When I was eight years old, a vaudeville troupe showed up in my hometown and I had a chance to audition for a small part in one of the skits... I got the part, which was only a walk on but I had a couple of lines of dialogue with one of the comics... I remember getting bigger laughs than the comic, possibly because I was a local boy and many of the folks in the audience knew me... Wouldn't it be nice if I could report that from that moment on I became addicted to the stage? Yeah, sure... Actually, it was 35 years later that I performed as an actor in a play...

For a few years, I acted in several plays in community theatres both on the east coast and here in San Diego...  I took some drama courses in college, and thoroughly enjoyed being associated with theatrical productions... But I wasn't good! And I knew it, too... So I did what a lot of unsuccessful, frustrated, and untalented actors do... I quit!

In later years, though, I did some work in films -- bit parts in feature pictures...   I also made a few television commercials... I got an agent and acquired my union cards: Screen Actors Guild (SAG), and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA)...