded the National. Yes, Tony was just a wonderfully generous
(26:03):
actor and funny, funny guy. Jack Klugman told me that
they were doing The Odd Couple in Manchester in England
or Noddingham or saying yeah, they were doing it somewhere together.
And Tony got the word that Heather was pregnant, and
Jack said that he had a knock on his dressing
room door. He opened it and it was Tony. Tony says,
the machinery still works. And then Heather told me, asked
(26:28):
me if I would sing the Chicago song Razzle Dazzle
had his memorial service in the Theater in the York
and I said, geez, you know, Heather, I've never done
that song except in the show, and it's a big
production number and it kind of lays there. It's not
a great solo number. Give them the old She said, well,
(26:48):
here's the reason I want you to do it. Just
Tony always wished that he could play that part. And
he used to make us a martini and then we'd
go into the living room and he'd put on your
CD and he would lip sync to you, singing Razzle dazzle,
and I said, you got to be kidding me. I
didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
She said yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
So I went out and I said to the audience, Okay,
I've never sang the song except in the show, but
Heather told me that Tony used to like to do it,
and he would. So I want you to picture. I'll
sing you the song, but you got a picture Tony
doing it for Heather in their living room in their
apartment up on Central Park West after dinner at night
with a martini, and I sang it. And I came
(27:29):
and I walked off the stage and Jacques den Boise
was there, and Jacques said, Jim, you know, he said,
I've seen an awful lot of guys play that part.
He said, you sang that pretty well. I think you
should play. You should think talk to your urgent about
maybe playing that part. So I told Charlotte that who
had played the part after Annie ryin King left and
she says, oh, God, Daddy, you know because I had
(27:50):
played the part. That's why they asked me to do
it in the first.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Place, which brings me to your version of the Legend
of Chicago. So I hear, I know Walter Encore Walter
Weissler's come wrap it up exactly as it is, don't
change anything. We're gonna take it right to Broadway. Booty Boom.
And you originate the row Billy, You originate Billy, Yeah, yeah,
And you weren't in the encorese thing I was. So
(28:14):
you were in the encourse yeah? And was everybody or
did they replace some of the cast.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Well, maybe one or two people, but it was pretty
much the entire production that we did Encourse. And then
the following fall we went into production for the Broadway show,
and there was some talk about whether or not to,
you know, open it up and bring on sets and
all this. Suff they decided not to do that, and
guess what, it's still going twenty eight years later, So
I guess they made the right decision.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
And how long did you do it?
Speaker 4 (28:39):
For?
Speaker 3 (28:39):
About a long year?
Speaker 1 (28:42):
That was it?
Speaker 3 (28:42):
A long year? You could still be doing it now.
I know.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
They rotate back and forth, like it's asked Harlem Globetrotters.
These people.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
I went in once for like three weeks when they
didn't have a Billy, about ten or fifteen years ago now,
and they called me up and asked me Gretchen mal
was going to be going in and they didn't have
a billion. They said, could you do it for like
three weeks?
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (29:02):
I suppose so. And you know so, I said, they said,
you're gonna need a lot of rehearsalcle No, I don't
think so. I'll just kind of give me the I'll
look at the book. And then I called them back
a week. I said, yeah, I can probably rehearsal there, dude. Yeah, yeah,
And you went back, was it fun? Well, after three
weeks I was definitely finished. Yeah, it was like and
it was it?
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Is it psychological? Is it like, I don't want to
say boredom per se? But is it psychological insofar as
when you do something that's got a shelf life.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
And you're duck someone variety? You know, some people can
go on and they do these things five years. I
can't do that. I mean, I go out there. I
have to confess that after you know, six or eight
weeks of playing it, after you've opened it, and you
know you're doing it now eight times a week, and
the matin these days are tough. My buddies are out
(29:53):
there on the golf course. It's Wednesday afternoon, it's to
Southampton yeah, and I got to go out there. I
will say this though, about doing a musical as opposed
to doing a straight play. When the music starts, that
does help you.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Then you win the Tony. You won City of Angels
a few years before. Who directed City of Angels Michael
Blake Blakemore And if I remember, that was kind of
at the apex of Blake Moore's West End and Broadway career.
He was doing a lot of big shows.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
He was a good guy and he was an actor,
you know, right. And my co star Greg Edelman, who's
just a wonderful guy and has one of the best
voices on Broadway, went up to Michael at one point
and he said, you know, Michael, you're the first British
director I've ever worked with who wasn't a real son
of a bitch or something like that. And Michael said,
that's because I'm Australian, dear boy.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Most actors I know, regardless of their pedigree and training
and experiences, you know, they want to win and they
want to win an Oscar. They think that's the sexiest
award to win. And then there's a group that I
always kind of identified with the award. Do you want
to win as a Tony and that really is much
more of a of a mountain to climb. You win
(31:07):
the Tony Award the first time City of Angels was
a big hit. Does that change things for you at all? Now?
Speaker 3 (31:12):
You know, I've never lived in the city. I've always
lived out And so to add to the deal and
the kids you got commuting and that that adds a
couple of levels of exhaustion to the whole day. I've
lived in Connecticut forever and I drove home the other
night for the first time in a long time. How
(31:33):
the hell did I do this every night?
Speaker 1 (31:35):
You know?
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Because this are you know, two Balentine hles actually in
the car on the way home, and by the time
I got there, I was maybe kind of coming down, ready.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
To go to sleep by the fire. Yeah. Now for you,
a couple more questions for you when you're on stage,
when you're in film, when you're in TV. And I'm
literally not joking when I'm referring to the Buddy Ebsen's
of the world. Are you doing shows and your your
heroes are around you? Who are you excited to work with? Oh?
Speaker 3 (32:03):
This wasn't on Broadway, but it was a TV show
version of Look Homeward Angel with Geraldine Page. And here
was the cast of the show. This was done in
the seventies for CBS Playhouse ninety. Charlie Derning, Barney Hughes, E. G. Marshall,
Pamela Payton Wright, Barbara Colby, Geraldine Page. I mean that
(32:26):
was terrific. They did a rap party after we finished
shooting it, and Pamela Payton Wright said to me, Jimmy,
go ask Jerry to dance. Jerry Page. She was playing
my mother, Geraldine Page. She'd played the Princess Cosmonopolis with
Paul you know, in the Sweet Pew and Sweet Purview
on Broadway and in the movie. And so I said, really,
(32:49):
go ask Jerry to dance. She'd go ask her to dance.
So I go over. I see Jerry want to dance,
and we have a band playing. You know, well, Alex,
she can dance the way she can act. I mean,
you can do anything with her. And it's like she's
been your partner for your whole life. She's wonderful. So
I figured the song's over, she's gonna she's gonna leave.
She stands there with me. So the music starts up
(33:11):
and we dance again. We go back over and sit
down and Geraldine sits down next to Pala. I hate
to dance, and Plma is Jared, what do you mean
you hate to dance?
Speaker 1 (33:22):
You're wonderful dancers.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
I hate to dance? Why do you What do you mean?
Speaker 1 (33:25):
I hate? It makes you want to do the real thing?
Actor James Naughton. If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on
the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
When we come back, James Norton shares the unexpected campaign
(33:49):
he's undertaking to an act of change in his home state.
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Actor James Naughton lost his first wife, Pamela Parsons Naughton,
(34:12):
to cancer in twenty thirteen. She was sixty six at
the time. The loss began his engagement but the fight
for a right to die law in Connecticut.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
It's a law that is now legal in ten states
and the District of Columbia, but not in the rest
of the states yet. It's also known as a right
to die with dignity I have a friend, a woman
who just lives in Connecticut. Connecticut doesn't have this law.
I've been trying since I lost my wife eleven years ago, Pam,
(34:45):
whom you knew, after a four year battle with pancreatic cancer.
One morning she looked at me and she said, Jimmy,
I don't want to wake up anymore. And when she
saw the look on my face, she said, well, we've
always known this was a fatal disease, and it was
finally coming in to get her. It was taken her down.
And that night, when I crawled into bed with her,
(35:05):
she said, oh, she woke up and she looked at
me through the darkness and she said, I thought I
wasn't going to have to wake up anymore. And I
got to tell you, Alec, you know when she said that,
I felt so guilty that I couldn't help her out
give her what she wanted. Now, in these ten states
(35:27):
and the District of Columbia, you can, you know, if
you get two doctors who say you have six months
or less to live and your sound mind, you're not
just depressed, you know, you can get a medical cocktail.
So the when a time comes, Rene obergianoa used this
in California. He had stage four metastatic lung cancer, and
he kept it to the end, and finally when he
(35:47):
got to the end, he availed himself of this and
he said to his wife, Judith, I'm just right to
our friends that I'm proud that I live in a
state that recognizes a person's right to die with dignity.
So I've been working very hard, really hard for like
the last six years to try to get this. I
go up there and testify before the Public Health Committee,
and we've gotten through the Health Committee the last couple
of years after not being able to get there. The
(36:09):
first time this was brought up in Connecticut was nineteen
ninety four, and we're still trying to get it done.
There's a woman named Linda Shannon Bluestein who went up
to Vermont. She was a friend of mine in Fairfield, Bridgeport,
and she sued the governor of Vermont because all these
states have a residency requirement, and she sued to say
(36:33):
the residency requirement was not legitimate, and she won in court,
and so they did away with the residency requirement. And
then she went up from Connecticut got two doctors, got
a place, got a house an airbnb, got a hospice
nurse to commit and take care of her, and she
went up there about four weeks ago, early in January
and availed herself of their law because she had stage
(36:57):
four Phillippian tube cancer and it was taken her down.
Was getting to the point where if you have one
of those terrible ones that really, really, you know, is
torturing you. That's why this is for those few people,
and there aren't many people who avail or need to
avail themselves of it when hospice isn't enough. That's what
this is about. So I'm working hard on that.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Thank you for mentioning all that as it relates to Pam.
You are remarried, of course, to your wife, Sarah, Sarah,
who's lovely. I want to but it's funny I remember
vividly because your reaction was vivid, and that is We're
sitting at the pizza place and I meet Pam and
I'm doing what everybody did around Pam. I'm just staring
at Pam because she was such an amazing woman. Everybody loved,
(37:39):
they were in love with Pam. Yeah, one of the
questions real quickly. Have you done any full productions with
either Greg or Kira or yeah, you did a full
show with them?
Speaker 3 (37:49):
Greg. You know, my son Greg started and ran for
seven years in New York the Blue Light Theater Company.
We did a production of Golden Boy where he plays
the fighter and I play his manager and Joanne who'd
directed us. Yeah, that was a one production we've done together.
Kira and I have done a bunch of stuff together.
My daughter Kira is an actor and a director. She's
(38:09):
directed me in a play up in the Berkshires written
by Eric Tarloff at the Berkshire Theater Festival.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Anything lined up to you next in the theater now?
Hope not.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
You know. I did a production last spring at the
Iveryton Playhouse in Connecticut of on Golden Pond, playing the
old geezer who's losing it and has dementia with Maya Dylan,
who's a wonderful actor. She was in our production also
of Our Town, and it was pretty good and we
were It was fun because it's a unlike the movie,
(38:39):
it's really funny and the old guy who says all
kinds of inappropriate things and is a curmudgeon, that's a
great part to play well, you know, the laughs, timing
the laughs with the audience. Guy came out and said,
would you guys consider maybe coming back and doing this
again next year in my theater. I looked at Maya
and we both went, I don't think so, been there
(39:02):
and done that.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Boo boom my thanks to James Norton. I'll leave you
with a little more of All I care About from
the Broadway cast recording of the Chicago revival. I'm Alec Baldwin.
Here's the thing, is brought to you by iHeart Radio
about Tuller.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Let me see her run free and keep your money.
That's enough for me.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
I don't care for driving packing cars.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Or smoking law buck cigars.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
No, no, not me. All I care about is doing
a guy and first picking on you, twisting the rest that's.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Turning the scroll
Speaker 4 (40:02):
S.
This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's
the Thing from iHeart Radio. James Naughton is known for
his decades of stellar work on stage in American classics,
from Tennessee Williams to Eugene O'Neill. The Drama Desk winner
made his off Broadway debut in nineteen seventy one in
(00:22):
Long Day's Journey in Tonight, which earned him a Theater
World Award. He directed the Tony nominated production of Arthur
Miller's The Price and Thornton Wilder's Our Town, which was
later broadcast on PBS's Masterpiece Theater. Naughton is equally comfortable
with the Great American Songbook. He won his first Tony
(00:44):
for the musical City of Angels in nineteen ninety. He
then originated the role of Billy Flynn in the hit
Broadway revival of Chicago, alongside Anne Rhymeking and B. B. Newworth.
It earned him his second Tony and became the second
longest running show in Broadway history.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I don't care about expensive things, cashmere coats, diamond rings,
stunt made a thing.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
All I care about is long That's what I'm here for.
I don't care for, where it's silk cravats.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
This is James Naughton with all I care about, from
the Broadway cast recording of the Chicago Revival, with all
of his theater bonafides. Naughton is no stranger to film,
appearing in the Devilwears product, nor television working on Who's
the Boss, Planet of the Apes and Ally McBeal. I
(01:43):
wanted to connect the dots between his great theatrical success
and his beginnings in Middletown, Connecticut.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I was born there, but grew up where in West
Hartford and West We moved to West Harford when I
was three and a half, and it was it was
the halcyon days of the early fifties. It was spectacular,
you know, playing baseball, football, basketball outside every day all
year long, depending on what the season was. That's what
the sport was. And your parents were both teachers. What
(02:14):
do they teach? My father would say, students, that's my father.
They taught everything, you know. He actually said, well, I
said to him, so when we moved to West Hartford,
you got a job teaching at a school that I
eventually went to a junior high school. And he said, yeah,
I was. I taught English, I taught math, I taught
social studies. I thought I taught students. And my mother
(02:35):
was a business head person. She could do typing all
that stuff. Yeah, and my dad told a straight economics.
Of course, it's like contemporary problems they called it. Where
you got himself in a lot of trouble. Oh yeah, well,
I Massapeaker was not Paris. It was not open minded
place on earth.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
But the cultural scene in your home. Were your parents
into movies?
Speaker 3 (02:56):
That?
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Were they theater goers? Loved music concerts? Why did that
get into your bloodstream? Well?
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Music was I think a part of the deal. There's
an old story in the family that my father, Bob
and ray Eberly had a hit called Pennies from Heaven
in the thirties I think, and they went to some
dance and it was a dance band, and somebody challenged
my father to get up and sing Pennies from Heaven
with the band. And the person with the challenger went
(03:24):
up to the band leader and said, we had Bob
and Ray Everley's younger brother, Jimmy Everley here in the house,
you know, would you like him to get up and
sing a song? So they said, and he got up
and sang Pennies from Heaven. So that was an old
story in the family, and of course it was one
of the first songs I learned.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
But for you, how did it begin? Like school productions or.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, you know, we used to do plays in school,
elementary school and you had.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
An interest in that, yeah, in and around sports. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
And we remember in the cub Scouts we had these
pack meetings like once a month, and our den mother
was interested in that stuff, so she used to put
these little plays together. I remember playing King Arthur pulling
the sword out of the rock, and I was probably
nine years old. I was very authoritative, though.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
But for you plays while you were athletic.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Well you know the story. My story is in high
school I was playing soccer and basketball and baseball, but
I quit basketball. I wasn't really very good at it,
but I was playing soccer and baseball and in my
junior year I went to my coach and I said, Coach,
I have a problem. He so what I said, Well,
mister Lawer, who is the director of the choir and
(04:34):
the director of all the musicals, wants to cast me
as the lead in the musical this spring. And he says, Jimmy,
that's great, you have to do it, and I go, well, yeah,
but I want to play baseball. He said, well, let
me talk to mister Lawer, so that later that day
he comes back. He says, Bill Lawer, and I are
going to make it possible for you to do both
in May, right, We're going to let you. And so
(04:56):
what was the part I was playing? I was a
sixteen year old am Beck. I thought I was really
I was really on it. And then I saw a
picture of myself a couple of years ago that somebody
gave me. Looked like a little boy with a little
white crap in his hair, you know. And anyway, they
did it, and so I played baseball, which meant I
always left rehearsal a little bit early after school, making
(05:18):
mister Lauer unhappy. And then I'd get to baseball a
little late, which made mister Key, who was a tough guy,
very unhappy. But the next year they did it again,
and we did Carousel, and I played Billy Biglow and
played baseball at the same time. So I've always done that.
What did you like about it?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
About? What about getting up in front of an orders?
You like performing in front.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Of people well, you know you should know something about this.
You know, they say, if you're Irish or Irish American,
you either want to sing or fight, or possibly both.
And I think the deal is first you fight and
then you sing about it.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I mean, you sing and then you got to punch
somebody out. And I don't like you're saying.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Right, But it's always been that way. And even when
I was in college, I didn't get into the theater
until really late, and all my friends were jocks. My
roommate was a hockey player and a football player, and
I was a soccer player and a baseball player.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
You went to Brown for American civilization was your major?
American literature actually, is what I wound up being. I
went there thinking I was going to be in pre med.
But you couldn't do pre med and do labs in
the afternoon and go to soccer practice. So you know,
if you're like me, were you you had really lofty
goals that were very academic in lecture, and they.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Were like, nah, I go becoming active. Lofty goals are
chief I'll go to law.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
School and I'm like, nah, maybe not that yeah, but
when you go to Yale, I mean you go to
one of the great drama school drama schools in the world,
and you go for there for the MFA. By the
end of the Brown thing, what's making you want to
go get an advanced degree in theater?
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Well? I walked into the theater for the first time
in my junior year because this girl at Pembroke, which
is now part of Brown, had told me, Hey, by
the way, there's something going on at the theater today.
You should you should come by tonight. I had never
been in the theater out time there it's November. I
wander her in there auditioning for a musical Guys and dolls,
(07:05):
and the guy he said, okay, who's next, and she
did one of these you know, she pointed and get
him up there. So the guy said come on, and
I said, I'm not here to audition. He said, don't
be shy. What have you done? I go, I haven't
done anything. I did a couple of high school musicals.
He goes, all right, we'll sing a song from one
of those. I don't have any music. I'm not here
to audition. I'm just here to visit my friend Judy.
(07:26):
He says, get up here and sing a song. So
I got up and sang a song. He said, okay,
here go take this scene and go out in the
hall and look at it and come back in ten
minutes and read it. So I did, and he said,
all right, everybody, take five. He said, come here. You've
obviously been on the stage before. What are you a freshman?
And I said no, I'm a junior. He goes, well,
where the hell have you been, That's what he said,
and I said, I've been playing soccer and baseball and
(07:46):
he said, oh, one of those he actually did, and
I said yeah. He said, well, i'd like you to
be in the show and I said I couldn't do both.
We're still playing. We're in the NCAA tournament. We played
to get eliminated. I couldn't do both. He said, no,
you couldn't. Will you come see me in January? So
I forgot about it, and it was Christmas vacation when
I went back, and I was trying to find an
arts course that would satisfy I had to take one
(08:10):
for a graduation, and I don't have any visual artistic
ability at all, graphic ability, so I thought maybe maybe drama.
So I went and found him and he opened the door,
and he sat me down and he said, Jim, I'm
glad you came.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
I think if you wanted to, I think you could
do this. And I said, what you mean for real?
And he said yes. And I said, how do you
know that? I just sang you a song and read
a couple of pages. He says, cause I've been doing
this for forty years and I'm telling you if you
And I said, so, how do I get there from here?
He said, should take my class. It's a scene study
(08:44):
class that meets three hours every afternoon, four.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Days a week.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
I said, wow, that's a lot of time. He goes, Yes,
it is, he says, and when you graduate in a
year and a half, you go to Yale Drama School.
And I said, just like that and he said, yeah,
just like that done. So he didn't tell me you
had to audition. But a year later I audition and
I got in and I went with the idea, well,
we'll see how this goes, right, me too? But I
was there two days and I went Finally I found
(09:09):
out where the hell I belonged, because while I was
in college, I didn't know where, you know, I didn't
know what to do, like drama school, law school, go to.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
It's a tough time. It's a tough time that you
when I did it, Remember I said to my dad,
I mean the joke in my family. I've told this
joke on the show before, which is I call my
parents and I go. I got offered a full scholarship
to go to and drama tuition scholarship. It's a need
based scholarship. I go, but I auditioned and I'm going
to get a full scholarship and I'm gonna leave after
three years at GW, only one more year left to go.
(09:38):
I'm gonna go to NYU for drama. My mother is
screaming on the phone.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Are you out of your mind?
Speaker 1 (09:43):
So you go to Yale? What's that like? Hard?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Well, you know, basically, I think all drama schools say
what we're going to do is we're gonna break down
all your bad habits and then we're going to build
you back up. And they're very good at breaking down
your ego, and you know, like, oh, we're at a
time we try and then then I don't have a
clue as to how to do the rest of it.
So you kind of have to go there and survive it,
(10:08):
and you know, it's kind of like the survivitoro you want. Yeah,
and if you get through it okay, it maybe makes
you a stronger person because you've had to survive all
that tearing down of your of your self confidence and
everything else. My classmates were Henry Winkler and Jill Iikeenberry.
Henry and I got hired into the al rep out
(10:28):
of the school. So that was my first job, and
that was wonderful because I had a wife and a child,
and you and Pam had your daughter Greg Greg, ye,
he's older than Kira. Yeah. And I was looking for
a job that could pay me some money. And of course,
you know, the options were go to the Guthrie and
work for fifty dollars a week and become a journeyman
(10:50):
for seven years and then maybe you'll be an equity
act fort and bross, you know what I mean. And
this was all of a sudden full equity card.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Bam.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
I'm you know. I was making big money, like one
hundred and sixty dollars a week, which was a lot
in New Haven at the time in nineteen seventy. Yeah,
and then a year later I was working in New
York and you know, I've been lucky enough to keep working.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
So when you leave Yale, what's the first job you
get the play you mentioned? Oh, I got so lucky.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
I was at Yale rep from the someth We worked
all summer out at Guildhall in East Hampton. That was
our first something. We did the whole summer season, and
then we came back to New Haven and we did
a bunch of plays and I was impossibly the worst
production of the Scottish play that's ever been done. But
everybody I know says no no. I was in the
Worst Scottman and it was directed by Robert Brustein, who
(11:42):
was not a director, he was a critic. And anyway,
we got hammered. My friend David Ackroyd played McDuff and
I played the guy and we had a sword fight together.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
I can't even remember the character.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Who who is the thinge?
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Lee Richardson, Lee Richardson, do you remember him? Yeah? And
Carmen de Lavalla played Lady McDuff, the dancer. She was
a lovely woman. Anyway, I got hired out of that
show to come to New York and do Long Day's
Journey in Tonight with Robert Ryan, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and Stacy
Keach playing.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
My That was my audition monologue. I did Edmund and
the guy in the auditions like sag oh Jesus, everybody
did Edmund.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Yeah, where'd you do it? At the Promenade Theater which
doesn't exist anymore? In seventy six and Broadway and Arvin
Brown directed it, and yeah, it was like sort of
starting at you know, at the top of the game
if you're.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Doing on Robert Ryan and Geraldine Fitzgerald.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
She was the most fun to be on stage with.
She used to come in if I did something a
little differently, you know, instead of coming by the numbers
what we always did. I could see the fire would
light up in her eyes and she'd go, oh boy,
here we go. Yeah, And so she would come in
to me every night before the show and she goes, well, Ducks,
what do you want to do different tonight? And you know,
she loved it, and that was fun because then we
(13:02):
were playing with each They call us the players, right,
we were playing with each other.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
That's I like that too. I like it when you
I try as the as it goes on, just as
a as an exercise maybe, but it does lead to
something which is to expand my relationship, not just with
the other actors on the catch, but with the set.
You know. I used to do this thing. We did
a play where the guy came in and the guy
was his childhood home and his family's poor and he's
rich now, and the place repulsed him. He wouldn't touch
(13:27):
anything or sit down. He thought you could catch a
disease from every just being in this space with us.
This is entertaining mister Sloan and with his sister and
her father's father, and the whole play unfolds and my
character is this rich guy that comes in. He's paying
for everything and maintaining them. And I'd come in and
by the end of the play, I was like rubbing
the couch and not going on this couch. So many
(13:48):
memories of this couch, you see, just something to play,
I mean. But when you would do that with her,
she was cool with it. Oh, she she welcomed it.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
She thrived on it. Yeah, so did Joanne Woodward when
we did Glass and Aerie. You know, Joeanne plays Amanda Wingfield.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
When did you do that?
Speaker 3 (14:05):
We did it at Williamstown in the eighties and then
we did it once again at Long Wharf like six
months later, and on closing night, I came into the
theater at Long Wharf in New Haven and joe Anne
said she grabbed me, pulled me in the corner. She said,
I figured this is going to be you know the
end right, And she said, we're going to make a
movie of this and Paul's going to direct it. You
(14:27):
want to be in it? Did you sure? Laura was
Karen Allen and Joanne was Amanda and we had three
different times. John Sales did it first the movie Directory
Writer Treat Williams, The Late Treat Williams did it second
at Long Warf and Malcovich did the film and Michael
Ballhouse shot the film and Paul directed it.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
You did the thing with Joeanne. You did it at
Williamstown first? Was that your debut at Williamstown? No, you've
been at Williamstown before?
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Yeah? What was it about that place that everybody made
that a home for a period of time?
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Well, I mean, you know, we all talk about a
company making a company, we talk about an ensemble, but
that's what it really was. And we all came back
there every summer together and Nicos who was I mean,
he was a gifted entrepreneurs what he was? You know,
he really was waiting for your explanation. Well, he was.
He could be a terrific director, but he was a
(15:23):
producer in addition to that, and so he put people together.
He was trying to get Joanne to come up, and
so finally they did and he said to me, what
are you doing for the rest of the summer. I
was in like the first play of the summer, and
I said, well, I don't know. I hope we're going
to go to Maine for a while because my family
we grew up there. He said, well, will you keep
(15:43):
August open because I think Joanne's going to come. We
might do glass Man Azri and if we do, i'd
like you to come and be in. Said, oh, okay, yeah, sure,
I'll see what I can do. Keep my schedule open
for that. And that turned out to be a home run.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
You know, actor and director James Naughton. If you enjoy
conversations with musical theater greats, check out my episode with
the legendary Patty Lapone.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
I don't go out there going They're gonna dig me.
I go out there and I do know that the
people that have come to see me know that I
have them in mind and that I already have them
on my side. They know that I'm doing it for them.
It could be a persona could be a body language thing,
but they know that I know they're there. And the
difference is when actors don't acknowledge the audience, the audience
(16:35):
can't come. When an actor acknowledges the audience, then you
can have a moment of ecstasy.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
To hear more of my conversation with Patty Lapone, go
to Here's the Thing dot Org. After the break, James
Norton shares his experience being directed by and then directing
Paul Newman. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to hear
(17:15):
the thing. James Naughton starred in the nineteen eighty seven
film adaptation of the Tennessee Williams classic The Glass Menagerie.
The movie was directed by Paul Newman and began a
lifelong friendship for the two actors.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
I met Paul after because I was doing Glass Menagerie
with Joanne and we were up in Williamstown doing it,
and you know, he'd come up for a couple of days,
like the husband right of the actress, and he felt
so out of it. And you know how Paul could
be socially awkward and shy and all those things, and
because he was basically ye talk about that, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
And so he'd.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Come up and I realized we'd all felt kind of crazy,
like there's Paul Newman. And you know, Joanne was a
part of our company. She was like, you know, someone
I'm I'm working with, I'm playing with. We felt great together,
but then Paul would committed and everybody be so awkward.
And then I realized he's the one who feels really
awkward because he's not a part of the company. He's
(18:12):
the husband coming up to visit. So anyway, when we
started to when they said he's going to make the film,
he's going to direct the film, he insisted on a
couple of weeks of rehearsal, and I think it was
partly so that he and we could all break down
that stuff, you know, And and he'd come over. Karen
and I'd be sitting there together because we were playing
(18:33):
all the scenes together, and he'd come over and he'd
tell us some ridiculous jokes, and and then he turned
around and walk away, and we look at each.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Other like, whoa is that he's gotten this far with
that man? We were so we were so everybody was
so awkward. But in the course of a couple of
weeks that broke down and then we became really close.
And then he discovered that he and I live five
minutes from each other in Connecticut, and he discovered, oh yeah,
I like to shoot pool too, and I like to
drink beer two and so that's what we did.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
So you go and do the film, and he wants
a couple of weeks of rehearsal. And you hadn't directed
anybody yourself by then, had you? No?
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Not at that point. The first time I directed anything,
I directed Maria Tucci, my friend who had translated Filomena
by Eduardo di Filippo for the stage, and then she
played it, and I directed her because she and I
had done a lot of stuff together on stage the
Crucible and at Williamstown and Yet and Rose Tattoo and
(19:33):
a whole bunch of stuff, you know, at Williamstown. And
so that's the first time I directed.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
What was Newman's directing technique was he light? Was he
really straightforward? And to the point. Yeah, he was.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
He was remarkably light handed, gentle, not a lot of
crazy stuff, and you know, not a lot of direction.
But he spent some time with Michael Ballhouse, who shot it,
and he was about as good as it gets. Yeah,
and a wonderful guy. Yeah, yeah, as you know, and
they'd be they'd discuss stuff, and then you know, he'd
committed say blah blah blah, Okay, I want to do
(20:09):
that again. Yeah, okay, anything different, No, it was okay,
that was good. You just keep doing that, you know,
that sort of suff.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
And then the tables turning, you direct him. Yeah, how
did that go?
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Well? That that went awfully? Well? Yeah, we did Our
Town at the Westport Playhouse. Well, actually, Joanne called me
up one night in about two thousand and three, after
nine to eleven, and she said, Jimmy, you know i've
aw She was the artistic director of the Westport Playhouse.
She said, you know how I've always wanted to do
a production of Our Town. And I said, yeah, actually
(20:41):
you have talked about that before. She said, well, I
think now's the time. I think we could all use
a little our Town right now. After nine to eleven
she said, and Paul wants to play the stage manager.
I go, what she and I have been I was shocked.
We'd been after him for twenty years to try to,
you know, to do something on the stage, and he
(21:02):
would go, oh, no, no, I can't. My brain's all foam,
that's what he'd said. But he was excited about it,
and she said, I just walked out of the room
and he said I want to do this. And I
was out of the room for twenty five minutes. I
came back in and he had learned the first monologue,
and I said, you got to be kidding. She said, So,
we were wondering if maybe you'd like to direct it.
(21:24):
You say, no, my brain is all phowed. Well, you
know what I said to her, It was true. I said, Joanne,
I'm probably the only American actor who's never seen a
production of this play or read it or worked on
a scene from it in an acting class. So why
don't I have a copy of it in my library?
Why don't I read it tonight and I'll call you tomorrow.
She said, Okay, So I read it that night and
(21:46):
I and I said, wow, I had just somehow I'd
escaped ever working on it. You know up to that point,
and so I called her and I said, okay, I'd
love to Paul hasn't been on the stage for thirty
six years, so that's going to take a little doing.
And I don't think it would be helpful for him
to just be in a room with tape on the floor.
(22:08):
We got to find a place where you can actually
get up on the stage and be in and so
we rehearsed it at the White Barn Theater over in Wilton,
and that was a great idea because he was very
uncomfortable being up on the stage and he used to
do this he crossed his arms like this and sort
of looked down at his feet.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Well, Spencer, Tracy's calling acting.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Well, he's standing on the stage supposedly, and he's addressing
the audience. And I actually went up to him and
I said, you know, this would even be a lot
better if you kind of share some of this way
with the audience. And he goes, you know, I know,
he said, but I'm just terrified that I'm going to
make eye contact with somebody in the audience. So I said, okay, look,
(22:53):
you know you're going to be on the stage and
there's going to be a lot of lights shining on you.
It's going to be hard to see the audience. And
you know how a balcony at the playoffs, and the
facade in front of the balcony the bars, you know
what I mean. I said, if you just look at that,
it'll look like you're looking at the metal. Yeah, and
you know you'll be protected. So I mean, over the
(23:15):
course of the first couple of weeks while we were
playing it in performance, that had eventually kind of started
to come up a little more and a little more
and a little more. And we shot it. By the way,
we shot it for Masterpiece Theater and a co production
Masterpiece Theater and Showtime.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
I want to find that it's wonderful. I saw the show.
I went and saw it.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Well, he's even better in the film version. And he's bigger.
He's bigger in the film. And I said to him afterwards,
I said, you know, the book is that when you
get on film, you don't have to be as big
as you are on the stage. But you've gotten bigger.
You're actually doing more and I can will you explain
that to me, because this guy is a guy we
know is a wonderful film actor. And he said, Oh,
(23:58):
I don't know. It just seemed like was just the
camera there. So I guess I had to. I just
felt I ought to do more. It's contrary to everything
we think about, right, he was more at home there.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, he was more at home there.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Anyway, his performance is quite spectacular, and so are the
other people in the Jeff Demon and Jane Atkinson and
Jane Curtin and Frank Convers, Frank.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Converse, who I thought was the best Mitch I've ever
seen in Streetcard. In Nicos's production, Blythe was probably, you know,
one of certainly one of two or three of the
best Blanches I've ever seen. Blithe was a great Blanche.
Aidan Quinn was They did a Lincoln Center and zachar
Ropp was. I auditioned and didn't get the part, and
Aiden got the part, and Aiden and blythe Frank and
(24:43):
Francis McDormand Is Stella and she was good. But Frank Converse, Yeah,
Frank Converse, man, he was great. I loved anyway. I
said that a million times now, God that I go
up to that camp. I've got so many memories of
that camp. I haven't been up there in a while.
Since he was there. But you know all those the
lifestyle things are going to the pizza place after the show,
(25:05):
and knew man just being like so kind. He didn't
have to be kind. And the people I've got to
meet there, I mean, especially as he got older. This
is not me making fun of him, but Tony Randall
would sit there in a chair like he was a
toy you had to wind up. He would literally sit
there and he wouldn't move. He'd be on the couch
in the green room and there's all the snacks everywhere
and the shit everywhere, and his kids are on the
(25:26):
floor and Heather's on the other side of the room
and his kids are like coloring on the floor and
he's to sit there and kind of stare at them
very quietly. I'm assuming he's husbanding his energy. Then all
a sudden they say, Tony, you're on. He'd be like hello, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
He was wonderful.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Oh he just turned on.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
He could make the most out of bad to mediocre material.
He was very funny, so charming. I'll tell you a
funny story about Tony. He had his first child when
he was seventy eight years old. He had married Heather
and who had been an intern of his when he
founded the National. Yes, Tony was just a wonderfully generous
(26:03):
actor and funny, funny guy. Jack Klugman told me that
they were doing The Odd Couple in Manchester in England
or Noddingham or saying yeah, they were doing it somewhere together.
And Tony got the word that Heather was pregnant, and
Jack said that he had a knock on his dressing
room door. He opened it and it was Tony. Tony says,
the machinery still works. And then Heather told me, asked
(26:28):
me if I would sing the Chicago song Razzle Dazzle
had his memorial service in the Theater in the York
and I said, geez, you know, Heather, I've never done
that song except in the show, and it's a big
production number and it kind of lays there. It's not
a great solo number. Give them the old She said, well,
(26:48):
here's the reason I want you to do it. Just
Tony always wished that he could play that part. And
he used to make us a martini and then we'd
go into the living room and he'd put on your
CD and he would lip sync to you, singing Razzle dazzle,
and I said, you got to be kidding me. I
didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
She said yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
So I went out and I said to the audience, Okay,
I've never sang the song except in the show, but
Heather told me that Tony used to like to do it,
and he would. So I want you to picture. I'll
sing you the song, but you got a picture Tony
doing it for Heather in their living room in their
apartment up on Central Park West after dinner at night
with a martini, and I sang it. And I came
(27:29):
and I walked off the stage and Jacques den Boise
was there, and Jacques said, Jim, you know, he said,
I've seen an awful lot of guys play that part.
He said, you sang that pretty well. I think you
should play. You should think talk to your urgent about
maybe playing that part. So I told Charlotte that who
had played the part after Annie ryin King left and
she says, oh, God, Daddy, you know because I had
(27:50):
played the part. That's why they asked me to do
it in the first.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Place, which brings me to your version of the Legend
of Chicago. So I hear, I know Walter Encore Walter
Weissler's come wrap it up exactly as it is, don't
change anything. We're gonna take it right to Broadway. Booty Boom.
And you originate the row Billy, You originate Billy, Yeah, yeah,
And you weren't in the encorese thing I was. So
(28:14):
you were in the encourse yeah? And was everybody or
did they replace some of the cast.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Well, maybe one or two people, but it was pretty
much the entire production that we did Encourse. And then
the following fall we went into production for the Broadway show,
and there was some talk about whether or not to,
you know, open it up and bring on sets and
all this. Suff they decided not to do that, and
guess what, it's still going twenty eight years later, So
I guess they made the right decision.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
And how long did you do it?
Speaker 4 (28:39):
For?
Speaker 3 (28:39):
About a long year?
Speaker 1 (28:42):
That was it?
Speaker 3 (28:42):
A long year? You could still be doing it now.
I know.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
They rotate back and forth, like it's asked Harlem Globetrotters.
These people.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
I went in once for like three weeks when they
didn't have a Billy, about ten or fifteen years ago now,
and they called me up and asked me Gretchen mal
was going to be going in and they didn't have
a billion. They said, could you do it for like
three weeks?
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (29:02):
I suppose so. And you know so, I said, they said,
you're gonna need a lot of rehearsalcle No, I don't
think so. I'll just kind of give me the I'll
look at the book. And then I called them back
a week. I said, yeah, I can probably rehearsal there, dude. Yeah, yeah,
And you went back, was it fun? Well, after three
weeks I was definitely finished. Yeah, it was like and
it was it?
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Is it psychological? Is it like, I don't want to
say boredom per se? But is it psychological insofar as
when you do something that's got a shelf life.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
And you're duck someone variety? You know, some people can
go on and they do these things five years. I
can't do that. I mean, I go out there. I
have to confess that after you know, six or eight
weeks of playing it, after you've opened it, and you
know you're doing it now eight times a week, and
the matin these days are tough. My buddies are out
(29:53):
there on the golf course. It's Wednesday afternoon, it's to
Southampton yeah, and I got to go out there. I
will say this though, about doing a musical as opposed
to doing a straight play. When the music starts, that
does help you.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Then you win the Tony. You won City of Angels
a few years before. Who directed City of Angels Michael
Blake Blakemore And if I remember, that was kind of
at the apex of Blake Moore's West End and Broadway career.
He was doing a lot of big shows.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
He was a good guy and he was an actor,
you know, right. And my co star Greg Edelman, who's
just a wonderful guy and has one of the best
voices on Broadway, went up to Michael at one point
and he said, you know, Michael, you're the first British
director I've ever worked with who wasn't a real son
of a bitch or something like that. And Michael said,
that's because I'm Australian, dear boy.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Most actors I know, regardless of their pedigree and training
and experiences, you know, they want to win and they
want to win an Oscar. They think that's the sexiest
award to win. And then there's a group that I
always kind of identified with the award. Do you want
to win as a Tony and that really is much
more of a of a mountain to climb. You win
(31:07):
the Tony Award the first time City of Angels was
a big hit. Does that change things for you at all? Now?
Speaker 3 (31:12):
You know, I've never lived in the city. I've always
lived out And so to add to the deal and
the kids you got commuting and that that adds a
couple of levels of exhaustion to the whole day. I've
lived in Connecticut forever and I drove home the other
night for the first time in a long time. How
(31:33):
the hell did I do this every night?
Speaker 1 (31:35):
You know?
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Because this are you know, two Balentine hles actually in
the car on the way home, and by the time
I got there, I was maybe kind of coming down, ready.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
To go to sleep by the fire. Yeah. Now for you,
a couple more questions for you when you're on stage,
when you're in film, when you're in TV. And I'm
literally not joking when I'm referring to the Buddy Ebsen's
of the world. Are you doing shows and your your
heroes are around you? Who are you excited to work with? Oh?
Speaker 3 (32:03):
This wasn't on Broadway, but it was a TV show
version of Look Homeward Angel with Geraldine Page. And here
was the cast of the show. This was done in
the seventies for CBS Playhouse ninety. Charlie Derning, Barney Hughes, E. G. Marshall,
Pamela Payton Wright, Barbara Colby, Geraldine Page. I mean that
(32:26):
was terrific. They did a rap party after we finished
shooting it, and Pamela Payton Wright said to me, Jimmy,
go ask Jerry to dance. Jerry Page. She was playing
my mother, Geraldine Page. She'd played the Princess Cosmonopolis with
Paul you know, in the Sweet Pew and Sweet Purview
on Broadway and in the movie. And so I said, really,
(32:49):
go ask Jerry to dance. She'd go ask her to dance.
So I go over. I see Jerry want to dance,
and we have a band playing. You know, well, Alex,
she can dance the way she can act. I mean,
you can do anything with her. And it's like she's
been your partner for your whole life. She's wonderful. So
I figured the song's over, she's gonna she's gonna leave.
She stands there with me. So the music starts up
(33:11):
and we dance again. We go back over and sit
down and Geraldine sits down next to Pala. I hate
to dance, and Plma is Jared, what do you mean
you hate to dance?
Speaker 1 (33:22):
You're wonderful dancers.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
I hate to dance? Why do you What do you mean?
Speaker 1 (33:25):
I hate? It makes you want to do the real thing?
Actor James Naughton. If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on
the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
When we come back, James Norton shares the unexpected campaign
(33:49):
he's undertaking to an act of change in his home state.
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Actor James Naughton lost his first wife, Pamela Parsons Naughton,
(34:12):
to cancer in twenty thirteen. She was sixty six at
the time. The loss began his engagement but the fight
for a right to die law in Connecticut.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
It's a law that is now legal in ten states
and the District of Columbia, but not in the rest
of the states yet. It's also known as a right
to die with dignity I have a friend, a woman
who just lives in Connecticut. Connecticut doesn't have this law.
I've been trying since I lost my wife eleven years ago, Pam,
(34:45):
whom you knew, after a four year battle with pancreatic cancer.
One morning she looked at me and she said, Jimmy,
I don't want to wake up anymore. And when she
saw the look on my face, she said, well, we've
always known this was a fatal disease, and it was
finally coming in to get her. It was taken her down.
And that night, when I crawled into bed with her,
(35:05):
she said, oh, she woke up and she looked at
me through the darkness and she said, I thought I
wasn't going to have to wake up anymore. And I
got to tell you, Alec, you know when she said that,
I felt so guilty that I couldn't help her out
give her what she wanted. Now, in these ten states
(35:27):
and the District of Columbia, you can, you know, if
you get two doctors who say you have six months
or less to live and your sound mind, you're not
just depressed, you know, you can get a medical cocktail.
So the when a time comes, Rene obergianoa used this
in California. He had stage four metastatic lung cancer, and
he kept it to the end, and finally when he
(35:47):
got to the end, he availed himself of this and
he said to his wife, Judith, I'm just right to
our friends that I'm proud that I live in a
state that recognizes a person's right to die with dignity.
So I've been working very hard, really hard for like
the last six years to try to get this. I
go up there and testify before the Public Health Committee,
and we've gotten through the Health Committee the last couple
of years after not being able to get there. The
(36:09):
first time this was brought up in Connecticut was nineteen
ninety four, and we're still trying to get it done.
There's a woman named Linda Shannon Bluestein who went up
to Vermont. She was a friend of mine in Fairfield, Bridgeport,
and she sued the governor of Vermont because all these
states have a residency requirement, and she sued to say
(36:33):
the residency requirement was not legitimate, and she won in court,
and so they did away with the residency requirement. And
then she went up from Connecticut got two doctors, got
a place, got a house an airbnb, got a hospice
nurse to commit and take care of her, and she
went up there about four weeks ago, early in January
and availed herself of their law because she had stage
(36:57):
four Phillippian tube cancer and it was taken her down.
Was getting to the point where if you have one
of those terrible ones that really, really, you know, is
torturing you. That's why this is for those few people,
and there aren't many people who avail or need to
avail themselves of it when hospice isn't enough. That's what
this is about. So I'm working hard on that.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Thank you for mentioning all that as it relates to Pam.
You are remarried, of course, to your wife, Sarah, Sarah,
who's lovely. I want to but it's funny I remember
vividly because your reaction was vivid, and that is We're
sitting at the pizza place and I meet Pam and
I'm doing what everybody did around Pam. I'm just staring
at Pam because she was such an amazing woman. Everybody loved,
(37:39):
they were in love with Pam. Yeah, one of the
questions real quickly. Have you done any full productions with
either Greg or Kira or yeah, you did a full
show with them?
Speaker 3 (37:49):
Greg. You know, my son Greg started and ran for
seven years in New York the Blue Light Theater Company.
We did a production of Golden Boy where he plays
the fighter and I play his manager and Joanne who'd
directed us. Yeah, that was a one production we've done together.
Kira and I have done a bunch of stuff together.
My daughter Kira is an actor and a director. She's
(38:09):
directed me in a play up in the Berkshires written
by Eric Tarloff at the Berkshire Theater Festival.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Anything lined up to you next in the theater now?
Hope not.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
You know. I did a production last spring at the
Iveryton Playhouse in Connecticut of on Golden Pond, playing the
old geezer who's losing it and has dementia with Maya Dylan,
who's a wonderful actor. She was in our production also
of Our Town, and it was pretty good and we
were It was fun because it's a unlike the movie,
(38:39):
it's really funny and the old guy who says all
kinds of inappropriate things and is a curmudgeon, that's a
great part to play well, you know, the laughs, timing
the laughs with the audience. Guy came out and said,
would you guys consider maybe coming back and doing this
again next year in my theater. I looked at Maya
and we both went, I don't think so, been there
(39:02):
and done that.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Boo boom my thanks to James Norton. I'll leave you
with a little more of All I care About from
the Broadway cast recording of the Chicago revival. I'm Alec Baldwin.
Here's the thing, is brought to you by iHeart Radio
about Tuller.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Let me see her run free and keep your money.
That's enough for me.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
I don't care for driving packing cars.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Or smoking law buck cigars.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
No, no, not me. All I care about is doing
a guy and first picking on you, twisting the rest that's.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Turning the scroll
Speaker 4 (40:02):
S.
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