Over the years I haven’t been what you would call deeply involved with show business. But I did start at an early age. In first grade I played a piece of candy.
Candy?
Right. I don’t remember the details, but I was onstage during an all-school assembly dressed as one of those caramel cubes wrapped in cellophane.
I guess I sang a song, but I can’t recall it now. Of course, it was my mother who had to create the box I wore.
Of course.
Then, in a later grade, I was onstage alone for two performances.
The first was for Lincoln”s Birthday.
Lincoln’s birthday?
Right. Back then we didn’t have a Presidents’ Day. We had Lincoln’s Birthday on February 12 and Washington’s Birthday on the 22nd.
Anyway, for this all-school assembly, the teacher tapped me to deliver Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. I guess ’cause I was tall.
That must have been a challenge.
It was. Memorizing all of the speech took some doing, but I managed and the performance went all right.
Another time the teacher planned a program for St. Patrick’s Day. She asked the kid with an obviously Irish name to be emcee. He gave it a try, but she wasn’t happy with it. She then turned to me to do it.
Why you?
Beats me. All I remember now is my opening line as I greeted the audience. I summoned up my best Irish brogue and said, “Well, well, well. And how goes it this marnin?”
Can’t remember the rest of it.
How did it go?
It didn’t go down in history alongside “Friends, Romans, countrymen,” but at least I got through it okay.
Good.
However, neither Broadway nor Hollywood called.