Basic HTML Version
Paramount for $250,000. By then, I was making two thousand dollars a week
and Warner Brothers would pocket the difference.
Did being under contract change your life?
Yes. The studios made stars then. They kept you in the public eye; they
handed you your next role.
It was toward the decline of the major studios, as TV was coming in a
big way, but it did allow me to do a lot of live television and
that
was the best
training ground in the world.
In those days, live television meant there were no second takes. Whatever
happens is going to happen in real time, correct? The TV audience is at home and
you’ve got to say your lines when that camera rolls.
And a
lot
of things did happen. I cut out one of my major scenes in a
live Playhouse 90 production with Geraldine Page and I thought I’d blown
the whole thing, but when I saw the show you never really noticed it. That
was just one of many live TV shows.
Had you done stage work before live TV?
In 1953, I did
Our Town
on stage with Marilyn Erskine, and it played at
the Lobero!
So, you never gave up.
Well no, I kept working with a coach. I kept doing the things I could
learn. Dick Clayton kept saying, “You’ve really got to be dedicated. You’ve
got to grow mentally, physically, and spiritually.”
Conversations:
36
winter
|
spr ing
One of Tab’s favorite films featured him in his
first big role, as Cpl Dan “Danny” Forrester,
the all-American boy, in
Battle Cry
(seen here
with co-star Dorothy Malone)