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Working alongside Clooney and Pacino

By BARBARA L. FREDRICKSEN
Published July 16, 2006

When George Clooney's third Danny Ocean movie Ocean's Thirteen comes out in June 2007, there will be a familiar face in a key role: that of former Hudson resident Jim Kelly, who got his theatrical start at Richey Suncoast Theatre back in 1992 (Magaldi in Evita, the Beadle in Sweeney Todd and others).

Kelly, who now uses his birth name, James Martin Kelly, called from his Los Angeles home to say he will play in two key scenes, one of them opposite Al Pacino. He can't say exactly what he'll be doing or the name of his character because it will give away the story, a real no-no in Hollywood. What he can say is that his two scenes are pivotal to the story line, so they are unlikely to wind up on the cutting room floor.

"I'm really happy," Kelly said. "It took me some years, but these guys are the A-list" - a reference to Ocean's stars Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Elliott Gould, Andy Garcia, Bernie Mac, Carl Reiner and, it is rumored, Angelina Jolie and Celine Dion.

Actually, Kelly started landing good roles within weeks after he quit his day job in Florida and moved his family to the West Coast.

"We came in July (2002), and by September I was working steady," he said a year after going to Hollywood. That's pretty impressive, considering that there are 60,000 Screen Actors' Guild members registered in Los Angeles County alone.

But having Ocean's Thirteen on his resume could put him into another league altogether.

I mentioned another apparent "late bloomer" (Kelly is 51), Steve Carell, who has worked steadily in television and movies for ages but didn't break out of the pack until age 43, when he starred in the 2005 movie The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

"You can be making a living - three or four hundred thousand (dollars) a year - and nobody knows your name," Kelly said.

Then that one role comes along.

Kelly fondly recalled his days at Richey Suncoast Theatre.

"That's where I found out (acting was) what I wanted to do," he said. "I kind of owe Richey Suncoast. If it wasn't for that, I would still be a postman" - a reference to his letter-carrying days between his music career in New York and his acting career in California.

He said he would love to get back into live theater but doesn't see how he could do it.

"It's such a commitment (of time), and a chance to be in a film can happen so fast," he said.

Between gigs, he's written three screenplays, including one based on the life of sculptor's model and silent screen actress Audrey Munson, the first woman to take off all her clothes in a film (she was playing a sculptor's model).

In the screenplay, Munson becomes the innocent victim in a murder case when a Dr. Wilkins falls in love with her and murders his wife to be with her, which also occurred in real life. Even though Munson had nothing to do with the murder, just having her name mentioned in conjunction with it ruined her modeling and film career, and she spent the last years of her long life in a mental institution.

A decisive moment in the story happens when the doctor agrees to surrender to police but fails to show up on the train at the appointed time. The police leave, but a New York Times reporter sticks around. Sure enough, the doctor arrives an hour late, and the reporter nails him.

For copyright reasons (and maybe for old times' sake), Kelly gave the reporter a new, fictitious name: Fred Rickson.

I can say with some confidence that it appears to be safe to go back to the HAMI Awards celebration held by Stage West Community Playhouse to honor actors and crew members of the previous year's season without fear of having to suffer through - how shall I say it? - a tedious show.

For the first dozen or so years that the awards were given, the entertainment between award presentations was, well, entertaining. But for the past couple of years, especially last year, the only good thing you could say about the evening was that the food was terrific. The shows were stinkers that didn't appear to have had much thought or effort put into them.

This year, though, the directors of the season's shows had obviously put a lot of work into the segments they presented on HAMI night, and it made for a fast-paced show that was as enjoyable as the originals.

My favorite was the short excerpt from Black Coffee, an Agatha Christie mystery drama. Instead of just doing a scene from the show, director Peter Clapsis' cast did a comical re-creation of a typical rehearsal night.

For starters, they portrayed about half the cast as absent because of other obligations, forcing Clapsis to play a variety of roles, changing his voice and body language to match each character as he dashed around the stage to provide the right blocking for the other actors' benefit. The sound technician hadn't been called in yet, so the cast members supplied the sound effects themselves with squeaks and stomps and other strange, funny noises.

The scenes done from the other four shows were also most entertaining, reminding us that Stage West had a strong 2005-06 season.

I love to predict the HAMI winners (secretly, of course) and see how my picks line up with those of the Stage West voters. This year, I agreed with voters on 12 out of 17 categories.

But I will never, ever tell what those incorrect picks were.

[Last modified July 15, 2006, 21:54:00]