Hal Linden: We Love 'Letters'

[catlover79]

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepu...tters0208.html

We Love 'Letters'
Barbara Eden and Hal Linden join long list of actors in endearing play
Kerry Lengel
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 8, 2007 12:00 AM

Who needs Social Security? If you're an actor of a certain age, you have the A.R. Gurney pension plan, a k a Love Letters.

A hit with critics and theatergoers for nearly two decades, Gurney's wry sort-of romance between two letter-writing New England WASPs has been performed by pretty much every famous American actor between the ages of 40 and 80.

Christopher Walken, Julie Harris, Cliff Robertson, Stockard Channing and Christopher Reeve are just a few of the stars who read Gurney's letters onstage in a pair of New York productions in 1989. Since then, performers from Charlton Heston to Whoopi Goldberg have had a go at the piece. Especially popular are acting couples linked on-screen (Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers) and off (Elizabeth Montgomery and hubby Robert Foxworth).

In the Valley, Love Letters has been performed by local actors and touring celebs, including Joan Collins and Stacy Keach in 2000. A Spanish-language version hit town three years later with telenovela diva Kate del Castillo.

Coming just in time for Valentine's Day, the latest tour features I Dream of Jeannie star Barbara Eden and Barney Miller's Hal Linden. We phoned Eden at her home in Los Angeles and Linden in Florida, where he was on a concert tour with his big band.

Question: Have you two worked together before?

Linden: Yes, we did a movie of the week, oh, years ago. We were both young romantic leads at the time, so you can imagine how many years ago it was. I think it was called How to Break Up a Happy Divorce (in 1976). And I believe I switched parts on her. I ended up playing the guy who doesn't get her in the end.

Q: Speaking of switching parts, you're replacing Barbara's co-star from Jeannie, Larry Hagman, in this production. Is it your first time performing Love Letters?

Linden: No, no, no, no, no. This play's been around for, what, 25 years?

Republic: Well, almost 20.

Linden: The first time I did it was with Hope Lange in Canada. Then I did it in LA with Julie Harris, which was quite an experience. She was magnificent. Then I did kind of a comedy version of it with Dorothy Loudon - a comedy version because Dorothy is a comedienne and found every kinetic wrinkle in the piece. And then I did it once with my wife, and that was kind of interesting.

Q: How did you respond to this play as a piece of theater?

Eden: It's beautifully constructed. But I did not realize until I started doing it how well it's received by the audience, how much they relate to it. For an actor, it's a fabulous arc, starting in childhood and going on to older age - "older," you notice I say.

Linden: It's an amazing feat when you think about it. There is no dialogue in the show. There is no interaction between the characters. There's no scenery, no costumes, no movement, no choreography. There is nothing that one normally associates with a play, and, yet, it's totally engrossing, both for the audience and for the characters. It gets me every time I do it.

Q: Both of you are indelibly linked with a classic TV comedy. Is it more of a blessing or a curse to have Barney Miller and Jeannie on your resume?

Eden: Oh, I think it's a blessing. I like her. She's easy to live with. And actually I didn't realize how pervasive she was until the last few years. When you're busy working on other things, you don't have time to worry about who people think you are. You just do your job. And now I like it. After all, many, many people go through their careers without having a part that defines them.

Linden: Almost every actor is pushed into a box by the public, by their perception, but you just don't live with it. That's one of the reasons I switched roles in the picture that I did with Barbara. I was hired to be the leading man, but I took the role of the scamp specifically to push the envelope. I try not to repeat myself all the time.

Q: What have you learned about your craft over the years that you couldn't have learned as a younger actor?

Eden: I think younger people tend to be very judgmental, and when you're playing a character, you can't afford to be. You have to understand and have a certain empathy with that character. Probably that would be the thing I've learned the most, to have an affinity with the characters I play, whether they're good, bad or what.

Linden: I go back to my acting training every time I take a play. I'm always looking for the through line, the character's place in the play. I'm always looking for all the technical things that I was trained to look for, but then I let myself go, so that I don't become a singular character all the time.

Q: What do you like to watch on television today?

Linden: Most people deprecate TV all the time. TV's hard. A Broadway show rehearses for four weeks. You get to find the subtleties of a character or of a moment. In TV, you've got no time at all. So it's very hard to find TV that has any kind of value other than the joke that the writer wrote. They're thrilled if you get the laugh on the joke, (but) you're looking to deepen the character, and that takes time. So when I see something that has some kind of interaction that has been discovered beyond the page, that's interesting to see. I love to watch the interaction between the two characters on Boston Legal.

Eden: I'm so happy they brought back Rome (on HBO). I think it's a beautiful film and beautifully acted. Too bad they can't do more because of the cost. But for day-to-day television, I have to admit I don't watch a lot. I really like to read. But I like the CSIs, the Law & Orders.

Q: Music is another thing you two have in common. What has it meant in your lives?

Linden: It was the be all, end all in the beginning. My father was a music lover, and all of us who grew up within the sound of his influence studied music. There were eight boys (brothers and cousins), and at one point in our lives, six of the eight were professional musicians. I had no other interest in life, certainly not theater. But music was my entree into the theater. The fact that I could sing got me into musical theater very easily. The fact that I could read music got me into singing jingles, made me a living. Music made it easy for me to stay in the theater until I finally broke through.

Eden: I grew up in a musical house. My grandfather sang, my mother sang, and my mom and I would do the dishes and she'd harmonize with me. I sang in church. I didn't play an instrument, mainly because we didn't have the money for lessons and things. I couldn't study voice until I got a job so I could pay for my own lessons. But we always had records on.

Linden: You want to hear the funny part? I live right now in the desert, in La Quinta, near Palm Springs, and I got a call from a guy who says, "We're putting together a band. Would you like to play in it?" So I'm a sideman in a jazz band in the desert.

Q: What are you most passionate about in your life right now?

Eden: Right this moment? My dog. He's very sweet and very intelligent. A little bit of a wuss, but my husband and I, our lives kind of revolve around this cute, little fuzzy creature. He's not so little, he's 60 pounds. He's a Labradoodle. He has the intelligence of the poodle and the sweetness of the Lab. His name is Djinn Djinn. My husband named him after the dog in I Dream of Jeannie - a nasty dog, but this one is not.

Linden: I don't want to get into it, but I'm quite passionate about the situation in our country, and I've been passionate for the last six years. I'm passionate about my music, I'm passionate about my concerts. You know something? They always said to me, "When he's not near the show he loves, he loves the show he's near." The truth of the matter is, anytime I do anything that has to do with performing, I get passionate.

[energy]

Thanks for posting that. I really enjoyed reading it.
That interview gave a bit more insight into Barbara Eden and Hal Linden than your typical interview.

[catlover79]

Originally Posted by energy

Thanks for posting that. I really enjoyed reading it.
That interview gave a bit more insight into Barbara Eden and Hal Linden than your typical interview.

I agree - I loved it!! I also put this on the I Dream of Jeannie board for all the Barbara Eden fans out there.