MilliOnAir Magazine June 2017 | Page 68

Well first of all that is a great question because now I have to try to remember! (We both laugh)

 

Let’s see, there were some fascinating things that happened in the 80’s. In the late 70's early 80’s there was Broadway, the revival of Brigadoon and West Side Story, Oklahoma and then in 83 there was an introduction of this whole new world of film, I did my first movie which was a western and I love westerns, and that was Silverado. And then after that the live teleplay called The Execution of Raymond Graham, which was about the last two hours of a convict on death row, we did it live on ABC with 14 cameras.  That was the first and last live television show on ABC in the last 50 years.  That was very exciting, we rehearsed for a couple of weeks like a play then we went live at exactly 9pm to 11pm.

The director would come down during commercial and would say ‘we were 2 minutes long, so tighten up the next scenes’, the camera would come back on and we’d go live. Then we’d be short and the director would say stretch the next scene so we were constantly having to adjust to the time according to the real clock. 

It was very exciting to do a live teleplay in front of a TV audience of 11 million people, anything can happen and there’s no second take, it’s live…

 

So that was I believe 1985 and from there went to London's West End  to do the play Orphans with Albert Finney, a dear friend and one of the great actors of the last few generations.

Orphans was directed by Gary Sinise, and then from there, yes, the ‘Lawnmower Man’ happened and then at the end of the 80’s was ‘White Hunter Black Heart’ with Clint Eastwood so the 80’s they were quite a time.

Wow, those were some incredible wise words. Very well said. It's hard for me to select just a few movies or TV series to talk about, so how about the 80's. Most people would say ' Lawnmower Man’. What films would you say you remember the most from that period and are there any stories you can share with us?