Timothy J. Pruitt's Blog, page 118

Park Bench Thespians – A Short Story About Acting

Several years ago, I met a man on a park bench. We weren’t there the same time every day. When I met him first I was a struggling actor, and he was famous. Later I became famous, and he taught me how to handle it, all while feeding the pigeons.

I knew him from my childhood, when he did a reoccurring role of Uncle Bill on a show called Kind Alley. I was going through a lot as a kid, and it helped me to watch him be nice to some kids that really didn’t deserve it. It helped me because that’s the way little Gene Coleman had felt. I thanked him for that reluctantly, because Meredith had suffered typecasting from it for a while after.

“Oh, I’m a fan of Uncle Bill too. You see, I was like you, I had problems as a child. My parents went through a divorce, but I had an Uncle Burgess. He kept me straight, I based Uncle Bill on my Uncle Burgess. You know a good Uncle is worth getting typecast for.”

I got a lot of advice from the great Meredith Williams, but the best advice I ever got from him happened on a day when I didn’t expect to see him. It was in the afternoon, he usually fed the pigeons in the morning, but not that day. I wasn’t there to feed pigeons, I went into the park to figure out my escape route.

“I was scared to death. I don’t know when I was scared more, making the movie, or giving that awards speech. I kept waiting for my fourth grade drama teacher Mr. Slezak to run up on stage and say ‘What are you doing? You are not an actor!’, but I got through it. Now, they expect me to know what I’m doing.”

He smiled, and pointed to the pigeons. “You see those birds? They do naturally what they’ve done for thousands of years. They do what their parents, or other birds taught them by seeing them do it. Acting is the same, you stand on your mark, read the lines, and do what you’re told. Did you do that?”

He knew I had, but he wanted to hear it from me I thought. “Yes Sir, I did, but that’s part of why I feel so guilty. I didn’t act, I didn’t put my spin on the role. I did it the way the director wanted. I disagreed, but I kept my mouth shut. At the same time, he was right, I got an Oscar. Apparently a director who up until that point directed commercials knows more about acting than I do.”

He didn’t respond, except for laughing. That’s what made me like him, a great actor knows his cues. He knew part of me wanted him to challenge me, so I could use it as an excuse to storm off and sulk. My manager isn’t an actor and he made that mistake that morning. Meredith Williams on the other hand, is an actor’s actor.

I guessed at the time that he was about 92, he was closer to 93 then. He had been acting since before my Dad was born, and was famous. I guessed he had to have at least three Oscars himself. “Mr. Williams how did you do it, how did you choose a role after your first Oscar?”

Again he laughed. “Oh, that’s where you’re wrong my boy. I never got one. I was nominated twice, but lost on both accounts, and I deserved to loose. The actors who won in that category played the better role. I picked up an Emmy for a guest shot, two Tony awards, even got a Grammy for a audio book twenty years ago, but no Oscar.”

I couldn’t believe it. Now not only was I pouring my heart out to a legend, I had probably insulted him for sure this time, in the process. “I’m sorry Sir, I just assumed you had won three.” Then I named the movies that he was in that I thought were Oscar caliber.

While doing it, I took in how he looked for any sign of hurt, but I didn’t see any. He always came to the park the same way. Meredith is a small framed man, but big in stature, and stylish always. He had a cordoba hat that always matched whatever suit he was wearing, no tie, gray sunglasses, comfortable shoes, and a walking stick that had a carved top on it.

He thanked me, then asked me a question. “Do you know the movie Self Evident?” I shook my head no. “No, that’s right you wouldn’t, it never went to streaming, or even DVD. It was on VHS just once I think. Of all my roles, it’s the one I think deserved the Oscar for.”

“Like you, I had ideas on just how the part of Thomas Jefferson should be played, but unlike you I argued with the director. I was professional by the standards of today, but I was a nuisance. Finally he gave in and did it my way. It was a tremendous flop, and while nobody blamed me, I knew I was the cause.”

“The cast was good, the director became legendary, and never cast me again. I played the role as well as I could, but that wasn’t what was needed for this film. For it, Jefferson needed to be the conveyor of ideas, not the center of attention.”

“That role taught me to be an actor, not to act. Oh I knew how to act, I thought, that’s what cost me working with Sheldon Greenstreet ever again. You gasped and you did so correctly, Sheldon is a legend. We became friends awhile later, I apologize profusely and we became very close, but he never cast me again.”

This didn’t make sense to me, so I had to interrupt and ask. “Mr. Williams, if he considered you a friend, why didn’t he ever cast you again? Did he not believe you’d be, well more direct-able the next time?”

He laughed again waiving his cane in the air. “Oh, he knew I’d do anything he said from then on, but the roles he wanted to make, I wasn’t right for. Times changed and I was not the look of a leading man, and drifted to character roles. The movies you mentioned were good performances but the academy didn’t think they deserved a nomination. I had a couple of friends though that were in your shoes, one being Sheldon Greenstreet.”

“Sheldon and I were friends by then, and he directed The Ice Boat. He told me ‘this is going to be a simple little film, the writing directs itself’, and they called him brilliant. Ahead of his time, genius, all the words which became synonymous with, and he felt like a fraud.”

I was stunned. Greenstreet is considered a man who changed how movies were made, and he felt like I did? This didn’t make sense to me. “Mr Williams are you sure that you’re not just trying to make me feel better?”

He smiled. “Call me Meredith please, and no my boy I’m not, I’m telling you the truth. He is a genius, but he didn’t think so, I doubt he thinks so now. I rode with him the night he gave his speech, on the way home he told me he was giving up directing. Said he was going into producing, and let somebody else be the genius who simply followed the rules.”

“I wasn’t as smart then as I am now. I made the same mistake somebody, probably your manager I’m guessing made with you. I built up, consoled, and berated him. Finally after anger exploded on both sides, and we both apologized like the toddlers we were acting like, I asked him a question.”

“I said Sheldon, if anybody could direct the picture, why couldn’t you direct it? If you feel like you don’t know what you were doing, and you won an Oscar, shouldn’t you keep winning until at least you start losing? He said that gave him what he needed to go on. Two movies later he discovered what he didn’t know he was doing right, and improved upon it.”

“Another actor friend of mine, who I won’t name, won an Oscar at fifty, and retired the next day. He told the world he had reached the pinnacle of his career and was going to try something new. The man admitted to me it was because he was scared silly, and didn’t know what to do next.”

I was afraid to ask, but had to know. “I don’t have to know who it is, but please tell me, what happened. Did you talk him back to acting, or did he just exit stage left?”

“Oh you know him, he’s very prominent in the field he went into. Successful too, more successful as a writer than ever as an actor. Even most EGOT winners can’t say they have a Pulitzer. In the process, he got married, had kids, and became a grandfather. He also became a much happier man, my guess is a happy man. i doubt that acting before or after Oscar would have done it.”

Now I was sick and confused. I was hoping he was giving me a clear choice, between sticking it out and being a success, or leaving and being miserable. I thought he was giving me a reason to fight, but if he was I didn’t understand, and politely I told him that.

“Well, I almost did that for you, could have done that for you, but I like you too much. There are a lot of stories where the guy quit acting and hated it, or for that matter, kept acting and hated it, but they aren’t your story. Only o you can decide what’s right for you. The bottom line is, do you like acting? If you hadn’t gotten the Oscar, hadn’t got nominated what would you have done?”

I didn’t have to try for an answer, I knew that one. “I would have done this play a friend Karen wrote. It’s not good, but it interested me. No one would pay to see it, it’s a simple story about her family’s hotel in Michigan. There’s no villain, it’s just the story of how they survived and were eventually successful.”

He pointed to the nearest statue in the park. “Suppose that statue were Oscar, are you really going to let him get in the way of you and Karen? I didn’t let my ego keep me down. I became an actor who when appropriate politely shared my opinion, but I learned my lines, I followed directions, and I made a movie.”

“The only acting I did most of the time was acting like I had nothing to say. At first, that took a lot of wrestling with stubborn old Williams but in the end Meredith learned that he wasn’t always right. Second guessing myself became the greatest secret to success I had known.”

“Once I embraced the possibility that I wasn’t always right helped me win an Emmy, two Tonys, a Grammy, and something much more important. While I did get three houses out of the deal from the successful roles, the only one that mattered was the vacation home in Barcelona.”

“That got me a date with my Luisa, sixty five years of marriage, three beautiful children, and eleven grandchildren. I decided I wasn’t going to let me keep myself from a life of happiness just because I didn’t know what I was doing. What I learned in the process was, I was still learning, and I still am.”

“All my arrogance wasn’t confidence I was right, it was fear that I was wrong, masquerading as being so sure of myself. Once I could admit I was guessing, I became much happier. If my guess is right, Karen may be more than a playwright, don’t let Oscar keep you from Barcelona.”

I shook his hand, thanked him, asked Karen out, put on the play, then did the movie after our honeymoon. With my new clout I flexed a few muscles I didn’t really have and bluffed into a three picture deal with the studio.”

I decided to really scare myself and co-produce the picture with Karen, even got Sheldon Greenstreet to direct. For the patriarch of the film, her Grandfather, I had the perfect actor, Meredith Williams. At first he declined, but I convinced him this wasn’t charity, that he was the best guy for the role.

We had a ball everyday on the set. We did each scene quickly, but well, partially because Karen and I wanted to hear more stories from Sheldon and Meredith about their career. They had some doozies, each with a life lesson along the way.

By the time it was over, we didn’t care if the movie did anything but cover budget. This little simple movie, Caleb’s Crossing, was a box office smash, and then something strange happened. It was a critical success too, nobody seemed to hate it.

We didn’t walk away with one Oscar, we walked away with several. One for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, a second Oscar for me, which I still didn’t think I deserved, and one Best Supporting Actor prize for Meredith Williams.

That night he didn’t wear his cordoba hat inside, but had one for the ride home. He had explained that he bought the first one to impress Luisa, and he has never stopped trying to impress her. Dapper as always in his black tuxedo, this time with a tie, and his signature cane with the engraving of Churchill. He said it was his reminder to never give up. When they called his name, he asked me to help him up the steps.

When he got to the podium, I’ll never forget his speech. “I’d like to thank Luisa, (He named each family member, including his Uncle Burgess, all of the crew, Sheldon, Karen and me), and lastly Gene should be the one making the speech. He knows what he’s doing, I don’t.”

“I’ve been trying to make a movie for seven or eight decades, and this is the first time I made it up here and he was the reason I did physically and metaphorically. All I did was show up, read my lines, and do what I was directed to do, but let me tell you, I had a wonderful time. I hope to have another good time on my next 100 pictures. Incidentally Caleb’s Crossing was my 100th picture, and the best cast and crew I was ever blessed to stand along side of. Thank you all.”

“I think he’s probably got ten more lined up, but not today. Today we won’t be feeding the pigeons either. Instead, we are here at their lovely home as we all celebrate the true love of his life on their anniversary. Meredith, Luisa, I’m not going to name all the family, but Karen, the twins and I would like to thank each of you.”

“We’re not going to name them all Meredith, but I would like to thank them for sharing you with me and us. If the city of New York ever sells that park bench I’m going to buy it and put a sign on it. That sign will read, to the greatest actor I’ve ever known, and the best friend that this actor ever had. Happy Anniversary!”

Art Unboxed – Sketchbook Small, Medium, And Large

In this week’s Art Unboxed I would like to talk about sketchbooks. It’s a given that an artist needs to have a sketchbook to jot down ideas, practice drawing, and plan a larger piece. Some do art journaling, some keep as a library for progression and history, and some even sell their completed sketchbooks. Today I’d like to talk about the different sizes of sketchbooks as related to the artist.

I’ve used all three sizes, and each have their benefits. As the parent of a small toddler, we had a super bowl party at our Church, Point Of Mercy in Nashville, Tennessee last weekend. I brought a pocket size sketchbook with me along with a pen, pencil, and eraser. It fit perfectly in the pocket of my hoodie. The compact size allowed me to focus on my family, which while I enjoy art, they are always my priority over it. When they were busy, to sketch a few things, including the Yoda in the graphic above.

It worked so well that I intend to keep a small sketch kit in my car for just those times. When that isn’t an option, my small sketchbook is my phone, using either Procreate or Artrage. I used Procreate on my iPad Pro, and Art Rage on my iPhone. That work flow works well for me, which is the most important point, find what works for you.

I use medium and large sketchbooks for practice, archiving, and for planning larger pieces. These allow me to keep a history of my art for myself, see my progress, and give my family a keepsake. I’m working on a large sketchbook now that I intend to give my son Nicholas.

Each size has their own purpose and place, but one of the biggest benefits is the practice and improvement it provides to your drawing skills. I don’t get to paint a acrylic every day, but every day that I sketch will improve every acrylic painting along the way. If you have any interest in drawing, I would suggest getting a simple sketchbook, and start drawing. You may be surprised where it takes you.

Sketch Horse Profile

Sketch Gray Fox

Sketch James Monroe

iPainting Michael Shane Neal

In my opinion, he is possibly America’s greatest living portrait painter. Michael Shane Neal is also a Nashville native, a student of Everett Raymond Kinstler, and the President of the National Portrait Society.

Sketch Annie Oakley

iPainting Bob Ross At The Easel

So many of us are fans of Bob Ross, including a man I believe to be one of America’s greatest portrait painters. He inspired generations to start painting, that’s something that many artists are not able to say they accomplished.

Sketch Buffalo Bill Cody

Walk About Zion

An actor’s daughter, who watched the show he was on, talked to her Dad when they visited the set. She said that everything looked so real until you walked through one of the buildings and there were only lights and cameras. Don Knotts made a remark that’s because they were good actors or something.

A lot of things can look good on the outside, but with Zion, you can walk around, and every corner is as good as the entrance. There is no facade in God, some days will be battles, but Jesus is even sweeter in the days of battle because you cling more closely to Him. David said I was young, and now am old but I have not seen the righteous forsaken, in other words my God has never, ever disappointed me!

That doesn’t mean we understand everything, but we trust Him. I don’t understand everything my wife does, but I trust her and love her. Trusting Jesus goes beyond expecting what we want, it means trusting that He knows why we need what we received. An when every battle is over, I can look back on them all and see the goodness of God in them.

Pastor Denny Livingston preached an Awesome message last Sunday on the statement I believe I shall see the goodness of The Lord in the land of the living. It was a masterpiece because it reminded us of God’s goodness, His faithfulness, and His strength. It encouraged all of our souls because we have experienced God’s goodness. We know that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, not merely because it’s a verse but because we have lived to see His faithfulness in our lives, our ups and our downs, even in our mistakes, God is faithful!

I don’t know what today holds, or tomorrow, but I know Who holds both it and me. Because of that, I don’t have to worry about walking through a door that is unprepared for me. I will never reach a place where the stage of life is just a prop for me, because God’s Mayberry if you will, is very, very real!