STAGE TO SCREENS: A Chat with Tony Winner and "Dead Like Me" Star Mandy Patinkin
By Michael Buckley
01 Aug 2004
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Mandy Patinkin
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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."
***
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.
What attracted the actor to the show? "The creator, Bryan Fuller, who wrote
the pilot. The last line was spoken by Georgia [Ellen Muth]: 'I guess this
whole thing was sort of a wake-up call.' I thought that was a great metaphor
for anyone's life. Wake up, smell the roses, don't waste your life. You only
get one death — make the most of it."
"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.
***
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."
***
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."
***
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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