Random Reminiscing: Looking Back at My Many Random Roles Interviews (Part 26 of Quite a Few)
Featuring anecdotes from Lee Majors, Hal Linden, D.B. Woodside, Rob Lowe, Julie Benz, Richard Riehle, Jane Seymour, and Lance Henriksen
Back in 2021, when I celebrated the 10th anniversary of my first Random Roles, I was feeling a tad nostalgic, so I decided that I wanted to start looking back at my contributions to this A.V. Club feature, since it’s the portion of my freelance career of which I’m most proud.
If you accidentally missed the previous part of this reminiscing (and you may have, because it was in 2021!), you can check it out by clicking right here…and if you missed the part before that, well, each installment has a link to the previous installment in the intro, so just keep on clicking back until you’ve read ‘em all!
If you’re all up to date, though, then for heaven’s sake, why are you wasting time with this intro? Just dive right in!
Lee Majors:
High Noon, Part II: The Return Of Will Kane (1980)—“Will Kane”
You did a sequel to High Noon for TV, and one that was written by Elmore Leonard, no less.
Lee Majors: Yeah, I just saw it not long ago. Well, I saw it whiz by. I didn’t watch it. [Laughs.]
Did you actually work with Leonard?
No, we did that down in Arizona. There was a ranch down there, a Western set, outside of Tucson where they’d shot a lot of Westerns, and that whole thing was shot down there. What I remember most about that was the bad guy, who was on Bonanza. What was his name?
Pernell Roberts?
Pernell Roberts! Unfortunately, Pernell was an okay guy when we were working together, but he was not really very nice with the crew. He was a little bit belligerent and demanding. And so comes the last day of shooting, where he and I meet in the street for the gun duel. There was a note from the crew in my trailer when I came in. It said, “Please use a real bullet.” [Laughs.] I never told Pernell that! Oh, and David Carradine was in that. I got along great with David. Pernell was kind of off to himself. But he was the bad guy. Maybe he was just staying in character. Who knows? I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. [Hesitates.] Is he still around?
No, he passed away a few years ago.
Okay, then you can print it. [Laughs.] I wouldn’t want to say “use a real bullet” if he was still around. But I’m safe!
Hal Linden:
Donny And Marie (1976)—himself
There can’t be many scenes that sum up ’70s variety shows more than you, dressed in a spangled white shirt and white jeans, shaking it for all you’re worth.
Hal Linden: I don’t remember that scene! We did a dance number?
It’s actually just you, singing and disco dancing. [It starts at 47:10 in the above video.]
[Bursts out laughing.] I don’t even remember that! What did I sing?
I can’t remember. The visual memory may be blocking out the audio memory.
And in a disco outfit! Well, look, I’ll tell you the one memory I do have of shooting that show. They knew I played the clarinet and wanted to give me a clarinet number, so they had a cutout of the big band. I’m the band leader, Donny and Marie are the boy and girl singers, and they sing, “Marie / The dawn is breaking…” And I’m conducting the band, and I play jazz for about 16 bars, and then we finish the song.
Well, technically you had to prerecord all that. It wasn’t done live. It was prerecorded, and we lip-synched it… and that means I have to finger-synch the clarinet. I don’t remember what I played. It was jazz! [Laughs.] And if the fingers don’t go with what’s playing, then you lose the whole point of it, which is that I was actually playing it. Anybody could’ve picked up a clarinet, held it, moved their fingers around, and pretended to play. Ninety-eight percent of the audience wouldn’t have known and wouldn’t have been aware of it. But 2 percent would. And that 2 percent… I mean, I thought, “The whole point is that I’m actually playing!”
So I took the track home, and I transcribed my solo onto sheet music. And then in the morning, I got in, and I made cue cards—enormous cue cards—of just music. The 16-bar jazz solo I played, written out, so that when I picked up the clarinet, I actually read what I had played, so the fingers matched the clarinet playing. Now, is that attention to detail or what? [Laughs.]
D.B. Woodside:
The Temptations (1998)—“Melvin Franklin”
D.B. Woodside: You’ve picked one of my favorites. The Temptations is something that’s very dear to me, and it’s dear to me because it’s one of those shows that the entire family can watch, and it’s one of those shows that comes on every single year. No matter where I am, no matter how I age, no matter what city I’m in, there is someone who always brings up The Temptations. It was one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had.
I love all those guys to this day. It was the longest thing that I’ve ever worked on. We were together for about six to seven months, so we really became The Temptations. Before we even started rolling, we were together in Los Angeles for two months learning all the songs, learning all the dance routines. We really bonded, and we really became those characters. It was just something that was a special time for me, working with special people.
The Temptations are one of those groups where everyone knows their biggest hits whether they realize it or not, but when you got the role, did you just dive headlong into an exploration of their whole catalog?
I did, but at that time… The Temptations were my dad’s favorite’s group growing up, so I hate to admit it, but it was way before my time. You know, I knew two or three of their hits, but I didn’t know them. I didn’t know their music. But I had my dad there, who really told me a lot about how they were, about how they dressed back then, and what that meant at that time to see these four or five dark-skinned black men who were elegant, who were smooth… There was just something very, very special about that project that I will always hold dear to my heart.
Rob Lowe:
The Stand (1994)—“Nick Andros”
Rob Lowe: One of my favorite books of all time. I grew up reading it. Couldn’t believe they were going to make a miniseries and that I was going to get to be in it. And they wanted me to play the more traditional lead, Larry Underwood, the rock ’n’ roller guy who plays the guitar, but I wanted to play Nick. I thought it’d be more fun and more interesting. And they were, like, “Oh, okay!” So I ended up doing that. Stephen [King], who wrote the script himself, was on the set, and I was just so fortunate to get to know him. What a wonderful man. He may go down in history as the greatest American writer, pound for pound. I mean, I don’t know how you argue those stats, right? So I have a really fond spot for that. People still come up to me a lot and talk to me about that.
Were there any particular challenges to playing a mute character?
Well, I had to learn American sign language. And I did stuff in it, stuff that was just for me and was fun, that I don’t think anyone would ever notice. The first time you meet Nick, he’s walking down a road and gets the shit beaten out of him and ends up in jail, and you know how sometimes when we’re alone we’ll hum to ourselves? I thought, “Nick would do that, but he can’t.” So I’m signing… I believe it was “The Long And Winding Road.” No one’s ever noticed, I presume, because no one’s ever said anything about it. You’re the first person I’ve ever talked to about it. And what’s even better is that we didn’t have to ask The Beatles for rights. Somehow I probably owe Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono money, though. I’m sure I’ll be getting a request for retroactive royalties as soon as this runs. [Laughs.]
Julie Benz:
Hi Honey, I’m Home (1991-1992)—“Babs Nielsen”
Julie Benz: Oh, my goodness! That’s so long ago. I was a baby. [Laughs.] I was 19!
That was your first TV role as well as your first series-regular role. How did you find your way into that gig? Was it just a standard audition?
Yeah. Let’s see, I was 18 years old when I did the pilot, so I was a freshman at NYU, and it was one of my first professional auditions in New York City. And I somehow booked the job. I have no idea how. I think it was a lot of luck, a lot of ego, and a lot of naiveté. [Laughs.]
It was a conceptually interesting show—a ’50s sitcom family enters a relocation plan after their series is canceled and ends up being transplanted into the world of 1991—but it allowed for the gimmick of bringing on guest stars from classic sitcoms from the past. That must’ve been surreal to be just starting out and suddenly meeting people you’d grown up watching.
Yeah, you know, it was a really wonderful experience. I loved Nick At Nite at the time, and I was obsessed with watching it, so just to meet some of the more experienced stars of the older shows was a real treat and a thrill for me. I remember Gale Gordon was in the pilot, and it was one of my very first professional gigs without having an adult take me to the job. We shot on location in Orlando, Florida, so I was there by myself. And I remember I was late one day, and Gale Gordon pulled me aside, and he said, “Honey, when it says you have to be here at 10 a.m., you need to be here at 9:30.” And ever since, I’ve always been a half-hour early to my call time! [Laughs.]
That’s awesome.
He scared me. I was terrified. I was, like, “Oh, yes, sir! Yes, sir, okay!” But I’m still arriving a half-hour early to my call times!
Well, when Mr. Mooney tells you something…
You listen! [Laughs.] I mean, it was Gale Gordon! I was, like, “I’m so sorry, Mr. Gordon. I’m so sorry! I’ll never be late again! Never, ever!” And I wasn’t.
Richard Riehle:
Rooster Cogburn (…And The Lady) (1975)—extra
Joyride (1977)—“Bartender”
It looks like your first time in front of the camera—according to IMDB, anyway—was playing a bartender in the film Joyride.
Richard Riehle: Yes, that was the first one with lines. I did appear previous to that in Rooster Cogburn (…And The Lady), shot back in ’74 in Rogue River Valley, in Oregon. But I was a glorified extra that got bumped up to being Richard Jordan’s stand-in for a while. I think I was a dead body two or three different places in there. [Laughs.] But I can’t find myself in it, so I wouldn’t expect anybody else to recognize me, either!
But, yes, the first one with lines was Joyride. It was a very interesting project. It was American International Pictures, and they had gotten a couple of kids of stars to be in it, so it was Desi Arnaz Jr., Anne Lockhart, Bobby Carradine, and… oh, who was the other one? Melanie Griffith! Tippi Hedren’s daughter. But they were all very young kids, and the premise was that they went up to the Alaskan Pipeline while it was in the process of being built and were looking for jobs to make some money. Of course, they got up there and there was nothing that they could do, so they rob the payroll office and take off, and they’re eventually captured back in the States. I was a bartender in Alaska. We actually shot in Washington state, though. I happened to be up there working, so that’s how I ended up being cast.
There are a couple of things I remember about that. In one scene, there was a pissing contest, and they wanted to take part in it and maybe win some money. So Bobby Carradine was going to be the guy, and he was pumping down beers at the bar, and the local hero was doing the same, and I was the judge, so I’d take them outside afterwards and decide who could piss the longest and the farthest. And it was the local guy, so they lost out on that deal, too. But what happened was that we were shooting in a real bar in some small town up there, and there were a bunch of locals who were there as extras, and in order to keep them for 14 hours and kind of maintain a little bit of order, they thought it would be a good idea if they went ahead and actually served them beers. So they made a deal with the guy who owned the bar, and I began handing out beers to anybody who wanted one. And by the lunch break, there were several people who decided that they had a better idea of how the scene should be shot. [Laughs.] And they eventually had to get security and get them out!
To jump back to Rooster Cogburn for a moment, as you said, there wasn’t much to your part…
There was nothing to my part! [Laughs.]
Still, just being on a set with John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn must’ve been staggering.
Yeah, it was absolutely amazing. Stuart Millar was the director, and he didn’t really have much of a track record at that point. I don’t exactly know how he got to do that thing. But all the people who worked on the movie had worked on the last 12 John Wayne films, and they were kind of used to the way that it was run at that time, which was that Wayne would do the dialogue and the close-ups, and then he had a double who was frightening in how much he looked like him. He unfortunately had a very high voice, so he couldn’t do anything that involved speaking. [Laughs.] Wayne was always there and readily available, but the double did most of the scenes for him until it came down to doing dialogue.
Katharine Hepburn was over in England shooting something with Laurence Olivier—Love Among The Ruins, I think—so she arrived about a week later, by which time they’d sort of gotten into their routine, and she just threw a monkey wrench into that, because she wanted to drive the buckboard, she wanted to camp out, she wanted to do everything. And the thing with Wayne was that he was a consummate gentleman, so he was always there whenever she wanted to do something. So suddenly he was doing more and more stuff. And you could kind of see the crew going, “Oh, my gosh, this is incredible! This is the way it used to be, and it hasn’t been like this in 10 years!” And the two of them were fascinating together. They respected each other’s work and they worked really well off of each other. It was a shame at that point that it wasn’t a better film for them both.
Were you on the set at all while Strother Martin was working on the film?
I was not. But like I said, I became kind of the general go-to guy on the film when they needed something.
At one point, the stunt coordinator asked me if I wouldn’t mind helping with a stunt. Now, it wasn’t much of a stunt—Richard Jordan kicks Anthony Zerbe in the face over the campfire, and he ends up falling off a cliff. But both of them were going to be stunt guys when they shot it, and they’d worked out that the guy was going to take the kick, roll down about 8 feet, and then do this little drop-off, which was about a 4-foot drop. It wasn’t like there was any danger involved. It was just going to look dangerous. So they asked me if I would crouch down below the rise that he was going to go over and just be there to catch him when he went over, and I said, “Fine.”
So I watched them rehearse it, and the guy who’s taking the kick is rehearsing taking the kick, but he’s not doing the fall, the roll, or any of that. And then they get ready to shoot it, and he kind of works his way down the 8 feet to take out any rocks or anything else that’s there, and then they set up the shot. But when they shoot it, he takes the kick, and whether it was the adrenaline or whatever, he throws himself further than he’d planned, so he’s going off a different edge. Now, it was no more dangerous than if he’d gone down right where I was—it was still only about 4 feet—but he rolled off it and then landed there, and then somebody yelled, “Cut!” And the director came running up and said, “Are you okay? Were there any problems?” And the stunt coordinator came up and said, “We got it. If you want to do it again, we’ll do it again, but we’ve got it.” Talking to the stunt guy, not the director. [Laughs.]
Afterwards, I asked the stunt guy, “I’m just curious—why didn’t you practice the fall and the roll?” And he said, “I don’t do any stunt unless the camera is rolling. There’s no point in getting hurt—however much or however little—if it’s not at least on film.”
Jane Seymour:
Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (1979)—“Laura Cole”
Jane Seymour: That’s very interesting, because I did that and—well, first of all, I had no idea, really, about anything to do with football or cheerleaders and certainly not Dallas. I went there and realized very quickly when I went out in the evening that I would not be allowed into restaurants where the actual cheerleaders I was with would be treated like royalty. I went, “Okay, so being an actress means nothing out here. You’ve got to be a cheerleader!” And then, having done classical ballet, I thought, “Ah, it’s easy to do cheerleading.” Nope, not too much. [Laughs.] It was pretty hard. It was hard work! And then there were the skimpy outfits. Somebody pointed out to me that I was doing a T&A show. I said, “What’s that?” They said, “Tits and ass!” I said [Groaning.], “Oh, no, I’m not doing that!” So I tried to cover myself up, to no avail. And I wasn’t really sure, and I was somewhat embarrassed by the whole experience.
And then it came out, and it was the highest rated piece of television that week, the highest rated piece of television that season, and it had a 52 rating! That wouldn’t even exist in this world! More than half of everybody watching television was watching it. But I remember that day because the network executive called and said, “I’ve been instructed to take you out for a champagne brunch to celebrate.” And I said, “Well, if this is what we’re celebrating, this could be a day of mourning!” [Laughs.] But then I got over myself. Frankly, I’d always wanted to play Lady Macbeth or something, to go and do some serious classic stuff, and I found myself doing some T&A. But I watched it the other day, and it’s actually a cute little show. I can see why it was successful. It’s all those wonderful Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders!
I only have one regret: At the end of shooting, they did invite me to join the squad for one time—which would’ve been crazy—but I said no. And now, when you’re older, you look back at that and you say, “Ah, I should have done that.” Just to tell the grandchildren, you know? [Laughs.]
Lance Henriksen:
The Day Lincoln Was Shot (1998)—“President Abraham Lincoln”
How was the experience of playing Abraham Lincoln?
Lance Henriksen: Not good.
Really?
Yeah, not good. I mean, I felt like—I don’t know, man. John Gray directed it, and he sprung some stuff on me that was really weird. And it was between seasons of Millennium, which was probably the biggest mistake I ever made, because I was so tired. We were doing 23 shows a year, so when you’re off, you better rest, because otherwise you’re gonna fall apart. I did a lot of studying, and I learned so much about Lincoln that it absolutely blew my mind. Remember, I’m one of those self-educated guys. I have to learn it as I go. So to really try and take on that kind of guy, I had to learn a lot. I wish I had had the time that Daniel Day-Lewis had when he did Lincoln, and that I had that kind of support. Because you can’t do Lincoln without that kind of work. You have to really work on it, not just jump into it.
I do remember a really beautiful moment, though. We were in the ghetto, at one of the houses that Lincoln really lived in. It was surrounded by big metal walls, but it’s in the ghetto now, because the world had completely changed around it. We were actually shooting in it, though, and I was left down at the trailers, and I had to go to the set, so I’m walking to the set in full regalia. I mean, I had the beard, I had everything. I was looking pretty much like Lincoln. And this young guy, a black kid, maybe about 20 years old, is riding his bicycle, and he started circling me. And he finally says to me, “Hey! Emancipation Proclamation! I love that shit!” [Laughs.] But it was one of the most poignant moments, because I just felt, like, “Wow. This really fucking happened.” It was a great moment. That’s my biggest memory of doing that movie.