I was always really more of a writer than an actor. But my performances on SCTV got me some notoriety and, over the years, I was offered some roles in theatrical and made-for-television features. It all started with a TV movie called “Home to Stay” (a terrible title that they later changed to Grandpa and Frank – only marginally better). The movie was directed by Academy Award winner Delbert Mann and I played an agricultural student who came to Henry Fonda’s farm to pick up a pig – I can’t remember why. But I made the producers and director laugh in the audition and so I got the part. Then, a few weeks later, there I am shooting a scene with movie giant Henry Fonda.
On the writing side, I got my first feature script writing job in 1978. Eugene Levy and I were hired to write a script for Columbia Pictures based on a book by Calvin Trillin called Runestruck. After that, I wrote a couple of scripts for Joel Silver and Larry Gordon at Universal Pictures – most notably The Big Broadcast of 1980 – a terrible idea even for a comedy in 1980. I got pulled off that script by Universal Exec Sean Daniel to write another script for Universal entitled “Spies Like Us” with Dan Aykroyd.
After completing Spies Like Us, I went back and did another season of SCTV. Then I got onto a film rewrite circuit for a little while, punching up scripts for Mike Medavoy at Orion Pictures. Mike like one of my rewrites and then gave me an original script assignment that had the working title Buddy Cops. It never got made but I got paid and it was fun to write.
Below are still shots from some of my appearances on film as an actor.
