The Dream Job That Got Away

Roy Wallack, former president of the Screen Extras Guild, was at one time a school teacher, political organizer, and amusement park marketing director. During the heady early days of America’s space program, he was the personal spokesman for the astronauts. Wallack, 62, now runs his own talent agency in Hollywood and lives in Van Nuys.

When I was in high school, I was very involved in school politics and the honor society. I was certainly not the physical specimen of health, I was heavyset. No one would select me for the football team.

So I joined ROTC. I hated wearing the uniform but I was always pushing myself. I had to show that I could do anything and everything.

World War II started and I joined an organization called Civil Air Patrol, CAP. I became the youngest officer in the United States in CAP at the age of 17.

I went into the Army, I was a private for just about six months, and I got a direct commission as a second lieutenant. Later I became the commanding officer of the 294th engineer diving outfit, which was the hard helmet jobs. After a while I wanted to do something else, so I went to information school at Ft. Schlocum, N.Y., and I became an information officer, and that’s how all my public relations got started.

I’m very good at public relations. I’m very good at promoting, whether or not you want to call it conning people or whatever you want, I am able to be very persuasive and people believe in me.

In 1962 I was in charge of all radio and TV for the space program. I traveled with the astronauts and I would handle a great deal for them. One day Col. John (Shorty) Powers called me into his office and asked me if I would like to be the personal spokesman for all the astronauts because they thought so much of me. I said to Wally Shirra, “I don’t know why you selected me,” and he told me that he thought while he was in orbit that nobody could be more trustworthy with his family than I was. So I was very proud of that. I left the space program because I was accused of being gay, and in 1962 being gay or the thought of being gay was a terrible stigma.

It really was very frightening to me. They didn’t want me to go and I said, “What would I do to the space program? I’ve been dedicated to you, you’ve honored me being your personal protocol officer.” It would be terrible if they would accuse the astronauts of being gay, which they were not, and so I decided I would resign.

The only thing that I wanted in my entire life was to be the press secretary for the president of the United States. To me that is the finest job in the world. This is what I really wanted. Once I resigned from NASA, which put a stigma on me, I realized there was no way to ever become involved in the White House again.

After I left the space program, because of what had happened, the Army wanted to bring me up on charges and take away my commission.

I refused to let that happen. I was near retirement as a reserve officer so I fought it. I went before a board of officers, I had my witnesses, they had their accusations, and I won. They could not prove that I was gay and I did not say that I was. It was none of their business. Why shouldn’t I fight for my rights, for my retirement?

After I went through that with the Army, I’ve been very open, and I feel I’m a much better person for it.

I think about if things could be different, how much money I would be making now if I was still with the space program, would I have finally gotten to the White House and things like that, but it never affected my pursuing other things.

In life there’s a lot of disappointments, but the thing is that these disappointments can be overcome by getting involved in something else.