If you thought Noosa Alive ambassador Damien Rossi was a natural showman, meeting his father, actor-director Al Rossi at the Noosa Alive event, ‘Thanks for Memories’, left little doubt as to the source of his inheritance.
Over a delicious, leisurely lunch at Noosa Waterfront Restaurant last Saturday, while Damien quizzed and prompted his father, guests were spellbound as Al recalled his six decades in the industry which played out like a walk through the history pages of US stage and screen.
Born in Chicago, with his father a fireman who died of a heart attack at work at the age of only 42, Al spent much of his childhood with his maternal grandparents.
A born actor Al began doing impersonations in his teens, performing for the first time at about 16 years of age at a church variety show. It was an act he developed into performances at a local nightclub.
And the 86-year-old hasn’t lost his touch as he showed when he launched into some famous lines from the characters of that era as Humphrey Bogart (Here’s looking at you kid) and Jimmy Cagney (You dirty rat) before singing a very convincing Louis Armstrong version of Hello Dolly.
“Can you imagine growing up with that at the dinner table?” Damien joked with the lunch guests, admitting that a chat with his father at Noosa Alive was something he had long envisioned and now coming to fruition it was “one of the best days of my life”.
Al Rossi’s career crossed from stage and screen to education and the connections he made in all fields fuelled his progress in all three arenas.
While a freshman studying for a BA in Theatre Arts at Loyola University of Chicago he gained his first role when he was cast in Hamlet.
“They cast me in four parts,” he said. “I was a guard. I had the first line in the show – ‘who’s there?'” In another role he was tasked with holding Hamlet’s left leg as he was carried off the stage after his death.
Though not glamorous his student role was soon followed by his first professional role, in a western. He earned $100 a week and was hooked on the industry.
“Since then I’ve never made a dollar that didn’t have something to do with acting, directing, producing or drama school,” he said.
An audition in a play had him soon playing an embezzler alongside the detective who arrested him, played by Charlton Heston. At a party after the show the two got talking. “Call me Chuck,” Heston told him. “He was a very pleasant man,” said Al who maintained a friendship with the actor for the next 50 years until his death from alzheimers.
While studying for his Masters degree at University of Kansas two things happened to Al that changed his life.
He married his wife, Helen, who was in the audience at Saturday’s lunch, and in what he considered to be his biggest break in showbiz, he began studying and working with English theatrical director, Sir Tyrone Guthrie, and learning to be a director himself.
The couple moved to Minneappolis with the Guthrie Theatre company and celebrated the birth of their first son, Paul.
When Al won a Rockefeller grant to work in New York the young family drove to the Big Apple with baby Paul “in a cardboard box on the floor, in the back”.
“It was wonderful to work with so many different styles. It was a great learning experience,” he said.
As a member of Actor’s Equity Al was well placed to gain roles on stage and screen and in New York gained his first role on TV in the American soap opera Another World.
After another memorable occasion in New York, the birth of their second son, Damien, the family moved in 1965 to the West Coast.
“California was a golden state. It was the state you wanted to live in,” Al said.
With his academy achievements including a PhD from the University of Minnesota and his acting experience Al was charged with taking on the task of creating a company within the university.
As Head of Acting at LACC’s Theatre Academy in Hollywood, the oldest continuous professional training program West of the Mississippi, Al ran the professional side of the program.
Developing plays for stage and screen, securing talent and performing Al had tales to tell that left the audience starstruck.
There was back stage drinking with actors such as Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthieu and Groucho Marx, actors like Martin Sheen coming in to read a part in a new play and sharing the screen with actors such as Dean Martin, Alan Alda, Donald Pleasance and Danny Glover.
In addition to acting in more than 200 professional productions and directing more than 100 others Al has authored two books about his influential mentor Sir Tyrone Guthrie.
His work, Astonish Us in the Morning: Tyrone Guthrie Remembered, involved a series of interviews with many distinguished actors who worked with Sir Tyrone including Lord Laurence Olivier, Sir John Gielgud, Sir Alec Guinness, Dame Sybil Thorndike, Sir Alec McCowen, Sir Anthony Quayle, Sir Robert Morley and Sir John Mills.
Noosa Alive continues its star-studded 10-day spectacular this week with a range of beach and Hastings Street events running until Sunday 31 July.
For more information and bookings, visit noosaalive.com.au
