THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 13, 1994 TAG: 9410130051
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Profile
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 140 lines
MILLIONS OF VIEWERS, from Norfolk to Tokyo and all points in between, watched as John Walton struggled to rear his Depression-era family of seven children in the mountains of Virginia.
The original 10-year run of ``The Waltons'' on CBS continues endlessly in repeats throughout the world.
And now Ralph Waite, who played John Walton, has landed his first acting job in the state with which he's become so identified. He's playing Sonny Hardman, an aging farmer who faces the challenges of old age and an estranged son in ``Dirt,'' the new Virginia Stage Company play in previews at the Wells Theater in downtown Norfolk.
``I'm impressed with this writer, Bruce Gooch,'' Waite said as he took time out from rehearsals. ``I'm impressed with the sense of place the play has - with the farm and the land. You can taste it. This writer has a real knowledge of his material.''
This is only the third production of ``Dirt''; the VSC production will head to Baltimore after the local run, and a New York production is possible.
It is not Waite's first visit to Norfolk. ``I was here 48 years ago, as a Marine,'' he recalled. ``My memories? Well, I remember that there was a burlesque house in the downtown area, and I remember that sailors and Marines didn't always get along that well.''
``The Waltons'' never filmed a single scene in Virginia. ``It was all done on the back lot at the studio,'' Waite said. ``I'm afraid we never got that close to what Virginia may have been really like, but we did deal with the problems, and virtues, of a Blue Ridge Mountain family in the 1930s. Earl Hamner Jr., who wrote it about his own life, was around, and we'd ask him about Virginia. He loved to tell us stories. We had chickens and all kind of animals on the set. As the show got more and more popular, I thought we might someday film something on location in the mountains, but it never happened.''
Ralph Waite has the shirt-sleeved, salt-of-the-earth bearing of the man he played for so many years on television. Like both John Walton and Sonny Hardman, he has a love for the land and its people.
``I had a farm for 15 years, not far from where I was born in upstate New York,'' he said. ``I spent a lot of time there, plowing the fields. I fell in love with the orchard. I can understand this man in `Dirt' to some extent. I don't have to feel as if I'm a stranger in a strange land. Much of my life has been spent on the move. A longing for a permanent place is understandable.''
Waite didn't consider acting as a profession until he was 33 years old. Before that, he had been a social worker and an ordained minister. Now 66, he looks back on it all as a journey from anger to peace.
``Once I wanted to be an explosive, angry young man and change the world,'' he said. ``Now, I know that life isn't a war. It's a gift. All you have to do is accept it.''
He went to Yale Divinity School and was a minister at the United Church of Christ in Garden City, N.Y., for three years.
``I came to realize that I wasn't entirely right for that life,'' he said, ``so I wandered a bit, wrote a bit and finally lived in an old converted barn in Connecticut for a while.''
In the 1960s, the acting bug bit and he began taking classes. It was six to eight years before he began to get work. His breakthrough was an off-Broadway production of ``Hogan's Goat,'' co-starring the then-unknown Faye Dunaway. He moved to California but found the going rough. ``I got two lines on a `Bonanza' and then nothing,'' he recalled.
His ``Waltons'' role was an unlikely fluke, Waite said.
``I thought I had no chance whatsoever at the part. I had usually played much harsher, cowpoke types - a few villains. I was shocked when I got the part. I was also shocked when we became a hit. We were up, on Thursday nights, against a big success, `The Flip Wilson Show.' We were such a soft and gentle show that no one thought we had a chance. On opening week, we were 56th in the ratings. Then the critics and the people began to be heard. The show became more popular every week. Eventually it drove Flip Wilson off the air and, at one time, was the most popular show in the country. It was always near the top, after those first years.''
``The Waltons'' went through many changes. John-Boy, played by Richard Thomas, eventually began publishing his own local paper, The Blue Ridge Chronicle. Mary Ellen, the eldest daughter, went to nursing school and married a doctor. In the 1977 season, the family got out of the Depression and into World War II. When actress Ellen Corby suffered a stroke, Grandma Walton was written out of the script for a time; she returned partly incapacitated. Actor Will Geer, who played Grandpa Walton, died at age 76. When Michael Learned failed to renew her contract as Olivia Walton, mother of the brood, her character was stricken with tuberculosis and sent to a sanitarium.
John Walton, though, stayed the course. ``At the end, Grandma and I were about the only two left,'' Waite said with a chuckle. ``I think it was the stability and continuity of the family that kept the show popular.''
During his years of struggle, Waite became addicted to alcohol and has since been an outspoken advocate for alcoholism prevention.
``I've been sober for 22 years this year, but it's an ongoing battle, never to be taken for granted,'' he said. ``I feel most gratified when someone comes up to me and says they had the same problem but received encouragement from seeing me on some talk show. I'm glad I spoke out about it and went public.''
He ran for Congress on the Democratic ticket in California, advocating low-cost housing and alcohol and drug rehabilitation.
``It was a heavily Republican area, but I did quite well,'' he said, adding with a chuckle, ``But I didn't win.''
He's also had an impressive motion picture career. Check your videos and you'll see him in ``Cliffhanger'' with Sylvester Stallone, ``The Bodyguard'' with Kevin Costner, ``Five Easy Pieces'' with Jack Nicholson, ``Cool Hand Luke'' with Paul Newman and the upcoming ``Sioux City'' with Lou Diamond Phillips. He'll be seen this TV season in the CBS movie ``Keys.''
``Dirt'' is his return to the stage - a return he covets.
``There is no replacement for live theater,'' Waite said. ``I love the give and take between an actor and an audience. While shooting the TV production in the day (the Hallmark Hall of Fame production ``Lemongrove''), I'd work on my script for the play in the hotel room at night. It's a great part.
``It's about an elderly man who has the sense of loss. He lost his wife - the woman who had been his partner for all those years. It's a play about the conflict between fathers and sons. It's about an emotional loss as much as a physical one, and I think young people, kids, are going to identify with it.''
Sonny's son Zak arrives at the farm years after abandoning farm life to serve in Vietnam. The aging Sonny's condition worsens as his son eventually takes on caring for him and the farm.
``It has humor and passion,'' Waite said, ``and, most of all, it brings the generations together.''
The actor sees some similarity between ``Dirt'' and ``The Waltons'' in their view of family and struggle. `` `The Waltons' lasted so long because there was a need for old-fashioned values,'' he said. ``Young and old both wanted to experience nostalgia - to look back at the good old days. Now, we have an epidemic of dysfunctional families, one-parent families, no families. The characters in `Dirt' are trying. It's going to touch a few nerves.'' ILLUSTRATION: Ralph Waite starrred in "The Waltons" for 10 years.
THEATER FACTS
What: ``Dirt'' is currently in previews at the Virginia Stage
Company
When: Through Oct. 29 at the Wells Theatre in Norfolk. Showtimes
are Tuesdays through Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m. and
Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m. (except for Oct. 23, when there will be no
shows)
Tickets: $10 to $30, on sale at the box office. Call 627-1234 for
information.
KEYWORDS: INTERVIEW by CNB