First of all, happy new year to everyone reading this. May your year be filled with joy, good health, happiness, much love and wonderful adventures. Secondly, as I wrote in a previous blog, I was contacted by a terrific writer named Michael Toole who has written many articles for TCM.com. He wanted to interview me about my experiences playing Oliver Hardy and Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. Well, we did the interview and now you can read it on www.TCM.com. Just click on the following link and it should take you right to the interview www.tcm.com/movienews/index/?cid=189165

Michael is a multi-talented writer, who besides his skills as an interviewer, has a short film he wrote playing the festivals right now. Although it was a couple of years ago now, I had a great experience playing Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle in Theatre 40’s world premier of Kathrine Bates’s ROAR OF THE CROWD. I studied his movies, had costumes made identical to his, and even had my hair dyed blonde. I loved every minute of it. Here are a couple of photos from my collection of me as Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle compared to the real deal. 

Well, the strike has certainly slowed work down as far as film and television goes, but thankfully, the commercial world just keeps on ticking. That’s it for now. I’m off to another audition.

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy with auditions. But on a personal note, the best part about this week was that my birthday was on Tuesday, November 6th! I got fabulous cards, e-mails and phone calls throughout my big day. And hearing my 6 year old and my little 2 1/2 year old singing “Happy Birthday Papa!” warmed my heart to no end.
Besides some good commercial auditions recently, I had an audition for the wonderfully funny series UGLY BETTY. What a treat to be brought in for that show! The jury is still out on that one – and with the strike going on, who knows what is happening with all these shows. But I had a great time auditioning for it. Jeff Greenburg’s casting office could not have been friendlier and more helpful. It’s an office that really seem to like actors.
And here’s to the brave writers who are standing up for what they (and I) believe is fair and right. May the strike be successful and over sooner than later for everyone involved.
Michael Toole, a wonderful writer for Turner Classic Movies website, Las Vegas Weekly, along with some very successful short films, contacted me. He wants to write a piece about what it was like for me to play silent movie comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle and half of the famous comedy team Laurel and Hardy – namely Oliver Hardy. We had our preliminary meeting today to discuss the piece and will follow it up with another meeting next week. Michael is a terrific guy who is truly a film lover with an encyclopedic knowledge of movies.
The article will appear on the TCM website in the next month or so, and might make its way into the NOW PLAYING monthly magazine from TCM. What an honor for me to be part of one of my favorite channels!! Thanks, Michael.
In preparing for the meeting today, I reviewed some material on Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. First of all, he was such a wonderfully talented comedian. Truly funny and amazingly agile on his feet. If you ever get a chance to watch any of his films on TCM or rent the DVDs, you won’t be disappointed. But his life took such a tragic turn in 1921 with the death of a young ’starlet’ at a party he was hosting. Many considered him guilty of her death (even though he was aquitted after a third trial) and false rumors still persist to this day. If you want to read more about Roscoe and his downfall, my favorite book on the subject is called “The Day The Laughter Stopped” by David Yallop.
More on this later…