Actor Juggles Macho Film Role, Old Codger Characterization
To bed at midnight after being mugged in Central Park. Up the next morning at 5 for the drive to Vietnam, where Ollie North will save your life in a tank battle.
The submarines were never like this. All you did in the submarines was sit around in the Pacific for months at a time and keep guys with âDear Johnâ letters from going AWOL when you got back to shore.
âI am definitely busy,â said Rif Hutton, comparing his former career as an assistant chaplain in the Navy to the two acting roles he has been juggling.
Tonight, Hutton makes his debut at the Moulton Theatre in Herb Gardnerâs âIâm Not Rappaportâ as the 81-year-old janitor, Midge.
For the past week, he was commuting daily to a desert location to play macho Marine Sgt. Mackie for a two-part TV movie, âThe Oliver North Story,â which will air over the Fox network.
Sipping decaffeinated coffee on the terrace of a Laguna Beach hotel the other day, the actor looked a long way from being either a decrepit octogenarian or a hard-boiled soldier.
Hutton is tall and unassuming, and movie-star handsome. He speaks so earnestly that it is hard to figure how he got the name Rif.
âThat,â he said, âwas given to me in the Navy. The first thing everybody started calling me was Reverend. I wasnât the most religious of people in those days. So the fellas decided I needed a nickname. My real name is Walter.â
By any name, though, Hutton has been making something of a splash. In 1987 he won the NAACP Theatre Award for his performance in âRoundsâ at the Cast Theatre in Los Angeles, a play by Sean Michael Rice about four unemployed factory workers.
And the Southern California Motion Picture Council awarded him its Golden Halo award for last yearâs outstanding newcomer. It honored his cumulative work in âRounds,â âThe Comedy of Errorsâ at the Los Angeles Shakespeare Festival, the movie âStand and Deliverâ and the TV movie âWomen in Prison.â
What drew him to Gardnerâs 1986 Tony-winning comedy about two old, cantankerous codgers who meet on a park bench--one white and one black--is âthe chance to make a statement,â he said. âI think Iâm in tune with the playwrightâs message.â
The message has less to do with a race than age. âThereâs a young generation out there who are consumed with youth,â said Hutton, 36. âThey donât care what anyone over 60 has to say. Theyâre afraid of the future. They want to hide from old age.
âIâve got a certain respect for seniors that my parents instilled in me when I was young. I think thatâs why Iâm in tune with Gardner. I think his message is: âListen to these folks--they know things.â Midge has a lot of wisdom. Thatâs what Iâm trying to communicate. But itâs a funny play. You have to send your message with a laugh.â
By the same token, you have to take your film roles with a smile.
How else could someone who worked in Jesse Jacksonâs election campaign last year play Ollie Northâs right-hand man in a TV movie designed to glorify the biggest right-wing hero since John Wayne?
âItâs tough,â Hutton acknowledged. âYou always want to bring integrity to your work. In the majority of TV stuff, itâs such a struggle right now just to work your way up to leading roles that you are unfortunately not able to say, âIâll do this, but I wonât do that.â In theater, I can be more picky.â
Born in San Antonio, Hutton said he was raised all over the country as the son of an âAir Force liferâ and grew up mostly in New Jersey. He never gave acting a serious thought, he recalled, until he won a statewide speech contest in the eighth grade with Martin Luther King Jr.âs âI have a dreamâ speech.
âThe nuns at my school put me in the competition,â Hutton said. âThey thought it would be good discipline for me. I didnât do it by choice. In fact, the first time I had to do the speech in practice, it was so stressful I peed on myself in front of the entire school.â
Hutton can laugh about it now. But the shame he felt at the time spurred him to stay up that night until morning âthinking about revenge,â he said. The best revenge, it turned out, was winning the contest.
âThat experience, more than anything else, got me to thinking I could make a living at acting,â he recalled.
On the other hand, Hutton didnât exactly leap into show business. First he got an engineering degree from Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J., then he joined the Navy. (âComing from a military family, thereâs a tremendous pressure to go into the service.â)
Even when he got out in 1977, he worked at a âzillion jobsâ--from crane electrician in the Port of Oakland to host of an all-male strip review in San Franciscoâs North Beach--before zeroing in on an acting career.
Though he has appeared on scores of TV shows--among them âRemington Steele,â âWebsterâ and âThe Judgeâ--Huttonâs widest notice has come from his role in last yearâs surprise hit movie, âStand and Deliver.â
It is not a large role. But because he has a scene with the star, Edward James Olmos, who could be nominated for an Academy Award, his own career has moved up a notch.
âWhen Bill Cosby and Eddie Murphy are two of the biggest stars around, itâs hard to argue there is a Hollywood conspiracy against minorities,â Hutton said. âBut minorities on the whole do have a tough time--Orientals and American Indians more than blacks. If that movie has given me an edge, Iâll take it.â
Moreover, considering the problem of finding roles of any color, he said ânon-traditional castingâ is an idea whose time has come. Two years ago, in fact, he helped pioneer the concept in Orange County by playing Casca in âJulius Caesarâ at the Grove Shakespeare Festival in Garden Grove.
âIt worked wonderfully,â he said. âWe were able to develop a character that was totally logical. It wasnât like somebody had to say, âOK, the audience will just have to accept a black in that role.â â
In the meantime, he is happy to be playing a strongly ethnic black character in an overwhelmingly white community.
âEach night Iâll get a chance to share something of myself,â he said. âThat may touch somebody in the audience. If it does, Iâll get something coming back from the audience. And that is priceless.â
The Laguna Playhouse production of âIâm Not Rappaportâ by Herb Gardner will continue through Feb. 12 at the Moulton Theatre, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Curtain times: 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Admission: $11 to $13. Information: (714) 494-8021.
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