Announcement: SPRING 2010 > Donny Most > Doo Wop Rocks

[spreckenzeedeu]

Click for more Info

[JONI2147]

Love "Happy Days" then and now this is great news! Sounds like a great concert and WOW WOW WOW, Donny Most. I know he is a singer as well as an actor so I can't wait to get my ticket to the show in Syracuse as I will be up that way in March visiting family. Thank you so much for posting the announcement!!!

[bigden22]

Originally Posted by iris*happydays

Click for more Info

[bigden22]

I live in Syracuse and can't wait to see Donny Most. Happy Day's was my favorite sitcom of all time.This show is a must for everyone to see.Plus there's a dynamite line up of groups to bring back those great memories.

[Smartboy]

I am posting here for the sole purpose of welcoming the two new members to this site. You will have a lot of fun here!

[JONI2147]

Thank you for the welcome, it is appreciated.

[1Milehi]

cant wait for the upstate NY shows with donnie! I hear the boys are gearing up for a great show!

[spreckenzeedeu]

To all who have the Chance to go and will, please send me your Stories and/or Photos afterwards. I'd love to hear/see them ... and add them to this Website: www.ansonanddon.de

[catlover79]

Awesome! I didn't even know Don sang.

[Marvo301]

Originally Posted by catlover79

Awesome! I didn't even know Don sang.

He actually sang on Happy Days (at least once that I can remember) and has a great singing voice!

[spreckenzeedeu]

Originally Posted by catlover79

Awesome! I didn't even know Don sang.

Seriously?
Wanna hear a few Tunes?

Originally Posted by Marvo301

He actually sang on Happy Days (at least once that I can remember) and has a great singing voice!

Yes, he did. Not often. But yes, he did. - And yes, he has.

[catlover79]

It's been a long time since I've watched the show - I'll have to start watching again!

[Zoneboy]

Link


Let there be no doubt: Donny Most has still got it.


The actor/director, best known as jokester Ralph Malph on "Happy Days," has built quite a varied resume since leaving that TV classic three decades ago. He's helmed a couple of indie films, guest-starred on numerous TV shows, done cartoon voice work, hit the road in a national tour of "Grease," and much more.

This month, he'll add something new: master of ceremonies for "Doo Wop Rocks," a package tour that includes some of the era's biggest names: Jay Siegel & The Tokens, The Tymes, Barbara Harris & The Toys, Cathy Jean & The Roommates and George Galfo's Mystics. There's even a "Super Girl Group" (featuring members of The Jaynetes, Raperata & The Delrons, The Exciters and The Raindrops) and 12-year-old Kayla Starr. The tour stops Saturday night at The Forum in Binghamton.

Most, 56, grew up as a child actor in Brooklyn and developed an early love for the doo wop sound.
"Being born in the '50s, I heard it as a kid in the late '50s and early '60s. I have personal recollections of all of this music," he said from his Los Angeles-area home last month. "Then, of course, when we were doing 'Happy Days,' it was sort of a second coming of all of that music for me, because they were using that music in the show and I was thrusting myself back into that era to get into that character and mood of the piece. We were reliving it again."

Along with introducing the various acts and reminiscing about his own life, Most will perform in three musical numbers during the show. He was understandably reluctant to give away too much, but he credited promoter William Scoppettone - who organized the Doo Wop Rocks tour - with giving him the chance to sing onstage again.

"It's feel-good kind of music, very infectious, and it certainly is an instant time portal in a way - you just feel like you're back there," Most said. "Music has a way of doing that in a very immediate, visceral way. There are going to be great musicians and it should be a really good time."


Most's "Happy Days" years are more than half a lifetime away now, but he remembers the time with fondness. He recalled how Ralph and Fonzie (played by Henry Winkler) started off as "peripheral characters" until they caught the attention of the show's creative staff.



"The director, Jerry Paris, who was a tremendous influence over the show, was working with us on a daily basis and we worked very well together. We would come up with things that weren't even in the scripts, and I guess the producers and writers started to notice what we were doing," Most said. "By the third season when we moved in front of a live audience, I was much more of an integral part of the show."

The now-popular term "jumping the shark" originated from a "Happy Days" episode that may have strayed too far from the show's original premise, and Most agreed that the writing declined somewhat over its 11-season run - that's part of why he and co-star Ron Howard left after the seventh season.
"It was a difficult decision. I loved working with the people on the show - we got along terrifically - and I respected everybody very much," Most said. "(But) as an actor, I wanted to do many other things. I didn't want to be playing just one character - if you're really interested in acting, what you want to do is take on many different roles and have a varied career. I thought it was time to move on."

Among his recent projects was directing 1999's teen drama "The Last Best Sunday" and 2007's humorous based-on-true-events flick "Moola." On the acting front, he shared a scene with John Malkovich in 2008's "The Great Buck Howard" and he has two new films coming out this year: the coming-of-age tale "Bones" and the baseball-themed comedy "The Yankles."

Asked if there are other things he'd like to tackle in his career, he said: "There's lots - tons! I feel like I've just scratched the surface, and I'm hoping there's enough time left to get deeper. There's so much more that I want to do as an actor, because it was tough for a while when I first left 'Happy Days.' ... Now it seems to be opening up, so I'm hoping to do many more roles in films and television too, if the material is really good.

"Then there's directing - I have a bunch of projects that I'm developing and working on getting set up somewhere that are really excellent. ...
"I'm (also) really excited about doing this series of concerts, because I'm really excited about the music and the singing side, getting a chance to do that again. Who knows what that will develop into - I might wind up doing a lot more of this."

[catlover79]

^ Great article! Thanks for sharing it, Charles!

[spreckenzeedeu]

LINK

Donny Most brings happy moments to Landmark Theatre stage in Syracuse with Doo Wop Rocks show

The man the TV-watching world knows as the wisecracking Ralph Malph on the iconic 1970s sitcom “Happy Days” is coming to Syracuse.

Go ahead, he says during a recent phone interview, call him Donny Most — even though he went through a period when his acting credits billed him as Don Most.

There’s no more identity crisis.

“I used to be more picky about it. I guess as I’m getting older, a lot of old friends still call me Donny,” he says.

It wasn’t always easy being so thoroughly known as Ralph Malph.

“To some degree, it was obviously a double-sided thing there. A mixed blessing,” Most says. “It was an incredible experience, and I had wonderful relationships with everyone I worked with and am obviously very thankful.

“Yes, as an actor, you want to have a career that has some legs and longevity,” he says. “I didn’t want to do one character for my career. That’s why I left the show when my contract was up after seven seasons.”

Now 56, he says, acting offers are becoming more plentiful.

“Acting parts that are different from ‘Happy Days,’ dramatic roles and different characters,” says Most.

He’s directing, too. And on the stage of the Landmark Theatre, Most will be singing as part of the Doo Wop Rocks tour. The show features bands that were popular in the late 1950s — the decade in which “Happy Days” was set — all singing sets that include their hits.

Most is no stranger to music.

He was a singer before he was an actor, at age 15 part of a group that played hotels in the summertime in the Catskill Mountains. In the late 1970s, he released a self-titled album on the United Artists label. In the 1990s, Most was part of a national touring company for the musical “Grease.”

Of course, he says, during “Happy Days” he was in a band that played at Arnold’s restaurant “with Richie, Potsie and Chachi.”

With Doo Wop Rocks, he’ll sing “Come Go With Me” with singers from the original group that made the song a hit, the Dell Vikings, behind him. He’ll also sing a couple of songs he wants to keep as surprises.

“Doing the Doo Wop Rocks concert is great,” Most says. “Hopefully, it’ll keep me young.”

As he was back when “Happy Days” started its ABC run, in 1974.

Most says it took a while for the cast members to realize they were part of something special.

“We did pretty well the first year,” he says. “The second season we were borderline. Then we switched the third year to a three-camera shoot in front of a live audience, and they brought (Henry Winkler’s) Fonzie character more into the story; we catapulted to No. 1 in the country.

“They’d send us out on publicity tours, Henry, Ron Howard, Anson Williams and myself, to nine cities, and then it would hit us. We’d go to places, and the turnout was unreal. We used to joke that it was like the Beatles or something.”

He’s still friends with all of the actors above, as well as Tom Bosley and Marion Ross, who played Richie Cunningham’s supportive, if slightly cranky, parents.

“We’re like family,” Most says. “That’s never going to go away.”