By Mervyn Rothstein
24 Oct 2009

A. Yes, I'm glad you remember. An old-time Hollywood actors' organization, the Masquers Club, created the George Spelvin Award to honor their entertainment colleagues. Some of the winners were Fred Astaire, Ida Lupino, Groucho Marx, Dean Jagger, Broderick Crawford, Ronald Colman, John Huston, Herbert Marshall and Edmund Gwenn. Pretty good company I was keeping, huh?

Q. Do you have any interesting anecdotes about your career?

A. Well, to tell the truth, I don't really recall this, but the Masquers Club website says that in one night I performed in nine theatres, in 11 roles, at the same time, in San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, St. Louis and New York. And that, over three years, I once took part in 20,000 performances in 210 roles. The club says that Jacob Adler of the Yiddish theatre was probably the most renowned actor to use "George Spelvin." The newspaperman Westbrook Pegler also used my name — one of his books is titled "George Spelvin, American."

By the way, I haven't only been a performer. Sometimes writers have made me an actual character — in George and Ira Gershwin and George S. Kaufman's Strike Up the Band in 1927, and in 1981 in Christopher Durang's Actor's Nightmare, where I was an accountant who unexpectedly finds himself onstage in a play. Seemed appropriate.

Q. I understand you've also had a movie career.

A. Yes, indeed. Britannica Online notes that I was a Union soldier in "The Birth of a Nation," the groundbreaking (and racist) 1915 movie by D. W. Griffith. And that I was listed as a dancer in Griffith's 1920 film, "Way Down East." And I was in "From Here to Eternity," which won the Oscar for Best Film in 1953. I've been on television too — on "The Fugitive" and on soap operas like "The Edge of Night" and "Guiding Light."

Q. But what happened? Where have you been lately? Have you retired? Your last Broadway credit, after all, was in 1987.

A. Well, like everything else, things change. Mostly — and this is just a guess, because no one has ever told me — it has become normal for actors to play multiple roles in plays and musicals, and to be listed as doing so. These days it seems to happen frequently. An actor can be a doctor in Act One and a soldier in Act Two, and nobody thinks it's unusual. As far as I'm concerned, of course, I'd be happy being listed as the soldier — after all, I do have movie experience in the role.

Q. You've been part of the cast of many shows over the years. But is there anything you'd like to do in theatre you haven't already done?

A. Most of all, I'd like to get back on the stage. I mean, it could happen. Fashions change, and sometimes things revert to the way they used to be. One day there might be a producer who decides that for old time's sake, he needs George Spelvin, that George Spelvin is due for his Broadway comeback. And if that day comes, I guarantee I'll be ready. Just write me in.