In the days of my youth, athletic games were announced in gym, I watched the large group I was in split amoeba-like into competitive teams. High achievers in a sport—dodge ball, basketball, flag football, etc.—were designated leaders of a team. After a coin toss to see which captains got to make the first choice, a brutal Darwinian process of natural selection began. Please, dear God, don’t let me be picked last.
It was 1974 and I had just graduated from Pepperdine University. I had landed a job with Opryland USA and was cast in the “Showboat Show.” The show incorporated a mixture of old standards like “Old Man River,” with contemporary numbers like “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” and an instrumental version of “Shaft” for a big dance number. The set was the façade of a steamboat and the outdoor setting overlooked the Cumberland River. Spoken narration tied the songs and story together.
During rehearsals all the cast members auditioned for musical solos and featured dancers. I croaked through “Old Man River” and “Leroy Brown,” then we were put through our dancing paces. The choreographer gave the cast a more complicated routine than what we were given at the general auditions. In that audition, I was the guy in the opening credits of the Bob Fosse film, “All That Jazz;” a stage packed with dancers and one pitiful bloke keeps bumping into everyone. For this complicated routine in the “Showboat Show,” the choreographer had each cast member do a solo sequence in a diagonal line. There was no hiding my lack of dancing skills, and I scooted across the floor asap.
I settled into my mortification as the cast gathered in the middle of the rehearsal hall while the show director, choreographer, and music director confabbed and decided who would be a featured dancer, who would sing the featured solos. Once the triumvirate broke huddle, they called out their selections. As the chosen were called, each one peeled off the larger group, giggly with excitement, and stood behind their respective leader. In a matter of seconds I was alone in the middle of the rehearsal hall feeling like the Elephant Man. The choreographer huddled with to her dancers and the musical director did the same with his singers, which left the director to ponder what to do with the odd-man-out.
I had faked my way to this point but had been found out. To have gotten this far was a miracle. The director approached. The squint in his eyes was one of either pity or perturbation. He stopped before me and said, “And you, my son, shall talk.” Thus the role of “Captain Jerry” was born. I would speak the narration written for the show. If only by default, the director spotted my one talent and gave me the occasion to exploit it. I’ve been doing my best to exploit it ever since, and so far, no one has found me out…yet.
