When I was in college, I always envisioned myself becoming a big shot in the entertainment industry. Not as an actor, but as a writer, director or producer. I had hoped that I would become important enough to write a book about my life's story. That never happened. That's why I'm doing this blog.
One of the things I wanted to do in an autobiography was go into detail about this one student in Eastern New Mexico University's Theatre department. I was going to heap lots of praise about him, but I wanted that praise to cause him problems. My solution was to call him "Toilethead." If he came to auditions, directors would say, "I see you went to ENMU at the same time as Fayd Ogolon. You wouldn't happen to be 'Toilethead,' would you?" This would cause him to either say yes or no. If he said yes, the response could be, "I don't need your attitude poisoning the cast. Get out!" If he denied being "Toilethead," it might be, "Oh, that's too bad. I understand that guy was a really good actor. I need someone like that in this production."
So, even though no one of influence is reading this, I'm still going to call him "Toilethead." However, I won't be using the quotation marks anymore. While this wasn't planned ahead of time, it still ends with the letter "d" designation that I have been giving my family's and friends' names. The rest of it has nothing in common with his real name. I have made reference to him once before in a previous post.
Like Bid, I first became aware of Toilethead during ENMU's Drama Festival in 1982. He played "Teddy" in the college's production of "Arsenic and Old Lace." When I came to ENMU the next semester and met him, I wasn't aware he was the same actor because he had make up that made him appear considerably older and look like Theodore Roosevelt.
Toilethead was originally from New York. At some point, his family moved to Albuquerque, where he went to Cibola High School. He always dreamed of going back to New York and hoped to be able to do it as an actor.
He definitely had the talent and skills to be a success. He probably wouldn't have become rich and famous, but out of all of us at ENMU, he most appeared to be destined to make a comfortable living as an actor. He could have been the next Ronny Cox (who had also graduated from ENMU). His forte would have been as a character actor. At the age of 19, he was capable of playing roles that were aged more than 20 years older than him. If he had put his mind to it, he could have gone straight to New York or Hollywood and started getting cast right away after graduating from high school. However, I guess he felt like he needed something to put on a resume and headshot, so he came to ENMU.
One of the Theatre professors, Dr. W, told me that when Toilethead first arrived, he thought he was going to take over the department, but that didn't happen. However, Dr. W never explained what kept him from realizing that goal his freshman year. But to those of us who came in the next year, it appeared that he had done what he had set out to do. He scored the roles of Tiger Brown in "The Threepenny Opera" and Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof," and this was without any real ability to sing. He simply acted his way through the songs.
The next year, he got cast in major roles in every mainstage production, except for the Dance department's annual showcase. (He couldn't dance, and acting doesn't help there.)
He always got chosen for the big roles because he could deliver the performances that the directors were looking for, every single time. He also proved very popular with the Theatre patrons. Many people who lived in the Portales/Clovis area would tell the professors how much they enjoyed watching him act. They also felt like they were seeing the start of something much bigger.
Toward the end of his junior year, he was accepted into the Performing Arts program at NYU. He had appeared to have accomplished one of his major life goals. However, he came back to ENMU the next year. (I will speculate on this in tomorrow's post.) He only participated in one production his senior year and focused more on his studies. He also returned to ENMU the year after that, but he didn't get involved in the Theatre department at all, except to do his senior recital requirement for his degree plan. He was living in the same dorm I was in during my senior year and was just a couple of doors down. I saw him coming and going from time to time, but he didn't have much to say to me.
So, this was the good, the praise that I am able to give Toilethead. Tomorrow, we'll get into the bad. And Thursday, it will be the even worse. (I can't believe I'm devoting three posts to this guy.)
No comments:
Post a Comment