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