Jerry Lacy watched scenes from the sofa of the Collinwood stage set--Julia begs Tony to hang on to the notebook ("Ohhhhh Rooooooger, ohhhhhh, Roooooooger, noooooo" inspired laughter), Barnabas forces a confession out of Reverend Trask, the bricking up scene, and Gregory and Charity/Pansy (when she gives him a "bump"). David Ford had warned him that being on the show would be a "rough ride." But it was a lot more fun than he expected. He "didn't expect to be here today, 40 years later."
What did happen to Tony Peterson? Lacy said Adam very likely scared him away.
From playing Tony, he got the Trask bit. Once he was assigned the part, he set about the best he could and worked with the makeup man, and the character came along. Did he try to make him fanatical? Within the bounds of the script, he replied. It was his favorite of them all, he had to say. His heart goes out to the original Reverend Trask.
Did he do soap operas before? Not to any extent. He did one day on The Secret Storm and that was about it. He went onto As the World Turns after DS.
In recent news, his daughter just completed her last performance of the play, "I Coulda Been a Kennedy." It's a political drama. [We learned during another segment that she studies at NYU.] There were 5 performances, and they hope to get the kinks out.
The Q&A formally began, and he was asked how he prepared his voice for the role of Trask. He made his voice a little more guttural, and affected sort of a pompous speech pattern. It wasn't normal.
When asked about Clarice Blackburn, he said he loved her. Later on, she became a writer on Love of Life, and he knew her a long time afterwards.
He was asked about Play It Again Sam. It was his first time working with Woody Allen. He spent a year or more in it on Broadway. It was out of town before that, and Allen was changing and developing it and they worked together on it. "He's quite a character, and probably just as neurotic as he pretends." The resemblance was of course an immediate help in getting the role in his first and only Broadway show, but it eventually became a bit of a hindrance because he was so identified with Bogart. In auditions for movies, plays, and TV, he was considered more of an impersonator or comedian than an actor. "It hurt quite a bit."
He was asked to do Bogie and a line from PIAS was suggested. He said, "That was Woody's line." The fan qualified that he spoke it while coaching Woody's character. Then he said he doesn't remember lines from the play and offered to do something for us from Casablanca, though he hasn't practiced and doesn't know if he can still do it. Then he did a great job reciting, "Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she had to walk into mine" and to much applause.
When asked about his commercials, he said he did quite a few in the years afterwards. He did a Right Guard commercial, and one with Marie Wallace for Right Guard. He also did some other industrial films for producers, but nothing else mainstream.
He explained that all the Trasks were meant to be similar, though "each and every one had a little idiosyncrasy." Gregory was older, and as for the butler¢â‚¬¦ "I don't know what his gig was." Lamar had the same pattern.
I didn't catch the exact question about wine, but he replied, "I love wine. I wish I had some right now."
Reverend Trask didn't think he was wrong, he explained. After all, "the fire drove her right out there. What else could you ask for?" It wasn't visible on camera, but Trask wore a long black cape, and after Victoria came running out and he grabbed her and screamed, "I have the witch!" she actually walked inside of his cape. With each step, they went lower and lower until they fell out of view of the camera. "We ended up on the floor."
Asked about the sets on The Young & the Restless, he said that during the intervening years, technology improved tremendously. Dark Shadows really had grand, solid and beautiful sets. When he went directly from DS to As the World Turns, they were still using sets that wiggled and were painted on. By the time he appeared on Y&R, a good 10 years had passed and the sets were as beautiful as on DS. The main thing, though, was that you could edit the tape, whereas on DS there are lovely bloopers to see.
He couldn't answer why he didn't appear in NoDS and said that maybe he has never seen the movie. Someone from the audience (Charles Ellis, I think) answered that he couldn't get released from ATWT. [lol]
I forgot to mention that earlier that day, Chris Pennock did indeed pause during his reading to allow his daughter to sing for the audience. Tara Pennock gave a beautiful rendition of "Defying Gravity."
(to be cont'd)
