In the Volume: My Life in Film and Tv

By Alex Hyde-White

London born author Alex Hyde-White’s English father named him Punch, hoping it would be lucky, and he started his life as a precocious son of a rather famous actor. In In the Volume, actor Hyde-White shares his story from Hollywood’s front lines, which spans more than four decades of the most transformational period in film and television history.

This memoir chronicles Hyde-White’s early life growing up in England; moving to Palm Springs in the 1960’s; graduating from high school at sixteen; getting started in Hollywood; working as a cab driver, bartender, waiter, and ski shop clerk while looking for acting gigs; playing his first part in a movie as the photographer in The Toy; and more, acting in some huge box office hits.

In the Volume reveals Hyde-White’s journey, at times majestic, magical, wondrous, and fulfilling. These intimate tales of triumph and failure offer both caution and inspiration.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Sep 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665730358

Alex Hyde-White

Alex Hyde-White is an actor and a producer of two films and hundreds of audiobooks thru his label Punch Audio. He lives mainly in Santa Monica, CA as well as Pensacola, Florida. A father of two sons, married to Shelly, he is an avid tennis player and former professional golfer.

Book preview

IN THE VOLUME

My Life in Film and TV

ALEX HYDE-WHITE

75580.png

Copyright © 2022 Alex Hyde-White

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

AArchway Publishing

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

844-669-3957

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Cover Art by Albert Vroomen

Back cover photo by Christopher Beyer

Spine photo by Brian Aris

Universal Gate Photos: David Piggott

ISBN: 978-1-6657-2973-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3050-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3035-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022917307

Archway Publishing rev. date: 09/28/2022

CONTENTS

Foreword

Question and Answer

Introduction

Season One: Star Wars (Gathering)

Episode 1 The Old Country

Episode 2 Dayside

Episode 3 Ondalotalot

Episode 4 Lucky St. Paddy’s Day

Episode 5 A Ham and the Lynn Twins

Episode 6 Hard Promises

Episode 7 That’s Good

Episode 8 Short Pants

Episode 9 Traction

Season Two: Patriot Games (Quickening)

Episode 10 The Gathering

Episode 11 Home and Away

Episode 12 Gap Year

Episode 13 Part One - Big Casino

Episode 13 Part Two - Little Casino

Episode 14 The Bigger...The Harder

Episode 15 Prime Video

Episode 16 Inside the Ropes

Season Three: Heat (Flowering)

Episode 17 On Location

Episode 18 Doctor, My Eyes

Episode 19 Singles

Episode 20 Reckoning

Episode 21 The 1.5 Million Dollar Man

Episode 22 3000

Episode 23 A New Hope

Season Four: The Great Escape (Setback/Leap of Faith)

Episode 24 Still Waters

Episode 25 Along the Burma Road

Episode 26 The Fantastic Four

Episode 27 Print the Myth

Episode 28 Courier

Episode 29 Knights of The Gazira

Episode 30 Stuff’s Getting Better

Episode 31 The Fabulous

Episode 32 Glove in Pocket

Episode 33 The One Hundred and Seventy Thousand Dollar Man

Season Five: Last of the Mohicans (Deliverance)

Episode 34 Foundation

Episode 35 The Real 1.5 Million Dollar Man

Episode 36 Two Grumpy Men and a Baby

Episode 37 2001 – A Strange Odyssey

Episode 38 Where Were You?

Episode 39 More Than This

Episode 40 Not the Godfather

Episode 41 A Bit of This, Eh?

Episode 42 In a Nutshell

Episode 43 A Friend Indeed

Episode 44 Now and Then

Episode 45 In Thru The Out Door

Episode 46 The Whirligig of Time

FOREWORD

Thru the years I have received many letters from fans of certain shows, with Fantastic Four and Biggles: Adventures in Time leading the tally, as they both have a healthy fan base. That, of course, is ironic because they are obscure films that most people have never heard of. Oh, that is an actor’s life, all right, where matters of value are always subjective, and relative - as unless you work there’s not much to value and when you’re working, well, then you can value the film any way you want. To us, our work is important. Therefore, the occasional requests for interviews would come in. Being asked to comment on working with Peter Cushing, for instance, is an obvious example, as he was a dear man as well as being an important actor in the canon of 20th Century British Film. So, in the early 2000’s I found myself writing several, similar, versions of the same story, as it’s hard to comment about someone else without commenting on yourself. Regardless, those interviews seemed to satisfy the chronicler, the journalist, or independent author, and they satisfied me. I found I rather enjoyed the process. Never having been a writer, in the Hollywood sense of a dedicated, disciplined working writer, I knew I could collaborate quite well and, also, fancied myself a good producer – witness the two-indie films we produced, Pursuit of Happiness, andThree Days of Hamlet."

So, in January of 2021, while I was in Park City with no Sundance Festival to occupy my time, due to the dreadful COVID lockdown, I started to write more.

A whole lot more. Basically, everything!

But I want to start with a baseline interview.

71166.png

What follows is a Question and Answer from one such chronicler, as it was conducted circa 2013. I am using it as a Foreword to what I hope will be an entertaining look back at my life in film. My life In the Volume.

71182.pngImage%20001_pg002_as%20Rawley%20(AHW).jpg

Supercarrier (1987)

Image%20002_pg003_In%20Copter.jpg

Biggles: Adventures in Time (1986)

71200.png

QUESTION AND ANSWER

Time: the near present, circa 2013.

Where were you born & raised?

London, England

What or who inspires you? And why?

Who: Laurence Olivier lately. In the 90’s, I admired Harrison Ford, a star in the classic mold. When I was in my 20’s, Warren Beatty was making wonderful films, and he knew what he was doing. Throughout my career I have so admired Daniel Day Lewis, as we started out the same time in England and even had the same agent for several years.

Why: I enjoy the preparation to act a role unless it’s just the part of the process of learning lines. That can be hard, but that’s the work of it. You must learn them, so that you can forget them and do it.

How did you go about the pursuit of that goal?

By trying not to separate work from life, art from reality. Am a great fan of the use of opposites, as in to prepare properly to act a role, I like to act while living -- so that anything that happens in real life can be used in the part and anything you do in the part is real. To do that, I like to engage the world. Sometimes we all get a little shy and insecure, so you don’t want to bluster thru things but, for instance, if I’m out at a burger joint, I’ll engage with folks, the cook, etc. His story can be your story kind of thing. Actors have always been part of our culture, as storytellers. We must engage the audience to effectively do our job. The opposite of that, of course, is introspection and that is a very important part of the process. As I’ve have learned and grown throughout a 30-year career, now 40 plus, at the time of this writing, I understand the separate but equal parts, the dualities, of the acting process more. The macro is having the confidence to perform, which is a must. While the micro is the stillness of the interior life where we must come from. That’s my method.

What age did you start acting?

I did two plays in Palm Springs in the early 1970’s, and they both had a definite professionalism to the productions. Firstly, at the Valley Player’s Guild Theatre Society, as the bastard son in Time of the Cuckoo, a mid-century American play. The next year I was one of the pickpockets in Oliver, which ran at Everybody’s Village. I didn’t join in with the Drama Club in Palm Springs High School. Rather, I played baseball, golf, and tennis. Then, at age 19, I signed with Universal Studios as one of the last contract players in Hollywood. Did TV: Quincy, Battlestar: Galactica, The Seekers, bunch of little jobs.

What made you decide to become an actor, and did you go to a drama school?

Significant lack of training in anything else! No seriously, that helps. Also, I found that I really liked being on the set. Father was a good English actor who did a lot of stage and TV when I was growing up. I didn’t like the stage much then, but really liked the set of a film or TV show. Not a formal acting school, no. I didn’t do much schooling, period. Accelerated thru the Palm Springs Public School system, graduating High School at age 16, then one year at Georgetown University, in DC. That was it, enough. Didn’t want anymore, wanted to get out and live.... and act. So, I did workshops and short-term classes in London, New York, and Hollywood, lots of them. The best was Michael Shurtleff’s Audition Technique class in the early 80’s. He was a great teacher, and former NY casting director.

What was your first big screen appearance?

My very first part in a movie was as the photographer in The Toy, starring Richard Pryor and Jackie Gleason. Dick Donner directed. He was an acquaintance when I was a young actor, and one of the coolest cats in town. Then the next year I got my first lead in England in the fantasy adventure Biggles: Adventures in Time as a time-traveling businessman turned gunslinger.

What has been your favorite role? And Why?

Firstly, as Skip Blake, a middle-distance Olympic runner in The First Olympics: Athens 1896, and as Lt. Dave Rawley, a Navy F-14 fighter pilot in the series Supercarrier (Top Gun for TV.) This was amended in 2012, as I finally got to play Hamlet, in a film chronicling the production of the play we put on in Hollywood. We did it over three days. It was great, crazy, fun. I call it a fantasy documentary," it played for two years on Amazon Prime. It can be found on a few streaming platforms now, and I have plenty of DVD’s to give away! If you’d like one, I’m serious! Go to my website to claim one by sending us a contact message: www.alexhyde-white.com

Why?

It required all of us to embrace the uncertainty and forced us to sink or swim. That’s what I’m talking about with life/art/reality all mixing constantly in the same pot. If we can live embracing the reality that not much may be certain and that our actions have consequences, then the triumphs and tragedies of our lives have great resonance.

Namely, if we feel, then we live. Sounds kind of like a Latin motto, I know.

How do you prepare for a role?

Research, if it’s current and available. For instance, to play a doctor on NCIS, I went to the hospital where my doctor friend works and joined him on his rounds, tagging along in a white coat, as he visits his patients. I noticed how often he looked at his watch when making his notes. That was a very important part of his day; the time when he did things was noted. I liked that and used it. Little things like that can make a big difference.

Of course, if it’s a period piece, like a Civil War movie then what’s fun is to research the life, and myth, of the character and try to be original in your portrayal. Have played Gen. Custer, Gen. Burnside, Senator Lindsay Graham (in Game Change, an Emmy winning TV movie), and that’s great because public figures are there for all to see. When I recently played Thomas Jefferson, before becoming President in a play called Franklin and Jefferson, that was a bit different because there is room for interpretation there, provided you play him as a fiercely intelligent and enlightened man, because he most surely was human, not a God.

What has been your hardest role?

Playing an FBI agent on Chuck Norris’s series Walker: Texas Ranger was hard. Why? It was a strange show, nice folks but it never felt right. The most demanding character I’ve ever played is George in Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men which we did with the Chekhov studio a few years back. Great American classic character, part is demanding but has a great rhythm to it once you learn the lines. There are a lot of lines and rehearsals in LA for plays are always tough. You end up driving to Burbank at night because most of the cast is working during their day jobs, so it doesn’t feel like a real job until you get in the theatre. It’s tough to play such a good part in that kind of way, Equity Waiver it’s called, without the structure that theatre, good theatre, demands. You must self-regulate, which can be tough for an actor; the beauty of life distracts us. At least it does me. There were lots of lines in that one. Also, playing Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic, in Roger Corman’s original Fantastic Four was nuts. It was fun but way before it’s time. It’s a cult classic now.

There are different methods of acting - do you use a special one - or a few?

I worked with Lisa Dalton for several years with her Michael Chekhov based method, using Jungian archetypes, and colors like earth tones and elementals like sky and water to identify and regulate the surroundings of where my imagination takes me. That creates what they call atmospheres. I found it to be both cerebral and soulful. When an actor knows where they are in their imagination, what the atmosphere is, then they are free to engage and bring that to the audience. And that can be very powerful on stage and film.

Do you get nervous on the set?

Sometimes it has happened, yes, and it will be because I feel that I haven’t prepared enough.

If yes, how do you keep a handle on your own nervousness?

This is a big picture answer: Try to produce something. When you have created a piece once or twice, then you understand the process and see that the actor’s part of the process is important, yes, but only as part of the greater process. It simplifies the job when you understand that all you must do is maintain your composure under sometimes intense scrutiny and that most people don’t understand what you are doing or why, but they may think that it’s just an easy way to not have to work, compared to hauling lighting cables, driving trucks or cooking crew lunch. When you can see yourself thru their eyes, you realize how awesome it is and how awesome you must be to even do it.

So then, you have earned the right to pat yourself on the back.

Put it this way when you do it right.... you are awesome!!

Have you done any theater or television work?

Yes, a lot of TV and about 20 plays thru the years. Was on Broadway once early in my career when I wasn’t very good. But neither was the play.

Are you interested in other areas such as directing, writing or production?

Yes. I like setting up projects for stage, film and even TV, although TV is the arena of the specialized real pro producers. Indie film is what I love, not for the strangeness of stories but for the immediacy and the accessibility. It’s a real accomplishment to produce a successful indie film because you must do everything. And the trick to that is to know how to find those who can do what you can’t, and those who can do what you could do - but do it better. I know that I can act a part, a small part in a big movie or a big part in a small movie, because I have experience doing that. I know I can produce a movie because I have done it twice. What I really want to do is direct! That sounds a bit like a stock joke in Hollywood, but the reality is that if you find a story that you know you can tell, in the medium in which you have acted and produced in, then you should direct it. Whether you act in it depends, as does who you get to produce with you, because when you are directing you don’t want to be alone. Even the great actor/directors of the last 30 years, Eastwood, Beatty, Costner, now Ben Affleck, maybe, need trusted advisors. It’s like a political or military campaign, in that if you are an actor/director you are, both, the message and the candidate, both the soldier and the general. You’re not a one-man army, at least not for long.

Are you signed with an Agent? Are you a member of SAG/AFTRA?

Ann Geddes and Richard Lewis represented me as an actor during much of my later career. They, like many agents, sold up several years ago. Now I have two acting managers, Kathy Keeley, my former agent at Luker, and Glenn Hughes, who’s a nice hardworking guy. I have been a member of SAG since 1979, when I was 18. Currently my agent is Amy Luker, daughter of founder Janet, at the Luker Agency.

What are some of the jobs you had while looking for work as an actor?

I have been a good Cab driver, a bartender, an okay waiter, and decent ski shop clerk.

Has acting been a good paying job for you?

No. * With notable exceptions. That’s a flip answer in that I’ve had to deal with inconsistent income my whole life and career. But it has been worth it. My career is full of peak moments, wonderful experiences, and great jobs. And it is the job of an actor in this modern era of digital entertainment to learn how to handle those peaks and valleys so you can have a long career, without necessarily earning consistently well. If that makes sense?

What actor/actress do you admire the most, and why?

I like Gael Garcia Bernal; he’s got a classic carriage and an expressive voice. Always liked Russell Crowe, Harrison Ford, in Patriot Games. Tom Hanks tells a good story. Of the new crop of men, I like Tom Hardy if he’s used right, like in Inception but missed the point of Bane in the Dark Knight. Same with Michael Fassbender, a bit. Didn’t get him in Shame at all but in the Jane Eyre film he was terrific. He’s a bit like the young Daniel Day-Lewis before Last of the Mohicans, trying to find himself in various genres. These guys have big parts thrust on them and sometimes are supported with a good script and a very good director and sometimes not. The scorekeeping aspect of critical reviews and box office make it hard for them to be consistent. See Fassbender in the Steven Soderberg film Haywire, which is a great action film well told, and you see where he is headed. He should stay away from the avant-garde. Last of the Mohicans, by the way, is the greatest American adventure movie of the 90’s. Made DDL a star. But see him in Scorsese’s Age of Innocence, which he made around the same time and, please, it’s a bit of a yawn. But then he went back to the New York of the 1860’s with Scorsese as Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York, and it paid off big time. He’s great when he’s strong. Don’t need too many of those comedies of manners, drawing room dramas anymore. That’s Downton Abbey stuff. We like our movies to be big in scope, or at least daring in manner. I hope that’s what we have done with our micro-budgeted fantasy doc Three Days (of Hamlet). It’s daring, to say the least.

What is the best advice you have ever been given as an actor?

Fill the costume: it’s what Tom Poston, a great light comedian said to me before the dress rehearsal of the episode of Newhart that proved a seminal moment in my acting career. I was playing Scooter Drake, a real genuine NY socialite more money than sense kind of guy. I took it to heart and flew high and funny during the taping. Three months later Disney casting saw it on TV and called me in for the part of David Morse in Pretty Woman, which had already started filming. That’s how you get a good part in a big movie, have it already filming, part not cast, not on offer to a name, have it start working Tuesday, oh.... and be right, and darn good. When that all comes together, call it luck, timing, fate, luck, good fortune, luck --- whatever. If you keep at it long enough and can keep getting back up from the rejection mat, then one or two good things will happen, and they can take you places that can be great fun.

Where do you see your career going?

I hope to connect writers to good material, develop a few of them.

One of the most difficult aspects of being an actor is the sheer amount of criticism, how do you handle criticism? What’s the hardest part of being an actor?

Were there times when you thought you would quit?

What’s the most important thing an actor should do?

Live with yourself. Not just acceptance - but grow. Always be learning. It’s vital to understand the level of risk, and the toll it takes on you. Ask yourself, am I willing to suffer it? Do you have the mettle to take it - personally, emotionally, and financially - in the quest of achieving something indefinable? Is the satisfaction that expressing yourself gives you worth it? If it doesn’t satisfy you when you are doing it, then maybe it’s not worth it. And by doing it, I mean not always getting the job. Auditioning is doing it, you are acting the part. Most of the times, the audition is the it that should satisfy. Orson Welles said it best, they pay me to wait, I act for nothing.

What advice would you give aspiring actors?

Well firstly, know who Orson Welles is. And James Cagney, and Spencer Tracy, and Richard Burton, and Katherine Hepburn, and Julie Christie and Bette Davis. The great thing about film is that it provides a living history; we can see it on Turner Classics. We are influenced by what we see, and these great influences are easy to access. For aspiring young actors my advice is to go somewhere where you can get good at the craft of acting: working in a group setting, meeting deadlines, performing consistently, and achieving real success by doing. Rep theatre is all over the country. Bring that self-confidence to town. Don’t just start with a headshot and an acting coach and think that getting an agent or a manager is being an actor.

What was your last project?

At the time of this interview, (2013) the answer was: a Fox TV pilot called the Asset directed by Neil Burger. He’s a good director, did Limitless with Bradley Cooper and DeNiro. I played a Boston Catholic Bishop. Don’t think it got picked up.

At the time of this Fall 2021 writing, the answer was: playing the role of Grizz, in Jordan Peele’s new film NOPE. I had a nice little scene with star, great guy, Daniel Kaluuya. And, I have a nice little recurring role on American Auto, an NBC workplace comedy.

Both of those shoots were on the back lot at Universal; proving that even in fantasyland Hollywood - what goes around comes around.

What are you currently working on or what will you be doing next?

Well, I’m working with my audiobook production company Punch Audio narrating and producing audiobooks for Audible, iTunes and Amazon. That is great in several ways. Firstly, I get to read a bunch of interesting books, non-fiction as well as dungeons and dragons’ stuff, and, secondly, I get to perform all the parts. It’s kind of a nirvana, a promised land for an actor with big dreams and who can read pretty well, and I enjoy it. Am also playing doctors and lawyers on TV shows, like on Netflix’s Monster: Geoffrey Dahmer Story, and on NBC’s American Auto, I play one of the board members. Small parts, but fun and sometimes showy. I just finished an indie film, Invitation to a Murder, that stars Mischa Barton. That was a fun location shoot outside of Chicago, in Schaumburg. November, 2021. Was cold! Just finished a wrap-around part, cameo, in The Quest for Tom Sawyer’s Gold, as JJ Harper, descendent of Joe Harper, Tom’s friend in the Mark Twain American classic novel.

Any closing statements?

I would say that with digital entertainment being such a big export now:

1) Be the producer of your career. Yes, you want to ally with a good promoter, an agent or manager, who can help get you in front of the casting agents so you can meet, audition, and land a part. In addition, I would say please produce something that you feel best reflects who you are now. Even a short YouTube piece, and I mean short, please, (4-8 minutes), a short story, maybe, which you can film and narrate, or find one even. Train yourself to learn it, read it, perform it. Whatever form it takes, it will be worthwhile.

2) Read the paper (or digital version), engage with our culture. Don’t watch TMZ or Extra until you are ready for it. I think that the introspection and narcissism that we have become accustomed to in our celebrity culture makes it very hard to take a risk yourself, for fear of embarrassment.

3) By doing one and two, you see, you’ll be different so -be different, don’t strive to be famous. It’s too easy now, and too cheap; be discreet, be mysterious. Now this is funny, I read my horoscope in today’s LA Times: Aquarius -- Rejection is no fun, it said, most people will do anything to avoid it. The only way to make exciting things happen in your life is to risk rejection. Thank you, L.A. Times.

Okay, so I start this tome, this story of In the Volume, with an Appendix: Questions asked and answered from various journalists, fan-articles and website inquiries that have grown in the 21st century with the advent of the niche market.

71216.png

I had my appendix out when I was two years old, in London. I don’t really know why but am sure it was the right thing to do at the time. Okay.

CUT. PRINT…Moving on…

Image%20003_pg10_duke%20of%20york%20theatre%20ALAMY.jpg

Duke of York’s Theatre, St. Martin’s Lane, London

Circa 1971

INTRODUCTION

Image%20003a_pg%20011%20Star_Intro%20BW.jpg

Okay, let’s start with childhood. Everyone does. Immersive experiences seem to dominate my childhood, looming large in memory. I spent a lot of time at the start of my teenage years in the theatre. The Duke of York’s theatre on St. Martin’s Lane was the foundation stone of my coming of age. There was a wonderfully gregarious doorman named Tommy the Car, there was the consistent presence of the touch man, a stage door johnnie who in his camel hair coat would greet my father before every performance of The Jockey Club Stakes and get his daily tenner. That was the early 1970’s, the Beatles had split up, and the pound was worth about two-and a-half dollars, which demanded that you know the value of shillings, half-crowns, and pence. Living in England, even for short off-school stretches was just that, immersive. We would sublet flats in Chelsea, one of which the echoes of Stamford Bridge wafted over. So, my team was Chelsea, and they’ve always been pretty good. I remember Peter Bonetti, the goalkeeper. And of course, Georgie Best, but he was the Manchester United superstar, and you couldn’t like both teams, unless you were a wanker, which I wasn’t.

I suppose I was a bit of a pyro though. For, on one dark, dreary, and drizzly winter evening, at about half-past-four I would think, I left the Chelsea flat in search of coal to warm the fire. Coal, the stuff of dirty air and miner’s strikes in the Harold Wilson era of British Governance, which along with high taxes contributed to the dreariness which Brits had long since become accustomed to suffering through. God knows how long I was out there, in my mackintosh and hat looking like some cross between the Artful Dodger and the stage-door-johnnie at the Duke of York’s, eventually to return without any coal, not easy to find I expect. It was sold in bags, but not to me on this night. I probably got a Kit-Kat instead. I was twelve years old, or so, at the time. We probably shudder at the thought now of sending a pre-teen out in the night for any reason but no harm was done, and I fondly recall the escapade though I rather suspect there was a thinly-veiled motivation lurking in the shadows of the subconscious that may have come to light later on but, like I say, Brits had become accustomed to trudging through the dreariness and I was half-English, so it was bubbling at best. I do know that I wanted to light the fire and was denied. I made up for it in later years though.

Interlude: Spring 2001 –

You have the coolest dad, said Dylan, friend to my son Garrick when they were about the same age actually, 11 or 12. We were out on the patio of Nancy Chang’s apartment building on Pearl St., where we had taken the two-story flat for a year hoping to parlay an indie-film we’d just made into a production company with a future, playing with fire. Sparking some caps or sparklers or something, we were just messing around in a Huck Finn sort of way, in the drizzle of a Santa Monica spring day. Dylan and Garrick thought that was cool. It was nice to hear that I was a cool dad for there was plenty of opinion to the opposite going around then, which was the stuff of great melodrama.

In 1962 Wilfrid Hyde-White, my father, was lured to Hollywood and began a film and TV career that would last twenty years. He came of age in post-World-War One Britain, graduating from RADA (The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) at age 18 in 1922. He was the son of a clergyman and grew up in The Rectory in Bourton-On-The-Water, Gloucestershire. His father William Edward White became the Canon of Gloucestershire, overseeing the parish and its various administrative ancillaries. Quite often he would cancel matins, the late-afternoon 40-minute service where two regular elderly ladies would be the only attendees, in favor of attending whichever race meeting was down the rail. The meetings at Cheltenham, Oxford, Chepstow, Kempton, and Windsor were all manageable given the time and date, and so racing he would go.

Note: Racing, in Britain, refers to either flat racing or the jumps depending on the season. The younger horses race over the flat, all on grass it being Britain, in the Spring, Summer and early Fall, whereas the older horses do the steeplechases, hurdles and jumps during the Winter, culminating with the big Cheltenham meet and the Grand National around Eastertime, when presumably Canon White had to be at church.

Race meetings are still held year-round, all over Britain, lasting only three days or so before moving on the next county or town. Most of the flat-racing trainers were based in Newmarket, up Norfolk way whereas the jumps owners and trainers could be anywhere, often small family yards with only a handful of runners owned and trained by father and mother, groomed and ridden by son or daughter. Much like the rodeo circuit in the West, perhaps, in the U.S.

I don’t have much of a sense of what my Church of England Minister grandfather Edward preferred, but my dad developed a love for flat racing at a very early age and became quite an expert in the bloodline alchemy of breeding champion colts and fillies, which proved very interesting to me during those formative years in England. As a way of life in England, racing is an immersive pastime, and the geography easily affords access to the wandering bands of punters, bookmakers, riders, and runners that ply their trade across the rails, highways and byways of the land. Of course, there is Ascot, the Royal Meeting in June, and various other smaller meetings thru the year, which is akin to Yankee Stadium or the Maracana for baseball or soccer fans, hallowed ground.

Ascot is where Queen Anne first patroned the rolling fields during her reign in the mid 1700’s and, being that it was just down the path thru Windsor Great Forest, where Henry VIII hunted, proved most convenient and popular. So rails and stands were put up where to this day, and more popular than ever, the great three and four year old colts, fillies, and mares and some of the older geldings run down thru Swinley bottom, navigate the long slow right-hand turns into the straight, or gallop the straight mile - one of very few in the world - in races where upwards of 40 runners charge in The Royal Hunt Cup, run classic distances in the Queen Anne, the St. James’s Palace Stakes, The Gold Cup, and The Wokingham.

In late July Ascot hosts the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, a weight for age race of one-and-a-half miles where, in 1972, Grundy, the three-year-old Epsom Derby winner, ran down the four year-old horse of the year, Bustino, in what many sporting enthusiasts claim was the greatest race ever.

And I was there.

Image%20004_pg13_Grundy%20and%20Bustino.jpg

Grundy runs down Bustino in the straight to win the King George and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes at Ascot (July 1972)

Image%20005_pg14_Grundy%20and%20Bustino_2.jpg70691.png

SEASON ONE

Star Wars

Image%20006_pg15_Universal%20Main%20Gate.jpg70773.png

EPISODE 1

The Old Country

I’m half English. Born in London to an American mother. My English father, who was born at the turn of the 20th Century, named me Punch. That’s an actual legal middle name, on the birth certificate. Punch means something in England; as in, the Punch magazine, which lasted until 1992. Historically, it was most influential in the mid 1800s, when it helped to coin the term cartoon in its modern sense as a humorous illustration.

Funnily enough, I kind of lasted until 1992. That was the year when everything changed. Until then, I spent much time in London and have vibrant memories of living there for several months at a time. In the mid-80’s, when I started getting nice acting jobs there, it was an open town, progressive with lots of possibility. Even though I realize now that Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher was harsh and not at all well liked by many Brits, especially the actors, and that President Reagan was most likely on the road to senility, the mid 80’s in London was an epic time for me, it was the first time that I thrived.

My first memories of London are of a neighborhood north of Hyde Park, off the Edgware Road, called Little Venice. There we lived in a mews house on Elizabeth Close until 1963, when I was about 4. Like any self-respecting place with the name Venice, the defining feature is the canals. They were a wonder to me, with the circus-colored skinny barges moving up and down, having no idea where they were going. The sweet shop around the corner was my first place of commerce, and maybe that is why I was pretty good at math as a kid. This was still the era of Pounds, Shillings and Pence, long before the modernizing of their currency, and half a crown could buy a fair amount of tuck. When you think about it, the money that is, how come in the movies when the language limited tourist shows an open hand of coins to the clerk behind the counter, said clerk only picks out the nickels and dimes needed? Honest clerks, the English circa 1963. So, my earliest formative experiences were framed in a land where 12 pence make a Shilling, 20 Shillings makes a Pound, and 21 Shillings (One pound and One Shilling) makes up a Guinea; where in May the Champion 3-Year-old Fillies vie for the 1000 Guineas, while the Colts race for the 2000 Guineas, a Stone is comprised of 14 pounds and Bob is not really your uncle. I had no idea that class divided much of British society into workers and owners, we were actors, and actors don’t have a class. When they do it usually skews down there just north of tramp, vagabond and those who sell their skill by the half-hour. I came to understand that having a rather notorious father, whose skill sets were mainly light comedy on the stage and a rapacious appetite for horse racing on the flat, not the jumps, broke those class barriers nicely. It was a good lesson. Also, we never had much money, not that I can remember.

So, there we have it. I started my life as a precocious son of a rather famous actor whose love and knowledge of horse racing made him more of an everyman to those who knew of it, more so than his fame or, dare I say, celebrity.

You’re Wilfrid Hyde-White’s son? was said a lot in my life. Are you Punch’s father started to happen a bit in the early 70’s. By then we had long settled in the low desert of California. Hollywood beckoned when the British director George Cukor enlisted my dad to the cause and in 1963 my folks bought a little house in Palm Springs, where I would emerge 12 years later ready to make a go of it myself. I was 16 when I graduated from Palm Springs High School and had no idea what I was doing. Neither did my parents, the actor’s life being transient meant they would go where the work was: Australia, South Africa, New York and once on the New England Summer Straw Hat circuit. So, even though they could suddenly be called away to work, sometimes taking my middle school aged sister with them, I left home at age 16 only to return at 17. But they were gone.

I suppose that’s when my story really starts.

No there’s more.

In 1973, when I was thirteen, we spent Christmas break at the Watergate Hotel in Washington DC where dad had a hit with the play The Jockey Club Stakes, after its London run and pre-Broadway. A light-comedy about the whimsical goings on of the stewards at the Jockey Club, this William Douglas-Home play proved a crowning achievement in his career with its main character’s personal irreverence and the comfortable subject of horse racing. It was made to be. He didn’t originate the play however, having chosen another, which didn’t last long.

Dad took over the role of the Marquis of Candover in 1971, from actor Alistair Sim, who first played the Marquis, when the play moved from the Savoy Theatre to the Duke of York’s on St. Martin’s Lane. He rewrote the curtain lines and tailored the character of the Marquis to his