DANCING...HARDER THAN IT LOOKS, BUT NECESSARY

If anybody tells you that dancing is "sissy stuff" and calls you a faggot because you are a dancer, you should stare them down and tell them that at least your legs are going to earn you big time!

How do I know? I started taking dance lessons right after I started modeling and acting. A nice trio, if I do say so myself. But, compared to modeling and acting, dancing is the hardest of the three because it requires absolute and total dedication to maintaining not only your body in general...but your legs as well. That means you have to watch what you eat and how much you work out in order to keep your body at its peak.

Take a good look at the picture above. Believe it or not, that was my midsection and thighs when I was just 17 and in my third year of dance lessons. Not bad, huh? Well, you don't get a body like that by being a couch potato and chomping down potato chips, candy and soda!

No, sir-ee!

The human body is a temple...your temple. Your heart is Kathmandu...and your brain is the High Lama of it all. When you have a career worth millions, it tells you what to eat or drink and what not to. It also tells you to get your daily amount of exercise...whether you want to or not. And your muscles tell your brain when enough is enough. Too much...and, like a jerry-built house, it'll all collapse. Don't overdo it! As the oldtimers say..."too much of a good thing is bad". And, they're right. Too little exercise can make you as weak as a kitten...but too much, and you're looking at long-term convalescing.

I should know...because it happened to me. I had wanted to impress a guest to the dance class. I pulled out all the stops and rehearsed twice as long as I should have...and ended up spraining my thighs and calves and pulling my hamstrings. How bad was it? Bad enough to either require full-leg surgery or at least six weeks on the sidelines. Being a model, my entire body needs to be unblemished...and no agent is going to take a model with scars going from his butt down to his ankles. So I chose sitting in a wheelchair for six whole weeks...with only a minimal amount of walking around (in and out of bed, to the john, in and out of the car, etc.).

Did I miss dancing? Isn't that a silly question? Of course I did!!! Being confined to a wheelchair and sitting out on the sidelines caused me to miss performing with some famous dancers who had come to lecture on the dance. Dancers like Claire Motte and Zizi Jeanmaire from France, Niels Kehlet from Denmark and Alicia Markova from England. Being retired from active dancing, they now make the rounds of dancing schools and lecture on the techniques of the art. But, being in a wheelchair and unable to participate didn't keep me from hearing what they all had to say and watching what they had to display. Let me tell you this...they were magnificent! I mean, all of these people were in excess of 50 plus years...and yet, they were willing to demonstrate for us and teach us how to become the best we could be in the art of dance.

Now, one thing that my teachers had always told me was that overdoing exercises could make me end up looking more like Arnold Schwarzenegger than a performer in stage musicals. After my six weeks of recuperating were finished, actor-dancer-screenwriter-director Gene Nelson came to visit the school and give a lecture. Unable to perform a demonstration since an accident which fractured his pelvis, all Mr. Nelson was able to do was describe to us the way a proper stage dancer should look.

"The one thing you don't want is what are called dancer thunder thighs", he told us. "Thighs that are trim but firm is what you should target for. Let the weightlifters and bodybuilders have the thighs that scrape against one another so much that they wear out the crotches of their pants. You want that slim, trim, firm look that could still enable you to leap gracefully in the air like a gazelle".

Mr. Nelson went on to tell the class that dancing was 50% in the legs.

"The other 50% is up here", he went on, tapping his right temple. He went on about his dancing and film experience and told us about some of the wild dances he performed in the movie "Oklahoma", including where his character "Will" demonstrated an Oklahoma Hello, swept his girlfriend off her feet and left her breathless.

"Dancing is harder than it looks", he continued, "but necessary if you wish to perform in a successful musical. Every musical today has at least one dance number...Grease, Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera. Now, the main stars may not be the ones performing the dances...but still they are there. And it's the dances that can either make or break the musical".

After his lecture, we all got the chance to perform small dance numbers for his approval. My dance partner and I got to dance a lambada.

"Very good", he said. "I wish I was able to do that with Gloria Grahame (his girlfriend in "Oklahoma")...but, in 1912, we probably would have been tarred and feathered!"

We started laughing...because we realized he wasn't talking about doing the lambada in 1955 (when "Oklahoma" was filmed), but in 1912 when Oklahoma became a state. And doing a dance that was not only exploitative but considered vulgar by church standards would have been punishable by being tarred and feathered.

Boy, it certainly felt good to get those dancing shoes back on again after so long! I was beginning to feel like a goldbrick, sitting around in a wheelchair, unable to do anything but watch and listen...two things a dancer definitely doesn't want to do.

And, the break just couldn't have come at a better time. Two members of the New York City Ballet came to our class, looking for several young dancers for a film which they were planning to do. The film..."Sleeping Beauty". The members were looking for young dancers to perform parts in the divertissement. This was something that I had been preparing myself for for a long time...even when I was lounging around in the wheelchair. Believe me, I was not idle! I was picturing this ballet in my mind, choreographing every step. And when the time came for my partner and I to audition, we chose the Rose Adagio. My partner and I made absolutely certain that nothing would happen to sabotage our chances, which were as good as anybody else's. When everyone had finished performing for the theatre members, we were told that they were going to check over all the auditions and would let the class know in two weeks.

God, those two weeks were torturous for all of us! I mean, we were sitting on pins and needles, biting our fingernails, wondering who was going to be picked. My partner and I looked at each other and wondered if one or both of us were either going to be chosen...or overlooked. And when the day came for the results to be posted by the New York City Ballet, my partner and I were in seventh heaven.

We were chosen to perform the roles of the Bluebirds!!!

Rehearsals started the day after the junior year finished in May, 1988. The producers wanted to get the ballet filmed as quickly as possible so as to have it released by Christmas. And let me tell you this...those rehearsals were definitely brutal. The dance master had everybody on the stage from dawn to dusk, with three breaks during the day...once at 9 a.m., again at 1 p.m. (for lunch) and the last once at 4 p.m. Some of the students who were chosen felt that this man was being an ogre or a slavedriver. Not me. I knew that he was on a time clock. He had a ballet to get filmed...and he wanted it to be perfect. And we wanted nothing less. When he felt that the choreography and the dancing were both perfect, he ordered the filming to proceed. And when it was all completed, we were able to view it. It was flawless...and looked as if all the dancers were professionals, and not some kids from a dance school.

Christmas 1988 came and went...and so had "Sleeping Beauty", with a very small review printed in the newspapers. But, our teachers saw the papers and read bits and pieces from each one. Almost all of them cheered the performances of all the dancers...including the students who were chosen. My partner and I hugged and kissed, congratulating each other on our "success".

All through our senior year in the dance class, we went on dancing and daydreaming about what we were going to do when the class ended the following May. Would we continue dancing or not? All I knew was that I had always dreamed of working in the theatre...and I wasn't about to stop when the school year ended, either at the dance school or the boys' school.

By August 1989, I had made the move back to Florida after being accepted at the top of my class by the University of Central Florida. Although my major was going to be drama, I was also going to continue with my love for sports and photography. And, with the exception of the four years of theatrical inactivity whil attending the boys' school, I have been involved in the theatre constantly since 1989...when I first stepped onto the stage of the Orlando Regional Theatre in my first adult role---that of disturbed student Tom Lee in Robert Anderson's 1953 drama "Tea and Sympathy".

To date, I have appeared onstage in a total of 37 plays of all kinds...comedies, dramas and musicals. I especially love performing in musicals...mainly because it means I can continue to put my experiences of the four years at the dance school to good use. And today, I still maintain an active schedule with dance classes, going from my home in Malibu to Hollywood twice a week, to keep myself in tip-top condition and ready for any role that comes my way.

And how long with I continue to do this? Hopefully, until the day I die!

ACTING...A REAL DOG-EAT-DOG JOB

Have you ever wondered how it would feel to become an actor? Well, I can tell you how I felt when I got my first role. I was scared!!! I mean, imagine how you would feel if you had to do anything in front of an audience. Now, you may have had to go up in front of your entire class and read a paragraph from a book. But, let me tell you...doing an entire two-hour long play in front of hundreds of people...strangers...can be very traumatic. Especially when you're only 13...and you're at a point in your life when you fear that your voice is going to crack and change and make you a laughing stock!

Well, thank God that my father, who was a theatre major in college, prepared me long before my theatrical debut. The play...Peter Pan by James M. Barrie. My role...well, none other than the boy who wouldn't grow up himself.

My costume? Well, you're looking at it. My costume was almost like that which was worn by the character in the Walt Disney feature...only my legs were bare and I wore no shoes. The costume and cap were leaf green...you know, like nature. After all, a boy who flies and mingles with fairies should be looking like a piece of nature himself.

But, the most frightening thing that I had to do was have clear wires attached to the back of my costume in order to help me fly across the stage. What would happen if I got sick to my stomach and lost my cookies on opening night? Worse...what would happen if the stagehand pulled the rope too hard and I ended up hitting a wall??? My father told me that when Mary Martin originally played the role sixteen years before I was even born, the stagehand in charge of her "flying" pulled the rope and directed her right into one of the heavy backdrops. She ended up breaking her shoulder and had to go on opening night wearing a cast under her costume. What a bummer!!!

Well, when opening night came for me, I was like a real trouper. I remembered watching a television show in which a girl's brother told her to imagine seeing the audience in their underwear. I decided to try it myself. Guess what? IT WORKED!!! It was hard to feel intimidated by people in their underwear! I didn't forget my lines...I didn't forget my cues. And, when I finished the entire play and came back onstage to take a bow, I was shocked when everybody in the audience rose to their feet, applauding my performance. What a feeling!

My next stage appearance was a part in a musical...The King and I. I was cast in the play as the King of Siam's eldest son, Crown Prince Chulalongkorn (try saying that five times fast). When I came onstage during the March of the Siamese Children, I had to walk stiff and approach my "father" with a proud walk and kowtow before him and bow before "Mrs. Anna" strong enough to demand respect. And, when I backed away from them to rejoin my "brothers and sisters", I had to be led by the actress playing my mother in order to avoid walking over any of them. I felt..."Wow! Musicals are easy!" I just couldn't wait to appear in my next one.

I didn't have long to wait. My next appearance in a musical was not too far along. Actually, the performance was not a musical. It was an opera...a Christmas opera. I had received the title role in Gian Carlo Menotti's Christmas opera Amahl and the Night Visitors and had to keep in time with the flute player so the audience would think I was playing the flute. My third stage appearance was greeted with more applause than ever before...and this was only for a one-night performance!

Boy, was I lucky that my next performance was going to be a talking role only. Why? Because the new year started off for me with my voice cracking and changing from a boy soprano's to a first tenor's. And, as luck would have it, it was to be my last professional performance before I was to start in a new school...a school recommended by my father's second-cousin. A school from which the finest minds graduate to schools of higher learning. The play...On Golden Pond. I was to play the role of "Billy Ray", the somewhat-neglected son of a divorced middle-aged dentist. My father and his girlfriend decided to leave me with her elderly parents. From the moment I first opened my mouth and uttered my first line, people who were already familiar with my acting heard my new voice...that of a fourteen-year-old teenager.

Did my acting "career" stop there? I should say not!!! Even when I was attending the boys' school on Long Island, I managed to try out (and appear in) six plays...as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Friedrich in The Sound of Music, Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew, Demetrius (the youngest of the slaughtered-then-baked sons of the Visigoth queen) in Titus Andronicus and, last but not least, Leo Hart in Coastal Disturbances...a play which, at the time, was still playing on Broadway with Timothy Daly and Annette Bening. Now, even with my busy schedule of classes, sports and theatre, I still managed to graduate with full honors. Among them...senior class valedictorian, as well as most likely to succeed, most athletic and most talented. I also lettered in soccer, tennis, baseball, diving and gymnastics. Whew!!! What a full book!!!

When I went on to college in central Florida, I also made the most of appearing on stage...when my full schedule permitted. I appeared in plays at both my college and the regional theatre, adding more and more to my repertoire and gaining more scholastic achievements and awards...voted most handsome young man on campus, most perfect body on campus, most handsome artists' nude model (if you can believe that), as well as collegiate letter and medals in the same sports I won them for in the boys' school. But, I kept on acting...and modeling.

So, what was there that was left for me to do?

MODELING...MY FIRST CAREER

What do you think of this photo? That was me, modeling for PCH back in 1995. I was already modeling professionally for nine years, since I was 15.

My father was the epitome of a real stage-parent, pushing me towards modeling. He had brought me (and a photo album) to a modeling agency, hoping that they would accept me. What kept them from taking me on? I was 13, standing five-feet-two inches tall and weighing ninety-five pounds, extremely photogenic...and very handsome (if I do say so myself). So, what was the problem???

"There's no doubt that he makes love to the camera and the camera loves him", said one of the agents. "But, he's too thin!"

"I'll tell you what", replied the other agent. "We'll keep his file open for four months. Get him beefed up and broadened out. If, at the end of four months, you can put, say, thirty pounds of muscle on him...then he just might have a good career ahead of him".

At the time, what they were requesting sounded hopeless. I mean...how could a normal kid like me put on thirty pounds of muscle and broaden myself out in four months? But, leave it up to my dad to come up with an answer.

"We'll just get you a trainer and a nutritionist", he said.

So started my personal odyssey. Dad got me a trainer-nutritionist who put me on a strict regimen. My day started out with a pure protein shake followed by a breakfast which consisted of a medium, trimmed, medium-done steak, two scrambled eggs, unbuttered toast and a tall glass of orange juice. Then, it was on with the shorts and sneakers and running a total of two miles (extending it to five miles each day), working out in the gym with exercises (squat thrusts, push-ups, sit-ups, bends, etc.) and into the pool and doing ten laps (extending it to twenty each day, working my way up for thirty or more). And that was all before lunch!!! For lunch...another protein shake, followed by another trimmed, medium-done steak, salad with fat-free dressing and a tall glass of whole milk. You have to remember...I was building myself up, trying to put more meat on my bones. After lunch, it was a one-hour rest...then the weights. Curls, dead lifts...every exercise imaginable to build up muscles in my arms and legs...and more exercises targeted towards my abdomen. After a full day of exercise, running, swimming and weight-training, a good dinner sounded great. Another trimmed, medium-done steak (smaller than those I had for breakfast and lunch), salad with fat-free dressing and a glass of whole milk, finishing off with a small raisin bran cake topped with fruit for dessert. Then, a little television and off to bed to get a full eight hours of sleep. That was how it was...three days a week, ultimately working up to four days. It was pure torture!

Then, came the big day. After four months, my dad and I went back to the modeling agency. Luckily, I had the good sense to put on a bathing suit under my street clothes because the two agents asked me to strip down. Down went the pants and off went the shirts. The two agents couldn't believe their eyes! What stood before them was no longer the gawky five-foot-two-inch, ninety-five pound boy they saw four months earlier...but a five-foot-five inch, one hundred thirty-five pound teenager...complete with six-pack abs and a twenty-seven inch waist...and sporting a Speedo bathing suit! Out came the contracts! My start as a model seemed assured. But, also came a new regimen...one of maintaining a proper weight. I now had to make certain that I watched what I ate. Fats were out! No more ice cream, candies, sodas...everything that a normal, red-blooded American kid loved. I now had a career to think of...one that required total discipline of both my body and mind.

Of course, I still had to go to school. To avoid temptations, my dad enrolled me in a private boys' school in New York...one that saw to it that the human body remained a perfect work of art. Proper nutrition at all three meals, plenty of homework and sleep...and lots of exercise. I not only took part in gym classes...but got started in sports as well. Soccer, tennis, lacrosse, baseball...anything to keep myself in shape.

But, the calls were not coming in. At least, not as fast as I had hoped. Then, one day, I was called to the house phone. It appeared the agency had a job for me. I had to take a train the next morning (a Saturday morning, naturally) and go to the agency's midtown Manhattan office.

What a sight welcomed me as soon as I entered the office! I thought I was going to be doing this photo shoot alone. But, there were five other models there...two older men and three women, one, roughly 18 or 19, in an advanced state of pregnancy. When it came time to prepare for the shoot, I was given some clothing to change into...a long-sleeved designer shirt, designer shorts, sandals, kerchief and a hat. Now, dressed like that in any air-conditioned office would have made one uncomfortable...and I was no exception. So, I rolled the sleeves up to just below my elbows and opened the front down to the center of my chest.

"Put those sleeves back the way they were and button up that shirt!" snapped the photographer.

As I beginning to do as the photographer ordered, a second man swatted him across the back of his head with a rolled-up magazine.

"That boy is making a statement with my designs, not yours!" the man yelled in a thick European accent. "You put that shirt back the way you want, uomino".

Cowed by the designer, the photographer went to work snapping picture after picture, going through ten rolls of film, until quitting time...at seven o'clock in the evening! Man, I knew that modeling was going to be tough work...but I never thought it was going to be an all-day affair!

But, the thought of posing for a camera all day long took a back seat...especially when I received my paycheck. How much did I make on my first shoot? Would you believe $50,000? Yet, only two years later...I would be paid almost ten times as much to pose nude.

And, who, you might ask, were the designer and the very pregnant model? They were none other than the Gianni Versace and Anna Nicole Smith!

By the way, I still model today...whenever time permits, of course.