He advised Truman Capote and Prince Radziwill that ”sweet little Princess Lee Radziwill should practice acting under an assumed name in small Midwestern towns.”
He taught veteran actor and funnyman Joe E. Brown how to act in the round versus the proscenium stage after Brown had done the play ”Harvey” 1,500 times.
An appearance with Linda Darnell in ”The Royal Family” triggers memories now that ”this lovely woman had to be hypnotized in order to learn her lines.”
Local actor Bob Thompson has ”a million of `em”-experiences with great and not-so-great theater people during his 50-some-year career.
Now appearing in the hit comedy ”Out of Order” at the Forum Theatre in Summit, Thompson reminisced backstage about his career.
”I consider myself very lucky at age 75, still to be asked to use my so- called talents in the theater,” he said. His role as the crafty waiter in
”Out of Order” moves the fast-paced story of an ill-fated liaison between a Conservative British Cabinet member and a voluptuous secretary of the opposite party at breakneck speed.
”Timing is everything in this show,” Thompson said, ”and I do have a good feeling for rhythm.” Thompson is hilarious as he deadpans his untimely entrances, causing near panic to the harried would-be trysters.
A funny thing happened to Bob Thompson on his way to fulfilling a boyhood dream to be a sea captain. An English teacher at York High School in Elmhurst introduced him to Shakespeare, the Bible and the classics, ”which I read aloud in class,” he recalled.
Cast in a lead role in his freshman year at North Central College in Naperville, he got his first A in theater class, and the die was cast.
Encouraged by his professor to continue studying theater, he enrolled at a summer program in Duluth that offered classes in speech, voice, diction, oral interpretation, costuming and stagecraft.
The acting teacher was Maurice Gnesin, then in charge of Goodman Theatre. At the end of the session, in 1936, Gnesin invited Thompson to go to the Goodman on a scholarship, where he went on to earn a bachelor of fine arts degree. While at Goodman, Thompson performed on Chicago radio shows such as
”Ma Perkins” and ”Helen Trent.” In 1940 he went to New York.
Determined to stay for a year, he bought a car for $35 and started to explore East Coast summer theaters. He landed a minor role in ”Margin for Error” in Milford, Conn., and earned rave reviews.
Back in New York at the St. James Hotel (”the unemployed actors`
haven,” Thompson called it), he survived by ushering in theaters and taking bit parts in radio. ”I could live on $15 a week, and I said if I could make $50 for the rest of my life I`d be happy,” he said.
In 1941 Thompson was playing at the Provincetown Playhouse in Greenwich Village when a Maryland theater group offered him work. He was assigned several lead roles, but he was 24 at the time and the Army was breathing down his neck, so he enlisted in the Army Air Corps on his birthday, Oct. 7, 1941. He returned to Chicago after the war, and eventually landed a job teaching theater at Rosary College in River Forest.
”I accepted it as a temporary job,” he said. Twenty-seven years later, he quit that temporary job to go to Broadway to appear in ”Status Quo Vadis.” The play, which had been a hit locally, bombed in New York, lasting just a day. Thompson returned to Chicago but not to teaching, and has stayed with acting, mostly in local theaters, ever since.
Over the years, his association with local theaters and with the Peninsula Players in Door County, Wis., has allowed him to appear in widely diverse roles in plays such as ”The Philadelphia Story,” ”A Raisin in the Sun” and ”On Golden Pond,” and with stars as diverse as Gwen Verdon, Jackie Coogan, Forrest Tucker, Ted Danson, Robert Wagner, Dina Merrill, William Bendix and Mickey Rooney.
He and his wife of 47 years, Margaret, a violinist, have three grown children.
Larry Wyatt, who is acting in and co-directing ”Out of Order,” said directing Thompson is easy. ”There wasn`t much to do. He had such a wonderful sense from Day 1 about what would play. It`s a pleasure to watch him work, he`s so focused.”
