\n\u201cI wanted to be known simply as an actor, and hopefully a good one. Period. The expression \u2018character actor\u2019 seemed redundant to me. After all, don\u2019t all actors play characters? Still, not everybody is a star. What I think is that the term character actor<\/em>, in most people\u2019s minds, seems to mean someone they recognize, but they can\u2019t remember their names. There are a lot of us that fall into that category. We are the actors who don\u2019t get the girl (or guy), and we get killed off a lot. I got killed in the film Soldier Blue<\/em> before the opening credits were over.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
His book is an entertaining blend of autobiography, memorable events, photographs, and, somewhat surprisingly, a few favorite recipes. Hampton\u2019s anecdotes often feature his on-camera and off-camera time with some of the biggest names in moviedom and TV, such as Burt Reynolds, Clint Eastwood, Doris Day, Gregory Peck, James Garner, and numerous others.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
He also recounts how he became best friends with singer and entertainer Pat Boone while they both were theater students at North Texas State College, now the University of North Texas, in Denton. Hampton later appeared in productions at Fort Worth\u2019s Casa Ma\u00f1ana theater and in New York before going off to Hollywood, where his \u201cTexas twang\u201d often helped him land parts in movies and TV shows. In the show-business spirit of \u201cAlways leave them wanting more,\u201d the author keeps most of his book\u2019s anecdotes short and to the point, with hints that more could<\/em> be revealed.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
His work ethic\u2014showing up prepared\u2014has played important roles in his show-business successes. Likewise, he sometimes has gotten acting parts by also being willing to do production work to help cut costs. For example, in one New York play, Hampton worked behind the curtain as both assistant stage manager and a stagehand moving props. Then, he went on stage in the third act playing an FBI agent.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s comparatively easy to remember the stars,\u201d he writes. \u201cTheir names are plastered all over the screen at the beginning of the movie and the letters are ten feet tall. The names of the actors playing the supporting roles come at the end of the film while the ushers are cleaning up the popcorn.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Most of the audience, of course, already has exited the theater by then.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Review of a new show-business autobiography <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[921,894,813,817,830,876,838],"class_list":["post-2366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-autobiography","tag-book-review","tag-lone-star-literary-life","tag-lone-star-review","tag-lonestarliterarycom","tag-memoir","tag-review"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}