Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Drama: An Actor's Education, by John Lithgow

When he appeared in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at the Old Globe a few years back, John Lithgow received a heartfelt ovation - and some shouts of welcome - at his first entrance. The performance, as expected, was elastic, graceful, and true.

Actors in the audience would have been both appreciative and, deep down, molten with envy. Here's someone who has made it. He won a Tony for his first Broadway show (The Changing Room, 1972). He's performed in every medium and every kind of role, from goofball to serial killer. And he has what may be an actor's most cherished status: he's reached the point where he can choose roles; he doesn't have to trudge across town or country auditioning and working odd - even strange - jobs and praying for an aperture of opportunity to transform his career.

Lithgow's new memoir, Drama: An Actor's Education, dispels that, and other illusions. The book, like its author, is frank, literate, and funny. Memoirs often boast about successes and failings (as if to say "even my misery's more epic than yours!"). Lithgow, by contrast, is not star-struck about himself. He owns up to the highs and the lows with an unadorned honesty that recalls the confessional prose of Ingmar Bergman.

Lithgow had a seemingly clear path to the stage: his father was an artistic director; he did a great deal of acting while at Harvard; he trained at a British academy ("I was...well, gobsmacked"). And yet he spent years of struggling, doing whatever to land a job. "By its very nature," he says, "a theater career is disorderly" His path serves as testimony to dogged persistence.

He married young, then had affairs, which eventually shredded a 10-year marriage and false self-image. He had a torrid, year-long affair with Liv Ullman. But instead of widening his stance and pounding his chest, Lithgow describes the relation, and her "heartbreaking beauty," from multiple, often conflicting, angles.

Lithgow even exposes the myth of name actors able to pick and choose their roles. When Joseph Papp talked him into doing the ultimately forgettable Salt Lake City Skyline a the Public Theater, because of the schedule-conflict, Lithgow had to turn down the ripest plum on the tree: Jerry in Harold Pinter's Betrayal.

He spent much of his early life, he says, cultivating a dutiful image and eager to please. "God forbid that anyone should have known the real me."

Drama reveals the "real" one.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all

Previous article

Gonzo Report: Eating dinner while little kids mock-mosh at Golden Island

“The tot absorbs the punk rock shot with the skill of experience”
Next Article

Live Five: Sitting On Stacy, Matte Blvck, Think X, Hendrix Celebration, Coriander

Alt-ska, dark electro-pop, tributes, and coastal rock in Solana Beach, Little Italy, Pacific Beach

When he appeared in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at the Old Globe a few years back, John Lithgow received a heartfelt ovation - and some shouts of welcome - at his first entrance. The performance, as expected, was elastic, graceful, and true.

Actors in the audience would have been both appreciative and, deep down, molten with envy. Here's someone who has made it. He won a Tony for his first Broadway show (The Changing Room, 1972). He's performed in every medium and every kind of role, from goofball to serial killer. And he has what may be an actor's most cherished status: he's reached the point where he can choose roles; he doesn't have to trudge across town or country auditioning and working odd - even strange - jobs and praying for an aperture of opportunity to transform his career.

Lithgow's new memoir, Drama: An Actor's Education, dispels that, and other illusions. The book, like its author, is frank, literate, and funny. Memoirs often boast about successes and failings (as if to say "even my misery's more epic than yours!"). Lithgow, by contrast, is not star-struck about himself. He owns up to the highs and the lows with an unadorned honesty that recalls the confessional prose of Ingmar Bergman.

Lithgow had a seemingly clear path to the stage: his father was an artistic director; he did a great deal of acting while at Harvard; he trained at a British academy ("I was...well, gobsmacked"). And yet he spent years of struggling, doing whatever to land a job. "By its very nature," he says, "a theater career is disorderly" His path serves as testimony to dogged persistence.

He married young, then had affairs, which eventually shredded a 10-year marriage and false self-image. He had a torrid, year-long affair with Liv Ullman. But instead of widening his stance and pounding his chest, Lithgow describes the relation, and her "heartbreaking beauty," from multiple, often conflicting, angles.

Lithgow even exposes the myth of name actors able to pick and choose their roles. When Joseph Papp talked him into doing the ultimately forgettable Salt Lake City Skyline a the Public Theater, because of the schedule-conflict, Lithgow had to turn down the ripest plum on the tree: Jerry in Harold Pinter's Betrayal.

He spent much of his early life, he says, cultivating a dutiful image and eager to please. "God forbid that anyone should have known the real me."

Drama reveals the "real" one.

Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Mr. TJ does a reading, part two

Next Article

Acting in the Moment (of Uncertainty), Part Two

Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader