By Michael Buckley
01 Aug 2004
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| Mandy Patinkin |
This month we speak to Mandy Patinkin, the multi talented performer who returns as Rube, head of the grim reapers, in the Showtime series "Dead Like Me," which started its second season last Sunday (10 PM ET). The only similarity between his character and him, claims Patinkin, is "he looks like me."
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Like white chocolate, cold soup and malt scotch, Mandy Patinkin is an acquired taste. He has as many fans as he has detractors (who frequently mispronounce Pa-TINK-in). "I've always been someone who some people like and some people don't like," he told me in 2001, "and I take that as a compliment. I'm not a safe player. Gray is a color I don't seem to be able to find very well." Gray, of course, is a neutral; Patinkin usually paints with primary colors in broad strokes.
He mutes the colors for Rube, the latest in a gallery of memorable portraits that range from rebellious Che Guevara, his 1980 Tony winning role in Evita, to brusque Dr. Jeffrey Geiger in "Chicago Hope," for which he received a 1995 Emmy Award; from a Tony-nominated Georges Seurat in Sunday in the Park with George to swashbuckler Inigo Montoya in "The Princess Bride"; from the brooding Burrs in The Wild Party, for which he was again up for a Tony, to Tateh, the loving immigrant father, in "Ragtime."
Speaking from the "Dead Like Me" set in Vancouver ("a beautiful city, a wonderful place to work"), Patinkin is a no-nonsense type whose compliments are spare but sincere: "This cast and crew are as nice a group of people that anyone could hope to work with." MGM just released the series' first season on DVD.
"Dead Like Me" shoots from February through July. As August begins, Patinkin is "taking five months off to work for [John] Kerry and [John] Edwards — doing everything I can to get them into the White House. So is every member of my family. Nonesuch Records is organizing all sorts of people [to work for the campaign] — Audra McDonald, Randy Newman, Bruce Springsteen, Dawn Upshaw...." Along the way, of course, will be concerts.
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In concert, Mandy's electric, a nerve end on a bungee cord, so intense that a performance often resembles a therapy session with music. Explains Patinkin, "I do whatever I feel is appropriate to the moment. I try to temper and adjust things. I'm aware [at times] I'm screaming. Actually, I don't scream as much as I play louder. [Laughs] I'm trying to get the attention of the gods a little firmer in hand at certain moments. I just do my work, and do the best I can." He's done five Broadway solo shows (for a total of 117 performances).
As himself, center stage, Patinkin plays perhaps his most complex role. Between numbers, he mops his brow with a towel and takes swigs of bottled water; he perspires profusely, his sweatshirt becoming saturated. If his performance lasted slightly longer, there would be a microphone next to a pool of water — still boiling.
"Mandy Patinkin keeps slipping off to appear in films and television shows," stated a New York Times reviewer of the performer's (most recent) Broadway concert in 2001. "But if lovers of musical theatre had their way they would keep Mr. Patinkin on Broadway, where his astonishing gifts as a singer and actor have found ideal outlets." Still, not everyone plugs in. Patinkin either appeals or appalls.
His concert career began in 1989 at the Public Theater, thanks to "my New York dad," Joseph Papp. "One night, Joe came to dinner. He wanted me to play Leontes in The Winter's Tale. I told him I wanted to do something with this music [songs he had chosen for his first solo CD].
"Joe said, 'Do it on Monday nights [when Winter's Tale would be dark].' I told him, 'I want to work with just my piano player, Paul Ford. Everyone says I can't do that.' Joe insisted, 'You didn't ask me. I'm telling you it will work fine.' I did it six Monday nights, and it changed my life."
For the first concert, Papp sent flowers. "I put them in two tins and brought them onstage. Ever since, I have always brought flowers with me when I walk on. It's my tradition of bringing Joe with me." Mandy Patinkin in Concert: Dress Casual transferred from the Public to the Helen Hayes, where it ran 62 performances.
Papp was portrayed by Patinkin in the movie "Pinero." Says Mandy, "It was a small part, but I wanted to make sure I did justice to Joe. I hope I did. Joe Papp was a deep, deep part of my life, my children's lives — and always will be." Patinkin tours "every year, or every other year. I love it; I really do. People are so grateful when you come visit them out there in the country. They just give you so much, and it makes you want to give so much back."
Forbidden Broadway took notice. Gerard Alessandrini parodied Patinkin with "Somewhat Over-Indulgent," to the tune of "Over the Rainbow," and then he used the tune of "Super-cali-fragi-listic-expi-ali docious" to write "Super-Frantic, Hyper-Active, Self-Indulgent Mandy." Declares Patinkin, "I will be offended when they do not spoof me."
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Informed in the early 1990s that he was losing his sight, due to a degenerative eye disorder called keratoconus, Patinkin "was assured by doctors that I would never go blind, because there would be the option of corneal transplants when the disease progressed to a certain point. I had transplants [in 1997 and '98], and I see better than I saw when I was a kid. I'm blessed. I have a 13-year-old girl's eye and a 14 year-old boy's eye. I've been given the gift of sight by people who decided to donate organs. I try to do as much organ-donor work as I can. Thank God, knock on wood, I'm fine."
Diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2003, he admits, "It's very frightening when you're told you have any form of the c-word, but because of early detection they caught it before it had hardly begun. I'm completely cured, and will go on to have a wonderful, fruitful life. I'll never die of prostate cancer. I encourage all men — and all women who love their men — to make sure to get out every year, from the age of 50 on, and have PSA and DRE tests. With early detection, you can have an early cure. Medical science has been quite loving to me."
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Lester and Doris (Sinton) Patinkin's son, Mandel Bruce, was born in Chicago, on November 30, 1952. As a bar mitzvah present, Mandy's father brought him to New York to see his first Broadway musicals: "Angela Lansbury in Mame, and Walking Happy, with Norman Wisdom."
Deciding against going into the family "junk business" (his grandfather and father were scrap-metal dealers), Mandy attended the University of Kansas (1970-72) and then came to New York to study at the Juilliard School of Drama (1972-74). "After six hours, I knew that I didn't want to be there, but I also knew that I wanted to get a hold of some tools, in terms of being an actor, so I stuck it out for two-and-a-half years."
Two teachers at Juilliard impressed the young student: "One was Marian Seldes, who instilled in me the love — and the reminder of that love — for what it is that we all do. The second was Gerald Freedman, who gave me the practical tools of being able to do the work, and find the keys connecting to it — for the rest of my life.
"Near the end of my second year, Gerald got our class, and was going to be doing a play called The Duchess of Malfi. William Hurt was in my class. [Freedman] cast Bill Hurt and me. He taught me what I wanted to know — and have used ever since. Last year, we reconnected; Gerald directed me in Ibsen's An Enemy of the People at Williamstown. Continued...
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