How to Succeed in Show Biz When You’re Typecast

As an ‘80s icon, the Karate Kid ranks pretty high, right up there with Mr. T and Duran Duran. But Ralph Macchio, who played the doe-eyed martial-arts maven in three eponymous films, would like to transcend both the part and the “Kid” label.

Seems only reasonable for a 34-year-old actor with a long and varied resume, not to mention a wife and two young kids. Yet, as he’ll be the first to admit, he has his work cut out for him. Some people won’t let go of “The Karate Kid,” for starters. And then--why can’t we all have this problem?--Macchio just doesn’t seem to age.

“The combination of ‘Karate Kid’ as sort of a label of the past, and the fact that I do look young for my age, makes it tougher to change people’s minds, which you often have to do in this town,” Macchio says. “Often I am too old to be young or too young to be old” for certain parts.

But the former chop-socky cub may have finally found the bridge to adult roles. He plays cheeky corporate climber J. Pierrepont Finch in the new touring version of the Frank Loesser musical “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” opening Wednesday at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood.

Macchio inherits the role both Robert Morse and, more recently, Matthew Broderick played to great acclaim on Broadway. He sees librettist Abe Burrows’ corporate spoof as relevant for the Dilbert era.

“A lot has changed from 1961 corporate America, but a lot hasn’t changed. The satire still rings true,” he says. The show “pokes fun at everything in the corporate world--the politics, gender tension in an office, the harassment that goes on, who’s scheming who, everybody trying to stab everyone to get to the top.”

In person, a visitor could easily buy Macchio as a mail-room naif. Unerringly polite and slightly shy, with some disarming verbal tics (“Y’ know what I’m sayin’?”), he indulges neither actorly affectation nor celebrity attitude. He also has the same enormous brown eyes and impish, toothy smile that made him an idol in the first place. As a result, you’re not sure whether to ask for an autograph or ask to see some ID.

But Macchio is serious about reinventing himself as a leading man, a quest he likens to John Travolta’s comeback with “Pulp Fiction.” It’s quite a switch from the genesis of his career 16 years ago, when he says he succeeded in show business without, well, really trying.

“It’s been tougher for the last couple of years than it was when I got started,” he says.

Macchio, the son of a Long Island entrepreneur, flirted with dreams of acting during 15 years of dance instruction, from ages 3 to 18. But he was hardly a stage groupie in those days. Upon auditioning for the theater department at New York University, the teenage Macchio arbitrarily picked a monologue from Edward Albee’s scorching paean to marital discord, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

“I remember the theater director goes, ‘Do you know what this play is about?’ And I said, ‘Uh . . . no.’ That shows you how seriously I took it all,” he says.

The university spurned Macchio’s application, but fortune smiled on his aspirations nonetheless. An agent who had spotted him during dance recitals helped Macchio secure a featured part in a 1980 comedy called “Up the Academy.” The movie got awful reviews--but it also helped get the fledgling actor a regular spot during the last season of the TV drama “Eight Is Enough.”

“I was ‘Nine Is Too Many,’ and then it was canceled,” he jokes.

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A breakthrough role in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 cult film “The Outsiders,” which also launched the careers of Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze and others, was quickly followed by the first “Karate Kid,” directed by John Avildsen. The studio signed Macchio to a three-picture deal, over the objections of the young lead, who says he fretted even then about the potential for typecasting.

Audiences, warming to the “Rocky”-type story line and Macchio’s puppy-dog persona, turned the film into a surprise hit. Yet by the time the third installment arrived in 1989 (“It just was not a good film, everybody just got paid a lot more,” he says), Macchio was more than ready for a change.

But Hollywood evidently wasn’t. While Macchio netted good reviews for featured roles in quirky movies like “My Cousin Vinny” and “Naked in New York,” the bigger film parts have so far eluded him. So he’s hoping that “How to Succeed” can help demonstrate his versatility all over again.

Macchio says his performance draws on his dance background and adds quick, darting tap movements to Finch’s various office shenanigans. But he says the show will be “less cartoonish” than the Broadway version, also directed by former La Jolla Playhouse artistic director Des McAnuff, with “less winking to the audience.”

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Since he had never sung professionally before, he took voice lessons for almost a year before hitting the road. “You don’t need to be Caruso to sing this score,” he explains. Phyllis, his wife of nine years, and kids Julia, 4, and 10-month-old Daniel have joined him for the tour.

Time will tell whether Macchio can, like numerous other film actors before him, use a popular musical to spark a comeback. But rumor has it that certain people influential in the film industry live in Los Angeles and have been known to attend theater. And Macchio sounds as if he’s borrowed a bit of Finch’s drive.

“I sort of enjoy these [career] challenges,” he says. “That’s why ‘How to Succeed’ is just another level, another medium I’m, hopefully, succeeding in.”

* “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Tuesday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 7 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 2 p.m. Ends Sept. 29. $22-$48. (213) 480-3232.