I received my Equity Card (I believe) in the summer of 1963 at the [now closed] Corning Summer Theatre playing Cassio to James Earl Jones’ Othello. Later that year, I had my first New York production, Next Time I’ll Sing to You, at the Old Phoenix Theatre, again with Jones. A few years later, I had my first movie End of the Road, once again with Jones. We later did A Lesson from Aloes at Yale and in New York and we have worked together since.
Soon after starting rehearsals for Othello, I realized I knew very little and Jones knew quite a lot. That we were brothers in the union gave me a psychological boost. We were both professionals (and getting paid union wages, such as they were), so if the playing field wasn’t level, we were still, in one sense, in the same ballpark.
