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4. Note Taking

Breaking New Ground on War and Peace

The article is clearly subdivided into seven paragraphs. Take notes under each of the following headings:

  1. Adoption of the Catholic bishops' "Pastoral Letter on War, Armaments and Peace"

  2. New Catholic positions

  3. The "just war" theory

  4. Public reactions

  5. The procedure of drafting

  6. The style of the letter

  7. A changed attitude towards war.

5. Discussion

According to the First Amendment to the Constitution, church and state are strictly separate. Discuss whether, in your opinion, the Catholic bishops should comment on political issues.

6. Scanning

Power, Glory—and Politics

Go quickly through the text to extract information on the following questions:

  1. What is the occasion covered by this story?

  2. Why did politicians take part in the event?

  3. Who are the stars of the electronic church?

  4. Which of the political issues that Pat Robertson stands for are mentioned in the text?

  5. What is his power and influence based on?

  6. Why can Robertson rightly be called a TV entrepreneur?

  7. What has he done to attract larger audiences?

  8. How does Robertson manage to get the viewers involved in his programs?

7. Text Analysis

School Prayer

  1. How did the Supreme Court rule on school prayer?

  2. Why does President Ronald Reagan disagree with this decision and why would he like to permit school prayer again?

  3. What exactly did the President do to reintroduce school prayer?

  4. Why does he mention the Members of the U.S. Congress and the court decision at Lubbock, Texas?

  5. Whom is he addressing and how does he try to gear his speech to his audience?

8. Letter Writing

You have read the remarks the President made at the Annual Convention of National Religious Broadcasters. Now write a letter to an American penfriend expressing your amazement about a constitutional amendment to allow voluntary prayer in public schools and ask your friend about his/her opinion. You want to include the following ideas:

  • amazement at the President's support of school prayer

  • the President's attempt to override the First Amendment prohibition against government advancement of religion.

  • fear that even voluntary school prayer would foster certain—but not all—religious practices

. and beliefs

• suspicion that the argument of traditional values is only used to hide the true motives, for example, the attempt to secure the support of the right-wing evangelical movement.

13 The Arts

PART A Background Information

COMMITMENT TO THE ARTS

INCREASING ATTENDANCE AT CULTURAL EVENTS

MORE

PARTICIPANTS IN THE ARTS

MORE FACILITIES

MASS APPEAL

One stereotype of the United States is that of a culture where television, sports and other forms of popular entertainment overshadow the arts. In fact, Americans are deeply committed to the arts. Not only do more people today attend arts events than sports events, but almost as many people go to art museums as to pop concerts.

Louis Harris's Americans and the Arts poll reveals a surge of artistic activity in America from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. During this period, atten­dance at arts events increased:

  • the number of people who attended movies rose from 70 percent to 78 percent

  • attendance at theatrical performances rose from 53 percent to 67 percent

  • the number of people attending dance performances rose from 23 percent to 34 percent

  • attendance at live performances of classical or symphonic music went up from 25 percent to 34 percent

  • between 1980 and 1984, attendance at live performances of operas or musicals rose from 25 percent to 30 percent.

The same poll also reveals that more people are participating as amateurs or professionals in the arts:

  • from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, the number of people involved in painting, drawing, or the graphic arts rose from 22 percent to 29 percent;

  • the number of adults who play musical instruments went up from 18 percent to 31 percent;

  • participation in local theater groups increased from 3 percent to 7 percent;

  • the number of people who write stories and poems almost doubled, going from 13 percent to 25 percent;

  • participation in ballet and modern dance increased significantly from 9 percent to 21 percent.

To accommodate the public's increasing demand for the arts, many new cultural facilities are being built; the architectural trend towards expansive, imposing new designs for museums and theaters suggests the elevated status of the arts in America today.

The media, particularly television, have generated a broad base of interest and enthusiasm for the arts through regular promotion and coverage of cultural events. The reach of the arts extends in sizable numbers to people of all ages, almost all economic groups, and all regions of the country.

226 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP

MINIMAL

GOVERNMENT

SUPPORT

MIXTURE OF STYLES

The Guggenheim Museum, New York

The cultural explosion is all the more remarkable when one considers the relative lack of government support of the arts. Promotion of the arts through private and commerical funding rather than government funding is a firmly established tradition in the United States. Recently, however, the government's role in supporting the arts has increased. The National Endowment for the Arts, a government agency created in 1965, has been contributing to the advancement of the arts. B} 1985, the federal government was spending $163 million a year on this endowment; the annual spending of state governments reached $160 million. Still, all government arts spending remains small com­pared with private arts contributions, which exceeded $4 thousand million in 1985. Moreover, the arts still receive proportionately less government funding in the United States than in any other major Western nation. Even without the security of government subsidies that the arts in other countries traditionally enjoy, the arts in America have flourished.

As American culture evolved, American artists began to create their own art forms. The styles of American art are as diverse as the people. Just as there is no single ethnic group, there is also no single American style. American artists have been inspired by a variety of influences, including folk primitivism and European sophistication. Painters, sculptors, musicians, and innovators in other fields have won fame both at home and abroad.

THE ARTS 227

THE VISUAL ARTS

Until the 1940s, America's visual arts—painting and sculpture—were pri­marily influenced by European trends. American art developed mainly through subject matter and skills, as artists imitated the established styles of the European masters. The most significant developments in American art emerged in the years following the Second World War.

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if*

Flowers, Mary's Table (1971) Willem de Kooning

Mobiles by Alexander Calder

228 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP

ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM

SCULPTURE

MIXED MEDIA

POP ART

OPART RECENT TRENDS

AMERICAN MUSIC

RAGTIME

BLUES

JAZZ

Abstract expressionism, which was begun by a group of New York artists in the 1940s, became the first American art movement to command the attention of artists abroad. Revolting against traditional graphic styles, the artists of this movement sought to remake the goals and methods of art. Abstract expres­sionists rejected traditional subject matter, such as the human body, still life, or rural scenes. Instead, they focused on such things as the utilization of space, dimension, and surface texture, and the interrelationship of colors. The international influence of America's abstract expressionists was so great that the painting center of the world shifted from Paris to New York.

Among the movement's leaders were Jackson Pollack (1912-54), who is famous for his turbulent paint-splattered canvases; Willem de Kooning, who used savage brush strokes and intense colors; and Mark Rothko, who is known for the bold blocks of color that dominate his huge canvases.

During this period, American sculptors developed new styles of their own. Alexander Calder (1898-1976) designed the mobile. David Smith (1906-65) was the first sculptor to work with welded metals.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, young artists reacted to abstract expres­sionism to produce works of "mixed" media. Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns integrated everyday objects such as photographs and newspaper clippings into their paintings.

The reaction to abstract expressionism continued with a movement called "pop art" ("pop" is short for "popular"). The members of this movement attempted to produce works of art that would reflect the pervasive influence of mass marketing, mass media, and other trends in American popular culture. Important in the pop-art movement were Andy Warhol (1930—87), famous for his multiple rows of soup cans and multiple portraits of Marilyn Monroe; and Roy Lichtenstein, recognized for his mimicry of well-known comic strips.

"Pop" was followed by "Op" art, based on the principle of optical illusion.

Recent trends in art emphasize variety and innovation. Movements of the 1970s and 80s include performance art, earth art, conceptual art, graffiti art, neo- and figural-expressionism, and neo-geo art.

Unique forms and styles of music have developed in America. Ragtime, blues, jazz, country-western, rock 'n' roll, and the musical are all American-born.

The black American music tradition has produced and influenced a variety of genres. Ragtime was the first black American music to gain wide popularity. Composer Scott Joplin (1868—1917) helped develop ragtime from simple parlor piano music into a serious genre. Ragtime is most important for its association with the blues, which then inspired jazz, America's most original music form.

The blues evolved from African folk songs and church music. Sung by soloists or featuring solo instruments, blues music often expresses disappoint­ment or regret.

Jazz, now recognized as a world-wide art form, originated around the turn of the century among black musicians in the American South. The music was inspired by African culture but evolved directly from spirituals, ragtime, and blues. Jazz is characterized by improvisation and a lively attention to rhythm,

de Kooning, Willem: born 1904, Dutch-American painter. Rothko, Mark (1903—70): Russian-born American painter.

THE ARTS 229

COUNTRY-WESTERN MUSIC

THE MUSICAL

ROCK MUSIC

something famous jazz musician Duke Ellington (1899—1974) called "swing."

By 1920, jazz had spread from the South, and in the 1930s, it reached its heyday of mass popularity as big band music. Louis Armstrong, (1900-71) a trumpeter and soloist, was one of the first well-known jazz singers. Other early jazz leaders were Duke Ellington, "Dizzy" Gillespie and Charlie Parker.

Although the improvisational style of early jazz still survives today, jazz has moved on to new frontiers. In the 1960s and 70s, jazz musicians began com­bining the rhythms of rock 'n' roll and electronic instruments with traditional elements of jazz to form a blend of music called "fusion." Today, jazz is extremely popular in America and abroad. Jazz concerts draw thousands of listeners every year.

The influence of jazz is found in many types of American music. The music of George Gershwin (1898-37), one of America's most popular song writers and composers, was strongly influenced by jazz. The concerto "Rhapsody in Blue" and the opera "Porgy and Bess" were two of his works which incor­porated jazz.

Another popular type of music which came out of the American South is country-western. However, its cultural origin and musical sounds are totally different from jazz. The style of country western music has its roots in the folk songs and ballads of the early Scottish and English settlers in the southern colonies. The music developed over a long period with melodies and lyrics reflecting rural life in the Southeast and Southwest. The distinctive sound of country music depends on the guitar, banjo and fiddle. Lyrics generally focus on the sorrows of love or the economic hardships of poor whites.

In the 1940s, the appeal of country music extended beyond the rural South, and the music began to attract nationwide attention. Weekly music ratings indicate the continuing popularity of this type of music.

In the 1930s another native American-born art form emerged. The musical was a new form of entertainment which combined acting, music, and ballet. The musical was inspired by the Anglo-Irish musical theater, the central European operetta, and the American vaudeville minstrel show. Basically en­tertaining in character, most early screen musicals were lavish and glamorous escapist fantasies. Dreams of success came true for characters who overcame hardships by faith and hard work, with some spectacular singing and dancing along the way.

Later musicals, such as Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma" and Sond-heim and Bernstein's "West Side Story," included serious themes and social criticism. "A Chorus Line," first performed in 1975, is still one of the most popular musicals today.

Rock music has dominated the popular music scene ever since America was inundated with the new sound in the 1950s. Rock 'n' roll developed as a

Ellington, Edward Kennedy ("Duke") 1899-1974: American jazz composer, pianist and bandleader.

Rodgers, Richard (1902-79): American composer.

Hammerstein, Oscar, II (1895-1960): American librettist and songwriter.

Sondheim, Stephen: born 1930 American composer and lyricist.

Bernstein, Eeonard: born 1918, American conductor, pianist and composer.

230 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP

One of Andy Warhol's pictures of a Campbell's soup can

THE HILARIOUS LOW-DOWN ON HIGH LIFE!

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THE ARTS 231

MODERN DANCE

mixture of black blues and white country-western. The music quickly won intense and sustained appeal with young people not only in America, but all over the world. Early rock musicians such as Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan were idolized by millions of teenagers.

In the 1970s and 80s, rock 'n' roll became heavily commercialized. Hundreds of bands copied the formula of success and went into recording studios to make money rather than innovative music. Some rock musicians, however, have emerged from the studio with unique sounds and messages in their music. Among these artists are guitarist-songwriter Bruce Springsteen and singer Stevie Wonder.

Closely tied to developments in American music was modern dance, which emerged in America as a new art form early in the century. The creators of modern dance rejected the artificial formality of classical ballet. Instead, they sought to convey the innermost feelings of the human mind and body in simple, flowing dance movements.

The first and most influential leader of the movement was Isadora Duncan (1878-1927). Martha Graham's New York-based group became the best known modern dance company. America's newest generation of modern dance choreo­graphers includes Alvin Ailey whose style features African dance elements and black music, and Twyla Tharp, who experiments with new areas for dance such as video and films.

In the past three decades, dance, both ballet and modern, has been the most rapidly developing performing art in the nation. New York City has become the dance center of the world.

Modern Dance: The American Ballet Theater

232 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP

HOLLYWOOD FILMS

INFLUENCE OF TELEVISION

Born in Hollywood after the turn of the century, the motion picture became the monumental popular art form of the century. In Hollywood's golden age during the 1940s, the major studios were turning out over 400 movies each year.

Like most businessmen, motion picture executives and entrepreneurs wanted to develop products that had mass appeal. Once they found a successful formula, they repeated it in film after film. Westerns, gangster films, comedies, and musicals were some of the popular films that emerged as distinct genres. Hollywood films were tailored to an American audience and appealed to its tastes by reinforcing traditional myths, values, and beliefs. The western fused violence and rugged individualism into larger, mythical themes of taming the frontier, curbing lawlessness, and forging a nation. Entertaining comedies and musicals carried messages of aspiration and optimism. In film director Frank Capra's (born 1897) It Happened One Night (1934), the poor boy who fell in love with a rich girl managed to win her heart. Class divisions were healed and everyone lived happily ever after. Audiences were charmed. During these decades of Hollywood's golden age, films, movie stars, and even the architec­ture of the theaters were glittering and glorious.

The movies have changed since television intervened. Film attendance declined sharply, conglomerates bought up studios, and Hollywood's old monopoly on stardom and American style was lost. Today's moviegoers are mostly teenagers. Their parents prefer television entertainment. The major film studios have adapted to the new viewing patterns by cutting back on production, targeting films to the younger audience, and creating new markets. Studios have recaptured television audiences by renting their feature films to television networks and by producing low-budget made-for-TV movies and television series. Video cassettes have also created new markets for film studios. Although the golden age is past, films remain a popular and profitable form of entertainment in America.

Innovations in these varied artistic fields have enriched America's cultural life and have made an impact on the rest of the world. The flourishing of the arts in America today signals a continued momentum for new developments in American art in the future.

233

part в Texts

Toward a National Theater

By Howard Stein

Today no major playwrights dominate the Broadway stage in the way the giants of past decades once did: from 1920 to 1940 Eu­gene O'Neill and Clifford Odets, from 1940 to I960 Tennessee Wil­liams, Arthur Miller and William Inge. Since I960 there have been no playwrights quite on the level of these, although many talented writers have emerged, such as Ed­ward Albee, Sam Shepard and Neil Simon. In the past quarter century the focus has increasingly shifted away from Broadway to distant re­gions of the country, and energy, poetic imagination and vitality have sparked the American theater in a host of institutions across the country.

Two significant changes have taken place: first, the decentraliza­tion of theatrical activity, which has resulted in a nation of theaters rather than a nation whose theater is housed in the few square blocks in Manhattan, New York City, known as Broadway; and second, the en­couragement of writers throughout the nation to develop plays rather than to write scripts which are then presented to a Broadway producer for final judgment. These two changes in the pattern of playmak-ing in the United States have caused

a radical shift in the kinds of plays produced and the kinds of writers nurtured. In fact, America finally has a national theater, although it is not the kind of national theater one associates with the National Theatre of England or the Moscow Art Theater or the Comedie Fran-gaise. Instead, it is a loose network of theaters presenting material that both reflects and illuminates Amer­ican society, a society that continues to be a melting pot full of energy and variety.

No longer dominated by the tyran­ny of Broadway moguls, American theater now includes around 400 pro­fessional not-for-profit companies in cities across the country. Most of these have evolved over the last 20 years, since the establishment of the National Endowment for the Arts. Therefore, American theater is now made up of both commercial and nonprofit interests. In New York City itself, for example, the theater world is divided between the commercial producers of Broadway and the scat­tered, smaller, not-for-profit theaters known as "off-В road way." Although

For more than a century Broadway was a stable and profitable communi­ty. Originating its own shows, which some would describe as manufactur­ing its own products, Broadway pro­duced show business. Broadway pro­ducers tested their wares out-of-town in one of the major northeastern cit­ies (Boston, Philadelphia, Washing­ton or New Haven), opened in Man­hattan, and then, depending upon a play's success or failure as deter­mined by the New York newspaper critics, toured the country, sometimes with the original cast, more frequent­ly with a second company. That pat-

Although Broadway did not pro­duce only one kind of play for all

234 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP

1. continued

those years, there was a significant similarity in Broadway playwrights' work. Those plays, for the most part, were devoted to social realism, to the family, to middle-class people talking in middle-class language about middle-class problems— problems that centered around marriage, raising children, extra­marital affairs, divorce, business and personal integrity.

The fact remains that a more au­thentic picture of the country would be one of a nation comprised of far more than middle-class families, a

nation of significant variety and ge­ography whose character is perhaps too vast to capture in the theater, certainly in the theater of Manhat­tan. America is a nation of no single background, heritage, culture, lan­guage, interest or set of values. The strength and identity of the nation is in its diversity and boundless ener­gy. The theater of the last 25 years has succeeded in reflecting that di­versity and that energy; this nation of theaters offers the entire world a much more realistic image of Amer­ica than the old Broadway ever did.

Stein, Howard: professor and chairman of Columbia University's Hammerstein Center for Theatre Studies.

O'Neill, Eugene (1888-1953): His plays won him the Pulitzer Prize several times and earned him the Nobel Prize in 1936. Among his plays are the trilogy Mourning Becomes Electra, the New England folk comedy Ah, Wilderness*, and the autobiographical tragedy Long Day's Journey into Night.

Odets, Clifford (1906—63): actor and playwright who became famous by the production of his one-act play Waiting for Lefty, dealing with a taxi strike.

Miller, Arthur: born 1915, author of All My Sons, Death of a Salesman (Pulitzer Prize) and The Crucible.

Inge, William (1913-73): wrote plays about seemingly ordinary Midwestern people. Picnic earned him the Pulitzer Prize.

Albee, Edward: born 1928, author of The Zoo Story, The American Dream and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Shepard, Sam: born 1943, author of Buried Child (Pulitzer Prize), True West and Fool for Love.

Simon, Neil: born 1927, American playwright and television writer, author of highly successful comedies like Barefoot in the Park, Star Spangled Girl, and The Prisoner of Second Avenue, which reflect his ability to see the comic incongruities of everyday life.

National Endowment for the Arts: part of the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities, an independent agency of the U.S. government, founded by Congress in 1965. It was established to foster the growth and development of the arts in the United States

THE ARTS 235

A Dozen Outstanding Plays of the Past Quarter Century

WIto's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Streamers

Indians

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) by Edward AlbeeWith this searing portrait of a marriage seemingly based on fantasies, infidelities and alcohol, Edward Albee, then 33, achieved instant fame. "The quality and the character of his writing alerted the theater," writes critic Stuart Little, "and excited and challenged his contempo­raries. He had opened a new vein of dramatic writing."

The Old Glory (two parts of this trilogy first produced in 1964; the third in 1968) by Robert LowellCommissioned by an off-Broadway theater dedicated to new works, this play by the late, eminent poet Robert Lowell is based on three stories by 19th-century writerstwo by Nathaniel Hawthorne and one by Herman Melville. "The title, The Old Glory," said Lowell in 1976, "has two meanings: it refers both to the flag and also to the glory with which the Republic of America was started."

The Great White Hope (1968) by Howard SacklerThis drama, one of the first to transfer directly from a regional theater to Broadway, is based on the life of black prizefighter Jack Johnson, who challenged early 20th-century racial attitudes. At a time when civil rights was a major issue in national politics, The Great White Hope, according to critic Ethan Mordden, "made a breakthrough for black theater, acclimatizing the public to racial drama in which rage would be explained rather than exploited, and black culture might be explored."

Indians (1969) by Arthur Kopit—A fantastical rep­resentation of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, this play is also a reconsideration of the treatment of American Indi­ans during the settling of the West. "Indians," wrote critic Otis Guernsey, "reached its climax and fulfillment not in the events onstage... but out in the auditorium, where we were forced to reexamine some of our value judgments through a crack in our beloved national epic of the West."

House of Blue Leaves (1971) by John GuarePro­duced off-Broadway, this black comedy about a middle-aged zookeeper who longs to write songs for the movies is the work of one of America's most idiosyncratic play­wrights. Sometimes criticized for failing to restrain what critic Ross Wetzsteon called "the wild inventions and weird mutations of his imagination," Guare maintains that the theater is "the last refuge for poetry."

Streamers (1976) by David Rabe—With this study of violence set in a military training camp, and two earlier plays. The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and Sticks and Bones, Rabe became "the first American playwright to write unflinchingly about Vietnam," said David Richards in The Washington Star. Two of these plays were nurtured at Joseph Papp's influ­ential Public Theater in New York.

Photographs by Martha Swope

236 AMERICA IN CLOSE-UP

2.continued

House of Blue Leaves

Uncommon Women and Others (1977) by Wendy WassersteinFirst staged when its author was a stu­dent in Yale University's prestigious playwriling pro­gram, this effervescent comedy focuses on a group of gradu­ates from an elite women's college. Wasserstein's work, wrote Michiko Kakutani in The New York Ti mes, concerns itself with "the choices facing contemporary womenand the additional pressures created by feminist ideals."

Fifth of July (1978) by Lanford Wilson—An oddly assorted group of survivors from the turbulent 1960s try to build new lives in their old Missouri hometown. First produced at the Circle Repertory Company in New York, the play was revived on Broadway in 1980, where New York Times theater critic Frank Rich praised it as "Wilson's own morning-after-Independence-Day dream of a democratic Americaan enlightened place where the best ideals can bloom."

Buried Child (1978) by Sam ShepardShepard

writes plays that take place, as critic Ronald Bryden has written, "in an eternal present haunted fry an unknown past. "In the Pulitzer-prizewinning Buried Child, first staged at San Francisco's Magic Theatre, a young man returns to his family's midwestern farm to find that no one recognizes him.

Children of a Lesser God (1979) by Mark Medoff—Centering on a voice teacher and the strong-minded deaf student he loves and marries, this play was developed at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and later triumphed on Broadway. John Beaufort said in The Christian Science Monitor: "Children is not merely about the plight of physical impairment. It is about the human condition and the struggle to communi­cate across daunting barriers."

Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You

(1979) by Christopher DurangIn this satiric comedy about parochial education and authority figures, former students confront the righteous nun who taught them. "Anyone can write an angry play," wrote Frank Rich in praise of Durang, who continues to work off-Broadway, "but only a writer of real talent can write an angry play that remains funny and controlled even in its most savage moments."

ASoldier's Play (1981) by Charles Fuller—Devel­oped at the Negro Ensemble Company, this Pulitzer prizewinner is a murder mystery in which, as Walter Kerr wrote in The New York Times, "the excitement comes not from tracking down the criminal, but instead from track­ing down the identity of the victim." Investigating the character of the victim, a vicious black sergeant on a south­ern military base in 1944, allows Fuller to explore the uneasy contradictions of racism,, both black and white.

THE ARTS 237

DIALOGUE

Jack Nicholson

From Film Comment

After a decade of low-budget films, Jack Nicholson achieved movie stardom in 1969 with the unheralded hit Easy Rider. Since then, he has created a variety of menacing yet oddly sympathetic characters in such movies as Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Shining. Unlike many stars, Nicholson has never sought a glamorous screen image or insisted on leading roles. In fact, in Terms of Endearment (1983) he played a seedy, out-of-shape astronaut, yet he won all major movie awards for supporting actor.

This risk-taking independence is evident throughout Nicholson л long movie career, in his directing and screenwriting as well as his acting. As the producer of his recent film, P.rizzi's Honor, says, "He is prepared to do whatever the part requires, and anything he does becomes in itself interesting. "Here, Nicholson talks unth journalist and screenwriter Beverly Walker about the challenges inherent in Hollywood filmmaking.

Tell me about your beginnings.

I got out of school [in New Jersey] a year early, and though I could've worked my way through col­lege, I decided I didn't want to do that. I came to California where my only other relatives were; and since I wanted to see movie stars, I got a job at MGM, as an office boy in [he cartoon program. For a couple of years I saw movie stars, and then I was nudged into a talent program. From there I went to the Players Ring Theatre, one of the little the­aters in Los Angeles at the time. I went to one act­ing class before I was taken to Jeff Corey's class.

Up until then I hadn't cared about much but sports and girls and looking at movies—stuff vou do when you're 17 or 18. But Jeff Corey's method of working opened me up to a whole area of Study. Acting is life-study, and Corey's classes got me into looking at life as—I'm still hesitant to say—an artist. They opened up people, literature. I met loads of people I still work with. From that point on, I have mainly been interested in acting. I think it's a great job, a fine way to live your life....

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