I NEVER DID MUCH TV, BUT I DID WORK FOR HARRY THOMASON AND Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, who did Designing Women and Evening Shade with Burt Reynolds. In 1989, when they first started doing the Burt Reynolds show, Evening Shade, there was this casting director who was always really good to me. Her name was Fran Bascom. I was living in Glendale, sleeping on a blow-up mattress on the floor at my friend’s house, when Fran called me one morning at, like, eight-thirty. She said, “Can you be at CBS over in the Valley at ten? They need somebody to play a florist in this pilot for this new Burt Reynolds sitcom.”
Years ago, before I was ever thinking about being an actor, my mom told me that one of these days Burt Reynolds was going to be “instrumental” in my life. I’m like, What the fuck does that mean? She didn’t know. I thought that maybe Mom’s psychic abilities were off the mark on this one.
Anyway, Fran Bascom said, “They need somebody to audition, and I think you’re going to get this, you just need to meet with the director. But I’m going to need you to get over there now.” I said, “Yeah, okay.” So I hauled ass over to Harry Thomason’s office, where I met with the director for the episode, who happened to be Charles Nelson Reilly. I talked to him for a couple of minutes, and he said, “There are, like, seven, eight, maybe ten lines at the most.” Then he read the lines with me. I went in thinking, I’m the last son-of-a-bitch in the world they need to be a florist, but what they were really looking for was a flower delivery boy. That made more sense to me. In fact, after we were done reading lines and he said, “You’ve got a job!” in that way Charles Nelson Reilly used to talk, I went over to the wardrobe people, who just kind of looked at me and said, “Yeah, what you’re wearing is good.”
I got on the set that night and looked around. Sitting up in the stands for the rehearsal, I saw Dom DeLuise, Doug McClure, and Rip Taylor. Then I saw Ossie Davis, Ann Wedgeworth, Elizabeth Ashley, Hal Holbrook, Charles Durning, Burt Reynolds, Marilu Henner, and all these people. I thought, Shit, Burt Reynolds brought all his pals out to see the show. I didn’t know they were all in it. I was just thrilled being around all those guys. I was always a fan of character actors, and here on this set were a bunch of the best ones. I’m like, This is high-dollar shit here.
That night we shot the show in front of a live audience. My scene was with Burt. The scene was about the father’s grave or something like that, it wasn’t funny. More of a functional scene, really. So I went up on the porch, Burt came to the door, I handed off the flowers, said my lines the only way I knew how—which was to just say them—then I came off the stage to see Hal Holbrook standing there.
“Son, come here a minute,” he said, “I want to talk to you.” I thought, Oh great. I fucked up and Hal Holbrook is mad at me. But he calls me around the corner—they’re still shooting while this is going on—and he whispers to me, “Son, let me tell you something. I’ve been an actor for forty-eight years (or whatever), and that was one of the finest, most natural pieces of acting that I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, right there.” My knees were shaking and shit. Hal Holbrook was fucking Mark Twain, Jesus! I was like, “Thank you, sir.” All he said was, “I know you only did eight lines here, but I think you got something,” and with that, Hal Holbrook became another guy who affected me in a major way. Once again, encouragement.
All those guys from that show were really nice to me. They even brought me back to play the lead guest star, twice. We did one episode in a courtroom, and the bailiff was a guy named Alvy Moore, who played Hank Kimball, the county agent on Green Acres who used to say, “Well, I’m not exactly the county agent …” That guy. So here were all these big famous actors, and I just stood in a corner with the guy from Green Acres all day. Most people on the set didn’t even know who he was, but I’m like, “That’s fucking Hank Kimball from Green Acres! Don’t you know your ass from your elbow?”
That rolled over into Linda Bloodworth and Harry Thomason asking me if I would like to star in their new show Hearts Afire with John Ritter and Markie Post. I accepted, and on the show I got real close with John. I knew he had been on TV, but I never did watch Three’s Company a lot. I just didn’t watch the sitcoms of the late seventies through the eighties. Sitcoms kind of got over for me right after All in the Family and Sanford and Son.
Anyway, John was known as a sitcom guy—he was a very boy-next-door type—but he had a real sick sense of humor. Real funny and real dark. He was the first guy I put into Sling Blade.