The cast of the unaired pilot HELIMARINES, featuring the 2-D Rod Dana (far right), Ron Ely (second from left) and Cal Bolder (far left).
Was your family involved in show business? While my mother was in nurse’s training in Oakland, California, through a series of serendipi- tous coincidences, she scored an audition with Al Pierce of 1920s and ’30s radio fame. She ended up singing with then-newcomer Rudy Vallee un- der the name June Christie, a marriage of her own middle and her mother’s maiden name. She might have gone on to glorious careers in Hollywood or New York, so incredible was her voice, but she returned to her home town for Christmas vaca- tion in 1932 and met my father at a New Year’s party. They were married the following year and soon I came along, putting an end to any ambi- tions for a show-biz career. She settled down to being a “triple-threat-entertainer” as mother, nurse, and official voice for the PEOs and national chap- ter of the Eastern Stars. She sang for the remain- der of her “career” at local weddings, churches and civic functions. I might add that, while my father was in medical school, he was the lead tenor soloist in the school’s all male choir.
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Did you have any interest in show business as a kid?
Well, when a thousand-pound Brahma bull rolled on me and crushed my chest at age 13, I knew my rodeo days were at an end. Fortunately, at age 14, I discovered that I had a healthy bari- tone, along with a newfound passion for the stage. I began singing anywhere and everywhere I could and worked in any kind of theater production I could find during my high school years, includ- ing every play and musical produced in the two schools I attended. Later, at the University of Utah, I developed a passion for acting and singing.
You also attended the legendary Pasadena Playhouse.
I began my first year at the Playhouse in 1954. At the end of that first year, I did Shakespeare at The Circle in San Diego and in August returned to the Playhouse to work on the design crew for the last few weeks of the summer class season. Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman were in that
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