Jamie Farr had a lot on his plate on the dreary Thursday morning when I call him at his hotel. With a performance scheduled that evening, he’s taking advantage of the day to take his wife and Tuesdays With Morrie co-star Rejean Cournoyer to the zoo to meet some animals. It’s easy even over the phone to get in on his excitement; he’s just that likeable a fellow.
Fortunately he is also a workhorse. Often times when a theatre company brings in an actor from TV or film, the show itself is pretty awful. Either the chosen script is terrible, or the actor phones it in or worse, overacts. So I wasn’t sure what to expect with Farr being in a fairly serious, famous show like Tuesdays With Morrie. The answer? I was blown away by his amazing performance.
“I appreciate that, thank you. Everybody has to make a living and what you do is obvious things. My background is in theatre. My first movie was Blackboard Jungle which is a pretty good way to start off. Then I got into comedies and fortunately was on one of the best television series in history: M*A*S*H. It was beautifully written, wonderfully acted and directed, so I got great training. When TV and movies don’t call for you, you have to go on the road. Henry Fonda, Edward G. Robinson, when they weren’t doing radio or movies they went out and played the straw hat circuit in Massachusetts. When the phone isn’t ringing you go to wherever the offering is and fortunately dinner theatres offer that. Their fare is usually the farce comedy – doors slamming, titillating jokes – which people expect to see. So when a dinner theatre asks to do this show I was stunned by it. I did it at the Aquarius in Hamilton, Ontario. When I was approached to do it at dinner theatre I said, Are you sure? This isn’t what‘s usually on your menu. They said they wanted to try it, and I think it has been successful.”
Farr is in Calgary until November 7th, after a successful run in the role at the Mayfield Dinner Theatre in Edmonton. He’ll have a few weeks off and then do a show in Kansas before returning as Morrie at Stage West Missisauga. The role itself is challenging as he literally withers away before our eyes. To do this multiple times over lengthy runs is a challenge, but Farr enjoys going for the dramatic.
“I’ve had an agent for years that represents me. When you think about my contribution to M*A*S*H, I knew what I had to do and the comedy I was presenting. I had the opportunity to do the one-man George Burns show, Goodnight Gracie. My agent had never seen me do anything like that. I impressed him, I became an actor in his eyes and he still compliments me on that. People don’t know what you do, and we have the capabilities if you give people the opportunity to do them. This was a great opportunity. I took some of the lessons I learned from doing the George Burns show and brought it to other parts and shows. Both myself and Rejean, we challenge the play. If you are doing it, you question a lot of things in the play as an actor. It works for some reason if you just let it go and get involved with what the man is trying to say.”
What was important was to use the humor in the show to its maximum potential, Farr explained.
“I discussed it when I went to Hamilton. I said, let’s play it as a comedy and not play the ending of the show. I hadn’t seen [it] but have heard other people play the tragedy of the show, the man dying, and that is totally the opposite of the message that the playwrights were trying to convey. Morrie says, I could withdraw from the world like many people do, but I decided to live for as long as I have left. That is the key to it. He is trying to impart his wisdom of things that he has learned, simple things that we all forget. You get involved in your magazine, your writing, your social events. I get involved in what I do. We forget that there are simple things in life that you should appreciate. No matter how tired we may be, or arguments we’ve had, we wake up and say, it’s a new day and I am going to enjoy it and look for the positive things in life. It is just a little reminder because we forget those things.”
It is a message that the audience no doubt takes from the show. I asked what Farr himself has learned and taken away from the story, and Morrie’s message.
“I am glad you asked that. I learned that at my age I am losing a lot of people; a lot of close friends, some in show business that I have known since we were all struggling actors. I am losing a great number of them. Some childhood friends I grew up with in Ohio. One of the things that Morrie says is, you have to go after life and embrace it, and sometimes when you do life embraces you back in ways you never imagined. The other thing he says is, love is the only rational act. Without love we are just birds with broken wings. He is absolutely right. That is what I have learned from this, to treasure the things that you have.”
Something else interesting happens during the show (done as one act with no intermission). Instead of packing up and leaving, many in the audience are staying to have coffee and dessert and talk about it.
“I don’t hang around afterward but people tell me, and this is I guess unusual in the dinner theatre circuit, they hang around after and talk about the play. It is amazing. It is really a simple story that isn’t totally revealing. It’s a memo, a reminder. Dinner Theatre is like TV, they give you whatever it is that brings people in, so it is nice when a name comes in and has a play that has more than frivolous things in it. It’s a nice evening at the theatre.”
So while Farr’s name will draw in ticket buyers, they can rest assured that they are getting value for their purchase. Many of those who buy tickets will do so in order to see “Klinger” up close and personal. To play a character that cross-dresses in the 1970’s would be considered career suicide but Farr had no concerns.
“Bob Hope used to say that as an actor one day you are eating the chicken and the next you are plucking the feathers. I had many ups and downs before M*A*S*H. I was really on my way with Blackboard Jungle and some pilots that people were after me for. I was drafted into the real army and had to serve throughout the US and overseas to Japan and Korea. When I came back to get started again it was very difficult for me. People would say, What’s your latest credit, which was serving in the United States Army. It was really very hard for me, I had to come up with other things to do in the business to make a living. I got married and had a child.”
“I was pretty desperate at that time. I did a one day stint on F-Troop and the director was Gene Reynolds. They had taken all of the Henny Youngman jokes and given them to an Indian standup comic. Gene saw me and liked me. M*A*S*H came on the air, I hadn’t seen the movie. I was pretty desperate, I didn’t have much money and I got a phone call to come in and do a one day job. I didn’t even know the job, they didn’t even tell me the job. I showed up and I walked into the trailer and there was a woman’s army core uniform hanging up with these enormous high heels. I thought I was dressing with an actress and they said, no it’s yours, put it on. So I wound up in the outfit, I had no idea where I was going with this thing. Gene started laughing at the hairy bow legs. They brought me on Stage 9 and everyone, the cast and crew was laughing and screaming and thought it was very funny. I had about 4 lines in the entire show. It was a day’s job and I was thrilled with it. I was surprised when they called me back. They kept calling me back several times that first season. They kept developing the character and asking me what they do. I said, the worst thing you want to do is have the character start making fun of himself. He really believes that he can convince everybody that this is how he can get out. Usually on TV when men put on women’s clothing they start acting silly. I said, that should just be his uniform. That is the uniform he wears and let him be a natural soldier and everyone else can react to it. I don’t think there has ever been anyone who has done that, usually the men are dressed up as women as disguises. This is the first time that a guy put on a dress and played it straight.”
The M*A*S*H series finale was the most watched TV show until the 2010 Superbowl beat it. Being part of M*A*S*H, much like being part of Tuesday’s With Morrie is something that Farr is incredibly satisfied with.
“I am so proud of that. If anyone had that as the one thing in their career it would be monumental. I watch it now as an audience member and it was so well written, the dialogue was so good. Every one of those characters is indelible. If you say Frank Burns or Radar or Hawkeye or Hotlips you know every one of those characters, they are significant in your mind. Up until that Superbowl game we were the most watched TV show of all time. The population of the US 27 years ago when the finale aired was 200 million. Now there are a lot more channels but there are also 300 million people, and many more TV sets. 27 years is not a bad record to have, when you think of all the other TV shows like Seinfeld, Frasier, Friends that went off the air. We are still #1 as a series, and the Superbowl didn’t beat us by much.” 