Actor INTERVIEW

Rex smith

Originally printed in The lakeville journal summertime supplement, July 11, 2018.

Ask women who came of age in the ‘70s about Rex Smith and the memories come flooding back — the curly-haired teen idol who regularly lost his shirt on the printed pages of Tiger Beat. It was a time of both inaccessibility, long before stars could directly tweet their fans, and treasured live connections. To see your chosen heartthrob perform in-person? That was the magic. Some 40 years later, Smith still favors live spectacle to the screen. On July 27 he’ll appear in Sharon Playhouse’s production of “Barefoot in the Park,” as Victor Velasco.

Alexander Wilburn: Hi Rex, where are you now?

Rex Smith: I’m reporting to you from a cabin on the Disney Dream. I’m doing a new stage version of “Beauty and the Beast,” based on the [live-action] movie. It’s a $14 million production, the biggest thing they’ve ever done. I play Maurice, the father of Belle.

AW: Kevin Kline’s character.

RS: Which is interesting, because we did “Pirates of Penzance” together. He’s godfather to my youngest daughter. Now I’m creating his role for the stage. Then rehearsal [for “Barefoot in the Park”] begins the day I leave the ship after a 10-week run. I do another show called “The Lead,” which is my Danny Kaye fantasy camp. I call it “the kitchen sink” show. I’m the father who doesn’t believe in magic and The Genie visits; I fly like Peter Pan; I dance with Baloo the bear; I do “Step in Time” with Bert from “Mary Poppins.” At 62 I’m showing these 20-year-olds how it’s done!

AW: It sounds like you’re not slowing down at all.

RS: The best vitamin in the world is to be relevant and to be in the moment. I have five kids, they’re grown, but my son is at college, making his way in the world this summer. I think it’s a good thing for him to have his dad shipping out for 10 weeks. It’s a good role on stage, and it’s a good role in life to be pertinent and still at it. I told my wife, “Work hard and live to a hundred.” In my 62nd year on this planet, I’m grateful. I’ve been through the highs and lows. More highs than lows. I’m just in a really grateful place, enjoying life and what it has to offer. It’s got a lot to offer. I’m struck down by two icon suicides in a week [Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade]. You get strapped onto that rocket of fame. It is hard to get off. Showbiz doesn’t have a lot of soft landings.

AW: What do you think when you read about the suicide of someone like Bourdain —  at the height of fame and not that old at all?

RS: It’s not your life anymore. The loneliest part of life was at the highest point of my fame. The loneliest Saturday night of my life was when I couldn’t walk out on a city street without getting mobbed. I remember being in my penthouse in New York, Saturday night and I was sitting by my dining table, with my head in my hands just as sad as I could be because all of my friends were saying, “Oh you’re different,” and I’d say, “I’m not different, you’re different. I didn’t change. Everyone around me has changed.” But as strange it was, you could not replicate the good fortune of my career. I signed with Columbia at 20-years-old for a six–album deal, I was managed by Aerosmith’s managers, had my own band, Rex, and toured with Ted Nugent for two years, along with Boston and Foreigner. AC/DC opened for me. I was being groomed to be Aerosmith or the next whatever. When we were all on tour, I was having a beer with Ronnie Van Zant. I said, “I’ll see you in three days at The Garden.” He said, “You bet,” and then we never saw him again because they had the plane crash. We got two standing ovations at Madison Square Garden but it was the hardest situation, since it was basically a wake for Lynyrd Skynyrd. These two producers had come to the show and had written this movie, “Sooner or Later.” I was coming off tour and it seemed like fun. When it came out, the next day I was a teen idol. So all that legitimacy and rock ’n roll disappeared. To go from that to being a superhero, I was to original Daredevil, to “Street Hawk,” to soap opera, “As The World Turns,” to Broadway, it is a career you couldn’t replicate now. What a wonderful journey of experiences.

AW: It seemed like you never really got into film though. Did you just love performing live that much more?

RS: I’m not cut out for getting up at 4 in the morning, hanging around a craft service table wondering if I want to eat the goldfish crackers or the peanut butter-filled crackers. I’m just a live entertainer. Especially in this business, you have to do what you’re passionate about and what will carry the day. I’m looking forward to coming to Sharon. I’d performed Neil Simon before and I love performing his work, that’s like a home run.

AW: What attracts you 
to Neil Simon?

RS: The timing, the dialogue, he was a genius of comedy. And I’ll tell you what, summer stock is great. The artistic directors are very good friends of mine, and it’s my great pleasure to come in, toss my hat in the ring and give them a great first summer.

AW: Previously you would have been in the Robert Redford part. What’s it like taking on these more fatherly roles now?

RS: Treat Williams, a good friend of mine, how did he say it? He hit it on the head. “You used to be the engine and now you’re the gasoline.” But there is that late ‘70s thing, and that’s an iconic stamp. I work with young people and to them I might as well be John Dillinger.

AW: I was looking at your issue of Interview magazine ­— which just folded.

RS: Interview folded? It had a hell of a run. There was a restaurant in New York called One Fifth Avenue and I loved it. I was doing “Pirates” and I went to dinner after the show and Andy [Warhol] was there. I introduced myself and he took a napkin, autographed it, but he was drawing and he took the motif of the napkin and he continued and made it into a star … and I’d argue there’s more Andy Warhol art in that than in one of his lithographs. Andy liked me a lot and was very kind to me, and I enjoyed his company as much as you could enjoy Andy Warhol’s company. You know, he was his own man in his own world. He was a unique person. But I was at a party and I went over to him and said, “You know, Andy, I should be on the cover of your magazine.” It was such an Andy Warhol moment. Take this scene: It’s a New York party in a swank apartment, everyone hobnobbing. There across the room was Andy Warhol — and this brash young man says, “I should be on the cover of your magazine.” He clasped his hands on his chest and goes, “I’d love that, that’s a great idea, OK let’s do it.” Then he did the interview, which was quite unique. In the interview we’re eating at… Lutèce? [Editor’s note: the 1981 interview was held at Quo Vadis, an equally fashionable New York restaurant.] And then Yoko Ono comes over. At another party I was at he pulled me over to a  producer there working on a movie about The Doors, and Andy says, “Here’s the one who should play Jim Morrison…”

AW: You had the hair!

RS: At least I still have hair on my head. The Shubert Theater gave me a lifetime achievement award three years ago. But I’m not retired! I appreciated it, but I’m still active and at it. I had a lot of successes in different fields, but I sometimes think if I had just done one thing, I don’t know, I’d be more — more whatever. It’s good to have lived through fame though. Now I have a family and five kids. I always had a smoke detector in my psyche, monitoring the dangers in the ‘80s of partying. I always got home before the sun came up. I felt like the people around me were like Dracula. I didn’t want to stay up three days in a row, staring at the test pattern on a TV. It was like, “Sorry, I’m going to bed.” The overnight success, I called it “The Rocket to Romania.” But fame as it is today does not look attractive at all. It’s a hard thing to live with. I’m happy to just be the guy in Home Depot looking at paint samples for my bathroom.

This interview has been edited and condensed.