Top Stories
August, 2001, LOS ANGELES - I grew up listening to radio dramas. As a child, I memorized and recited the cheery jingles from children's shows like "Happy Theater." As I grew older, I thrilled to the adventure on shows like "Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders" and "Sergeant Preston and His Yukon King." The big city kid in Los Angeles listening only to the sound of actors' voices coming out of a box was transported to the dusty excitement of the old West by "The Lone Ranger" and "The Cisco Kid." I listened to film dramatizations on "Lux Radio Theater" to relive movies that I had enjoyed before or to "see" those that I had missed. Radio was my magic transporter. And my conjurors were the actors that brought the stories to life - with only their voices, accompanied by sound effects, they magically took me to another place, another time and new sensations. I loved radio.
Radio was wonderful story telling. It was the ancient tradition of sharing a tale around the campfire - except that my campfire was a radio in our living room. It was the technological campfire of the times. The whole family gathered around the radio to be chilled by thrillers like "The Shadow."
Vocal storytelling still exists today. But it's not all on radio anymore. It's called "books on tape." There are superb readings of novels on audio tape. For those who commute long distances in their cars, it's a great way to "read" a novel as they drive. People taking public transportation can listen to them on their way to work. Hospitalized people can listen as they recuperate. I love audio tapes as I used to love radio dramas. They keep alive the wonder of spoken storytelling. And now that I am a professional actor, I am among those storytellers. I've enjoyed reading many novels onto audio tape. Of course, there are the Star Trek novelizations, but I've also read onto tape such classics as the "Sherlock Holmes" novels. I particularly enjoyed reading my own autobiography, "To The Stars," on tape. I'm happy that there is a medium where the simple sound of an actor's voice can stimulate the imagination and vicariously take the listener on fictional as well as autobiographical journeys.
After the cancellation of the "Star Trek" television series, we worked on the voices of our characters on the animated version of "Star Trek." It became another unexpected extension of the "Star Trek" phenomenon. I must confess, however, that working on the cartoon version was not as satisfying as acting in the television version because the scenes weren't read with the other actors. I did the voice of Sulu solo without my colleagues to bounce off of. It wasn't as much fun. But it was still using our vocal tool to give life to our characters. Actually, voice acting could be more challenging because that tool alone -- with only the rather stiff animation as the visuals -- had to tell the story. I'd like to think that the voice of the actor is still essential to the recounting of a good story.
Indeed, accelerating advances in technology have shot up the use of the vocal tool for Star Trek storytelling to amazing heights. For the last few years, I've been working with Interplay Entertainment Corp. on a series of Star Trek CD Rom games called Starfleet Command and another called Klingon Academy. This is no longer sitting around the old campfire merely listening to a story as it is told. CD Rom games suck the listener directly into the narrative as active participants in Star Trek adventures. And there I am as Captain Sulu, blazing across astoundingly real galaxies blasting away at Klingons - and the "listeners" are right there engaged with me as wily adversaries or full, decision making partners. My next one for Interplay, "Star Trek: Shattered Universe," will have Captain Sulu on the USS Excelsior caught in the mirror universe from the television episode, "Mirror, Mirror." My vocal chords are already aching to become the viciously scarred Sulu and then the heroic Sulu that we all know and love. The vocal challenges will be bracing.
This medium of work also provides the relief of greater scheduling flexibility than does acting on film or television. Voice work has granted me the blessing of maintaining my career, and, at the same time, managing the unpredictable needs of my mother's continuing illness. If problems should crop up at home, recording calls could be rescheduled without causing too much inconvenience to too many others. With film or television work, rearranging shooting schedules would be well nigh impossible. So, over the past month, I've been able to do voice work on Disney's new CD Rom game, "Freelancers," and animated shows such as "Team Atlantis" and "Samurai Jack." Yet to air are such animated shows as "Jackie Chan" and another episode of "The Simpsons."
From the kid listening to that radio so long ago in Los Angeles and transported to adventures in the old West to the professional actor who now transports fans soaring into galactic explorations, the sound of the human voice has always been my charmed vehicle of transport.
September, 2001, LOS ANGELES - People say that Los Angeles has no seasons - that there are no markings of the passage of time as the pages of the calendar turn. Although it's true that we don't have snow in winter and much changing of foliage in autumn, we have a delightful reminder of the arrival of summer. That's when the Hollywood Bowl season begins.
What could be a more enchanting announcement of the start of summertime than an evening outdoor concert at the Bowl. As the day's heat begins to cool down, we settle down in our seats, open up the picnic basket and uncork the wine bottles. As the sky darkens and stars begin sparkling against its dark velvet backdrop, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra strikes up the overture and the hills of Hollywood resound with glorious music. That's when we know that summer has definitely arrived in Los Angeles.
Two weeks ago, a banker friend and fellow trustee of the Japanese American National Museum, Tom Decker and his charming wife Denise invited me as their guest to their box for an evening of Leonard Bernstein and Johannes Brahms at the Bowl. The soloist was a gifted young violinist, Joshua Bell.
The conductor was the vivacious stylist, Keri-Lynn Wilson. The program began with Bernstein's "Candide" and moved on to his popular, "West Side Story." Joshua Bell's violin rendition of "Maria" was as mellow and rich as the California pinot noir that I was sipping. The second half of the evening was Brahms who took us on a musical journey a century back to classical old Germany. His "Symphony No. 2 in D Major" began as softly, as lyrically as fine chardonnay and ended as bubbly as the effervescence of champagne. It was an intoxicating evening under the stars, musically as well as by the fine produce of California's legendary Napa Valley. I was not driving that evening.
The boxes at the Hollywood Bowl are enormously difficult to get. They have literally become family heirlooms passed in wills from one generation to the next. Fortunately, I have a friend whose family has a box that they do not use for every concert. So, at the beginning of a season, I look over the schedule and buy through him, certain nights in his family box. I donate some of my nights to a few of my favorite charities as fund-raising auction items. In a couple of weeks I have my guests from the East West Players fund raiser for an evening of music from Broadway and Hollywood with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra conducted by John Mauceri. This night always ends spectacularly with fireworks lighting up the summer night sky.
I remember when my parents first took me as a kid to the Hollywood Bowl. It was a pageant of California history. As darkness descended, we heard a trumpet call from a distant hill and Spanish conquistadors on horseback appeared over the hill with their troops carrying multi-colored flags. Then, spotlights suddenly shone on the opposite hill picking out a tribe of Indians. They came down the hills and met on stage to sign a peace pact. This was followed by the arrival of Father Serra and the Jesuit missionaries and a California mission magically rose up before us. Spectacular battle scenes between the Mexicans and Americanos, as well as a panorama of a devastating earthquake, were staged right before our enthralled eyes. The spectacle was brought to the point of the introduction of movies to the then rustic farm town called Hollywood. It was a thrilling and unforgettable introduction to the magic of a summer evening at the Hollywood Bowl.
As a teenager, I used to go on dates in the upper tiers of the Bowl. We took our sandwiches, fruits and soda pops huffing and puffing up the hillside to our lofty perches and looked down on the miniature orchestra playing in the tiny bowl in the distance below. It was a cheap date but the music was the same fabulous sound as that heard down in the pricey and remote boxes in the distance. As a matter of fact, I know that some of my friends sneaked in from the street above the Bowl, hid up in the trees and enjoyed the concerts for free.
Now I enjoy the concerts from the comfort and opulence of the very boxes I used to peer down on so wistfully. When Walt Disney's animated feature film, "Mulan," in which I was the voice of the Great Ancestor, had its gala premiere, it was there at the Hollywood Bowl. The opening was an extravagant affair. A gourmet picnic buffet was followed by a spectacular stage review of popular Disney animated films with a cast of a hundred dancers and singers. Then a gigantic screen appeared on stage and the premiere screening of "Mulan" began. Very appropriately for the Great Ancestor, I was ensconced in a great box smack dab in the center of the prime section down by the stage. The premiere finished with a dazzling fireworks display that had us arching our heads back to see the explosive spectacle. At the Hollywood Bowl, as we succeed in life, we don't go up, we go downward. We go down to our boxes right near the orchestra for gourmet food, fine wine and glorious music under the summer night sky. The Hollywood Bowl not only marks the passage of our seasons, it's our southern Californian summer rites of passage.