Revisiting

Maybe it’s because digital cameras didn’t exist during my days in the United States Army, that I have maintained a fondness for the snap shots which still remain in my possession today.

Taking photos had a certain romance involved with the process. There was always a wait-and-see-what-they-would-look-like flavor to it all. Nothing was instant, especially when you happen to be many thousands of miles from home, and the vendor responsible for film development can’t speak anything more than broken English.

I’m reminded of the Orson Welles words in the wine commercials, “We will sell no wine before it’s time.”

Time. It moves when it wants to. Years, far too quickly, while a child waiting for their presents to be delivered, far too slowly.

Romance should never be allowed to turn into memories, but should take forever as it occurs, and the anguish of anticipated pain measured by less than the smallest instant taken.

Waiting for the words "you will be allowed to come home" was a time span too lengthy to be measured.

As is my want, I often review, from a time seemingly long ago, a photo in which I appear too young to ever be that young. Perhaps only those of you old enough to recognize your own physical change will appreciate fully what I will relate.

It was a time when cigarettes were ten cents a pack, my brand new Ford convertible was less than twenty five hundred dollars, and I was able to buy it with five hundred bucks as a down payment, against a monthly payment of seventy dollars. That beautiful car of mine was able to go anywhere on a couple of bucks worth of twenty-five cents a gallon gasoline. It had to be that price because I was only earning seventy dollars a week. After payroll deductions, my net pay came to a total of fifty-seven dollars a week.

But some of my most cherished remembrances are just that, remembrances. No photographs. Not even the old places I can drive by and look at. It must forever remain in my mind's eye in order to relive, recapture by the wonderment derived from the ability to reflect.

“Would you prefer color, or will black and white prints do the trick?”

Color photography for the non-professional was still some years away from being available. So today as I revisit my senior high school prom night, I see myself, all decked out in a rented tuxedo, posed along side the most beautiful girl at the prom. The orchid I presented her with is still perched, and remains in full bloom adjoining her strapless formal gown. I met Gail following the finish of a baseball game I had just pitched and won against her across-town school. She was a year younger than me, and was quite taken with my athlete star demeanor.

The photograph of the two of us is of course a still shot, but somehow it continues to have a life about it. It was an evening of romance, free from love.

Every actor, writer, director, producer, or creative source should every so often look at a time period of his or her life, and conjure what was and what wasn’t. In reflection, my prom was a romantic evening taking place at a time period, existing for no more than a single day; standing back and capturing what the truth was. And then easily describing the joy of the moment, the anticipation of Gail’s answer, whether or not she would be my date for the prom, and finally the reality of its truth as a fleeting moment.

And with reflection, often comes salvation; salvation in a form only yours to assume, if you choose to do so.

The performers I was so blessed to have experienced and worked with, first hand remain forever on the old recordings, films, and television shows. I’m free to listen to Sinatra, and view a photograph of the man taken at the time he performed in person. I was there in Las Vegas watching him on stage in complete command, while giving the audience far more than they could have possibly expected.

Las Vegas was the entertainment bargain of the ages. I doubt if there will ever be a comparable package. The best food in the world, being served twenty-four hours each day for the lowest prices imaginable.

When I first visited Las Vegas, we stayed at the old Sahara Hotel for a grand total of ten dollars a night. And it wasn’t a low-end accommodation. Appearing as an opening act in the Sahara Lounge was a rather young Don Rickles. Followed by the headliners, Louie Prima, and Keeley Smith, with Sam Butera and the Witnesses. It was free admission, and no cover or minimum. Just walk in, sit down, maybe order a drink for a $1.00, and watch the show. Then off to the Sands and the Rat Pack. Las Vegas treated me to Lena Horn, Sammy Davis Jr., Harry Belafonte, Ella Fitzgerald, and about everyone you could think of. A weekend was almost more candy than any enthusiast could stand.

But still to this day, of all the thousands of actors and actresses I have met and or directed, one woman made the most lasting impression on me as a young man. There will never be another Peggy Lee, in my estimation. Those were the high-flying nightclub days on Sunset Boulevard, in Hollywood. The two "in" places for a performer to appear were Ciros and The Macambo. I was introduced to Peggy Lee by Dave Barry, the erstwhile comedian who served as her opening act.

We shook hands outside the club, and as a young man it was all over for me. I fell in love with her instantly. On stage Peggy Lee was the sexiest performer I had ever seen or heard. A close second was the absolutely unbelievable Lena Horn. Even mentioning Peggy Lee and Lena Horn in the same sentence brings a reflection I will always be able to count on as an everlasting truth, depicting quality, and the best ever.

What You Have, and What You Were Given

“Let the artist live, let him be enchanted, disappointed, happy; let him suffer, love, and live through the entire gamut of human emotions, but let him at the same time learn to recreate his life and his emotions into art.”
- Constantine Stanislavski

"Each and every day I will place before you all that I have lived for, lived with, and have learned from, during the ten thousand hours necessary in order for the artist within me to emerge."
- Hk / 2010

I have allowed people to teach me.

And with it far too many questions arise. Is it because of the day and time I live in?

I learn, during the allotted twenty-four hour prescriptions, yet I find myself, creatively without the necessary skills to apply what I have earnestly striven to accomplish.

Why is it for many of us, the more skilled and adept at our craft we become, the less we see ourselves accomplishing all which we have set out as our life’s goals, or aspirations, dreams, and satisfactions?

Wandering through life’s numerous abstractions it causes me to often think about young children who come to our big party with a seemingly apparent learning disorder. Perhaps theirs is a version of mine?

What if we could slow down the twenty-four hour cycle by adding minutes to each hour for them? The new scenario would provide for classrooms with clocks, having faces displaying two extra hours of time.

And what if each of the children had their own button to press, which would set the clock back, giving them an expanded time period?

Do you think there might be a possibility some of those children didn’t have a learning disorder?

A man began by saying to me, “We’re going to practice some learning skills. I’m going to teach you a great way to learn. When you work on how to learn, the rest will come easily.”

He pointed out the power of our God-given senses. It was never a stock statement, like "I want you to pay attention." I would hear things like, “Look at this, Harv." I remember him saying this and simultaneously covering my eyes with his hand. Of course, I responded with the obvious, not being able to see with my eyes covered.

“That’s the point," he said. “Always keep your eyes wide open, and try to see as many things as you can.”

The man had given me a method for learning, along with the precise instructions to go along with it. The process was a simple example (covering my eyes) followed by, “Always keep your eyes wide open, and try to see as many things as you can.”

During the ensuing years, I continually practiced what he had given me. When I was very young, I was under the impression I would be able to see more things if there was a way to open my eyes wider.

As we drove together, I’d be in the back, pressed against a window, using my thumb and index fingers on each hand to hold my eyes open as wide as they would stretch. When I discovered it would cause others who drove passed us to laugh at my birdman appearance, I took it to school with me and enjoyed the laughs it got. When one of my teachers (most of them resented me) witnessed what I was up to, she asked what I thought I was doing. “I’m practicing how to be an observer,” I replied. Most of the kids didn’t have a clue to what I was taking about.

(She has to be long ago dead, so I guess it’s okay to mention her name: Mrs. Kaplan.)

By now you must have guessed, the man responsible for all of this was, of course my dear father.

Mrs. Kaplan figured she had me now, so I was told to explain it to the class, and to come up to the front of the room, by her desk. Mrs. Kaplan was so in to herself, she had little idea of whom she was dealing with. After all, I was the class humorist. I loved that nomenclature (humorist), as opposed to being called the "class clown." I wasn’t the kind of kid who might jump up on to a desk in order to get the students' attention. That, of course, would be clowning. I loved disrupting the class by telling a story I had heard. In my eyes, it's what Will Rogers or Robert Benchley would do.

In any event, there I was, in front of the class, along side Mrs. Kaplan’s desk.

Note: By now it was the fourth grade. I believe I was nine years old. My voice over career had begun. I was about to perform a living narration, explaining what a powerful tool observation was and could ultimately be. My daddy had introduced me to his way to practice when I was entering the first or second grade. It gave me a hefty three to four years of working out under my belt in preparation for this day in front of the class. The stage was mine. Eat your heart out, Mrs. Kaplan.

I asked my fellow students how many of them had a favorite baseball team. All hands went up. Not a tough question for any kids from New York, specifically a Brooklyn(ite) to answer.

I picked out one of the boys, and asked him to name each of the players on his favorite team (it was the Brooklyn Dodgers). He did so easily. Most of the kids who were Dodger fans instantly agreed. Now I asked them to give me the number of each player. They all did so in a snap, including the manager, all the coaches, and the team trainer.

We all agreed how easy a task it was. But then I went on to say, “You were all able to do what I asked, because you’re all observers. You’ve all been practicing by way of doing it over and over again. It’s called observing.” Even crab ass Kaplan liked that one, though she wouldn’t acknowledge I had done anything well.

So far I had only used up about ten minutes of class time. Then I picked out my favorite little girlfriend Miriam (last name deleted in order to protect the innocent). I had her come up and stand by me, with her back to the class. “Now Miriam,” I instructed, “Tell us the name of every one in this class in order of where you remember them sitting.” In nothing flat, Miriam did her thing easily.

* Both the naming of the Dodger team, and the placement of each student was done so by the ability to observe.

* The practice of observation creates the subconscious memorization of just about anything, when the observation itself is more than occasionally adhered to.

* People have been described as poor observers. The underlying factor however, is they are basically lazy.

Think about it. What I have just recalled is in direct alignment with my opening reference to Stanislavski.

“Let the artist live, let him be enchanted, disappointed, happy; let him suffer, love, and live through the entire gamut of human emotions, but let him at the same time learn to recreate his life and his emotions into art.”

And with a well-cultivated ability to observe, will come an automatic stimulation of the senses, our friend Stanislavski so adamantly advises us. They are the most vital of necessities, for every actor who seeks the reliability of substance.

For it is within the substance which we alone can become aware of an innate ability to look into, and dig deeply, searching for inner meanings of the writer's intent. Only then could any actor possibly bring to, and present our audience with the total truth as he perceives it to be. Then, upon one's perceiving it to be true, it will be so.

I became privy one day to a translation of a foreign language newspaper interview of Stanislavski. In it, the young reporter brought to the surface a comparison of an actor's depth capabilities he was not expecting to hear. Most of the time the questions were of a benign nature, never requiring much more than a superficial answer, especially at this particular segment of the Stanislavski career. He was assuredly at the highest point he would ever attain.

It was well into the end of the hour when the reporter asked and received more than expected.

“How does an actor perceive the truth?” he asked.

“He reflects upon it from another era, or near space in his time spent.” More or less, the reporter retorted with how he didn’t get it. Stanislavski replied, "The more one lives, the more they have in their reflective arsenal."

Propriety; impropriety; despair; elation; birth; death; ceremony, and celebration, when all are visually true, the verbal description or portrayal of the incidents may be interpreted as such. The audience will, without exception recognize the truth. They may find the truth disturbing: If they do, perhaps then true theater is an experience they too will one day reflect upon.

The audiences are the gods. Never lie to them.

The Promo and the Tag

There is a great similarity between a promo actor, and a commercial actor. In both cases truth casting applies.

In the so-called old days, “promo guys” were all cut from the same cloth. Either the Ernie Anderson basso, or the Casey Kasem sweet, sweet, “California Crackle.” Both of these men, for many years, led the way. Combined, they arguably earned more money than any other two actors in the business, during the same time period.

What Casey and Ernie had in common was conviction. They both believed that they were the best salesmen in the world; one with sweetness, the other with outright arrogance.

Amazingly enough, both sweetness and arrogance translated into sincerity. Why? Because it was their truth.

In that era, from the late forties to the late sixties, there were literally only three major playgrounds for the commercial promo actor: ABC, NBC, and CBS. Of course, most cities had their own local channels, but those were not the fertile big money domains enjoyed by a network promo announcer.

Today, the promo producers use a wide variety of types. Men, women, kids, adults, younger, older, upbeat, sarcastic, sincere, loving, and scary. Well, you name it, and they’ll use it on air. The old days are obviously gone. For the actor… they weren’t the “Good Old Days.” It was nothing more than a limiting time for the vast majority, and a prosperous time for the very few that fell within the limited guidelines of what was then acceptable.

While we exist within a subjective art form, we must never the less strive for certainty whenever possible.

What do we know about the promo? What stands out, besides the great sums of money an actor might make for seemingly very little work?

The very nature of the promo demands that the actor selected must be an exceptionally good reader.

If it’s written in English, our actor should be able to read it with ease.

The actor must be able to handle last minute, and constant script changes.

This isn’t the place for a prima donna.

This is the place for the professional who by nature is confident, and comfortable with and within themselves.

The actor must be able to perform multiple attitude transitions under tight time constraints.

It pleases me to offer that many successful promo people are graduates of Kalmenson & Kalmenson.

Proponents of our method have praised the "lead-in" as their tool for quick study, when they find themselves in the throes of being handed a stack of twenty or thirty promos to deliver. As I said earlier: "This isn’t the place for an actor who keeps dropping words."

Like any program where the rewards are great, the work it takes to get there is in concurrence. For any outsider looking in, the determination of how simple it looks and sounds to be a promo actor announcer is a classic underestimate of the talent and perseverance required.

Having had many of today’s premier promo actors as both students and colleagues allows me to make an in-depth appraisal of what these guys who are making the big bucks have in common (well, maybe not so in-depth).

It almost always boils down to a few of the same human determinations actors must make for themselves. Of course, first and foremost for every active competitor is the question: “How badly do you want it?” In other words… are you willing to sacrifice your time, energy, money, while sharing the experience of frustration almost everyone before you living a similar adventure has had to live with?

There is a bright light, however. In the days of the earliest of promo actors, there were far less outlets for their work. Ernie Anderson and Casey Kasem had the basic three to ply their talents. With the advent of cable, and other networks as well, today’s marketplace for the promo actor has increased substantially.

◊ The closest thing to an actor is his or her website. Showcase your talent on your own website. Tell people what you do and give them a sample of your work.

◊ Multiple representations around the country, especially if you have your own home studio, are now commonplace.

◊ Today, an actor can electronically have many agents; New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago are absolute musts for the serious voice over promo talent.

◊ Web content companies, production companies, independent movie trailer companies, and of course every recording studio where the human voice is being recorded can serve as an outlet for your talent. Many actors are booked in as last minute replacements due to a variety of extenuating circumstances.

◊◊◊

The Tag

They called it a tag.

There were only a few words on the page.

And to add insult to injury, none of it made sense to me. I remember it as if it were yesterday. It was during my short-lived (seven year) career as a commercial talent agent.

The head of our voice over department had informed me in his raspy tones that today I was to direct some tags. Trust me... I had no idea of what a tag was. Guess what. My boss, the guy who had given me the assignment, really didn’t know what the technical definition of a tag was.

Simply stated, a tag is a word or line, that usually appears at the end of a commercial script, and that, that particular line does not change the meaning of a previous script that also contained, or was void of a tag. In other words when an actor does a tag they receive payment of the then established tag rate. An actor may be hired expressly for the sole and singular purpose of doing the tags on a series of commercials. The sponsor may tag as many commercials as he chooses to without having to pay for an additional session providing the tag does not change the meaning of any individual commercial. If the meaning is changed, they, the sponsor must pay you for an additional commercial. Now if none of this makes any sense to you it doesn’t really matter. Your agent is the one who is required to know about all this crap.

“It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!”

“With a name like Smuckers, it’s has to be good!”

“Miller light. Everything you’ve always wanted in a beer and less!”

"Chevy. Like a rock!”

"Ford. No boundaries!”

And of course, the question: “Do you... Yahoo?”

Those are just six of the many tags that I could have mentioned. Each of them accomplished exactly what the sponsor’s ad agency was attempting to do. That is, become a household saying. Each of these tags comes from a different time period, yet all of them are remembered.

The average actor might say how lucky these people were to get a tag like that to perform. Certainly I would have to agree that a great deal of luck was involved.

In many cases, we may audition hundreds of actors for one single tag. We at Kalmenson might not be the only casting people in the country that are conducting a search for just that one individual who happens to be letter perfect. That one voice who could be the “Bud”, the “Wise”, or the “Err” that came out of the three most famous frogs in the world. As an aside and as a point of interest, we were the ones who found the Budweiser Frogs. But during the course of the last twenty-five years, we’ve been able to find many different voices and sounds that have become easily identified in households all over the country.

While we did mention luck on the part of the winning actors, there is nevertheless a great deal of skill and confidence that was also part of their winning formula.

Okay... here’s the basis for their magic: Entitlement. Da harv has had numerous professional experiences with the actors who were the chosen ones for all of the previously mentioned tags. They all have that belonging thing in common. They are all comfortable with themselves as people. They have all settled in. We can’t teach that. All I can do is point it out to all of you. These actors all believe that their individual truth gives them the right to influence our lives. That’s their breakthrough as actors.

They are able to look the other guy right in the eye and tell him the truth.