If you're a pop culture junkie who loves TV, film, music, comedy, and other really important stuff, then you've come to the right place.Get ready and settle in for Classic Conversations, the best pop culture interviews in the world.That's right.
We circled the globe, so you don't have to.If you're ready to be the king of the water cooler, then you're ready for Classic Conversations with your host, Jeff Dwoskin.
All right, Michelle. Well thank you so much for that amazing introduction.You get the show going each and every week and this week was no exception. Welcome everybody to episode 341 of Classic Conversations.As always, I am your host, Jeff Dwoskin.
Great to have you back for what's sure to be a rocking good time.My guest today is none other than Adrian Zmed.We're diving deep into Grease 2, TJ Hooker, and so much more, and that is coming up in Just a few seconds.
And in these few seconds, do not miss my conversation with Jane Badler, Diana from V, sci-fi legend.Do not miss that episode.But right now, do not miss my amazing conversation with Adrian Zmed.We're talking Greece too.
TJ Hooker, the Cubs, and so much more.Enjoy. All right, everyone, I'm excited to introduce my next guest, actor, singer, star of stage and screen, Love to Make Grease 2, TJ Hooker, and so much more.
Excited to introduce you to my guest today, Adrian Zmed.Hello.Hello, everybody.How are you?
I am good.Busy, busy times at this Zmed house.My son's getting married at the end of the month.That is exciting.Yeah, and I'm coming into New York to honor the director of Grease 2.
She's giving a lifetime award, so I'm rushing into Manhattan this weekend to help present the award to her.
Oh, OK.All right.So Patricia Birch?
Yeah, Pat Birch.Yeah.He was the original choreographer of the Broadway show and then went on to choreograph hundreds and hundreds of productions after that.And then, of course, she directed Grease 2.
I love Grease 2.My wife wanted to... She saw my calendar.She's like, you're talking to Adrian Smith.Tell him I danced to Back to School again.She was a dancer.
You know, Back to School, that's the opening number of the show.In my opinion, one of the best openings of a movie musical ever, next to Chorus Line.It's just a magnificent opening.It introduces every single character.It's like an epic.
It's like an opera, lasts forever, and with little vignettes of dialogue in between all the singing and the dancing and stuff.Very underrated opening sequence, in my opinion.It's really a terrific opening to a musical.
I just re-watched Grease 2 because I knew we were going to talk.Anytime you get an excuse to watch anything, take it, right?I agree.It's a great opening.It's a super fun movie.I know you were Danny on Broadway before Grease 2,
Oh, God, was I, Jeff.Greece is my life.I did the original in the 70s.That was the second national tour, and then I probably was about the seventh Danny Zuko on Broadway in the late 70s.And then I did another tour of it in the 80s.
And then I did the Tommy Toon revival in the 80s.And I did that for almost six years.
You were Danny Zuko, like you said, in 72.
Well, not that early.I was actually still in school at the time, but it was 76 that I took the second national tour of.And then a year later, I was on Broadway doing it.In fact, that particular tour, we were in LA when they were filming the movie.
We were at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles, which is pretty exciting because they were, you know, shooting the movie of this Broadway musical.And honestly, a lot of people didn't know that much about Grease.
It was really the movie that kind of like introduced it to the whole world in a way.It was, of course, enormously popular.At that time, it had already been running in 1976 by about five to six years, 76, 77.
Opening night, the movie cast came to see our opening night at the Pantages Theater. And they brought up the whole cast on stage at the end of our bows.And that's actually when I met everybody from the movie.
Plus, I actually knew a lot of them from the original Grease.Because like Barry Pearl, who was a T-Bird, and of course, Johnny, we had the same manager.So I knew Johnny well before that and stuff.And that's also when I first met Olivia, too.
That's amazing.That must've been quite a experience to be doing the play and then have a little cat show up.That just sounds a little intimidating, but also amazing.
It was both, exactly that.It was intimidating and exciting at the same time.And it's funny, I wanted more than anything to get on Broadway with the show.
And then when I was there, I was actually offered the Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat after doing it a year on Broadway.And I wanted to do it.I mean, things were really popping for me.
At the time, and my manager said, Adrian, it's time for you to go to Hollywood.This is your time. I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.I don't want to do television or film.I'm a stage actor.This is all I want to do.
Trust me, Broadway will be there for you when you want it to be there.I listened to them, and it all worked out just great.I did a lot of television, a lot of film.And then when I wanted to go back to New York, it was still there.
And I honestly, I do more theater now than I do television or film these days still.
I get the impression theater has always been in your heart your most passionate thing.
Not I ever wanted to do.I just, uh, I knew that it's what I wanted to do once I did my first high school production.And I said, Hey, I'm good at this.Uh, and I really love it and enjoy it.
I want to perfect my craft and continue to do all I ever expected out of acting was maybe to be in a rep company, like the Milwaukee rep or, or something like that close to Chicago, my hometown.
And all and maybe even just work and there's a lot of theater per capita in Chicago, you know, compared to New York to little than I know, it just whisked me away.
I thought I was just going to be like a draftsman in an architecture company, because I studied architecture when I was in high school, I went to a technical high school and Greece came along literally the year I graduated.
from the Goodman School of Drama whisked me away.So I ended up fulfilling my dream, and also going and doing a lot of television and film in Hollywood.I'm glad I returned to theater.
I would say that film is the director's medium, television is the producer's medium, and the stage is the actor's medium, because Once the curtain goes up, it's just the actors on stage.Nobody can say cut.Nobody can say do it again.
You just got to keep going and get it done.There's just nothing like it in the world.It's truly the most exciting, exhilarating feeling in the world.It's incredible, especially Broadway show.That's a hit.
I can imagine.I've done stand-up for quite some time.Oh, okay.I understand the thrill of being up there.Yeah.I can see the allure for you because it's so immediate to be able to... You film a movie like Grease 2, you never really hear the reaction.
They're watching it.You're not there.
It took about, you know, we shot it a year and a half later.They finally, you know, released it.And then you hear reactions in the audience and stuff.It's not the same.It's just not the same.
And you can't, again, you're not in control of really what's up on that screen, other than what you allow, allow the director to have. in terms of your takes and stuff.If you don't like it, you say, please give me one more, please give me one more.
And you hope that they use the one that you like.You just don't know what they're going to use.It's really kind of out of your hands.These days, I'd actually rather be behind the camera if it's going to be something in television or film.
And I'd rather be on stage if I'm doing theater.
A couple of questions.One is, you still have great hair, but your hair was killer in Grease 2.That's quite a pompadour.
Yeah, I was the king of the pump.And that's all me to you know, remember, they wanted to actually put a American pompadour on my head.I know what to do, you know, just let me let me play with it.
And to this day, I just go into the shower and I come out and whoosh goes into the pompadour all by itself.After all, you know, I mean, I must have at least 10 years of performances of Danny Zuko under my belt.
When you put all of the tours that I've done and all the Broadway productions that I've done.In fact, the writer of Jim Jacobs of Greece calls me Robo Zuko.I never missed a show, ever.Except when I broke my ankle, and that's a long story.On stage.
You broke your ankle while playing Danny Zuko?
Yeah, yeah.It was the original production.But when I did the Tommy Tune revival, I never missed a show for about six years.Yeah, that one was a weird thing.I don't know if you've ever heard of the Ghost of the National Theater in Washington, DC.
There's actually a PBS special on it.And quite a few famous, famous actors over the decades have actually were on that PBS special and all.And I believe it was the Ghost of the National Theater that
put something in my way that never was ever, ever, ever there after having done it for two years.And it was just weird and broke my ankle.
And I could swear that I just saw this entity offstage that looked like not human, but something that was there and all.And again, it's a PBS special, Ghost of the National Theater.
And that was the only time I ever missed, and I lost, missed about two months at that time of doing it, of doing the show.
But it was weird.Who was paying off this ghost?Who went after you then?Let's follow the money.
Well, yeah, really.Apparently this ghost at the turn of the century was an actor in a show there.And it was a classic Shakespearean show.And they had a running poker game underneath the stage.And he was shot underneath the stage during a performance.
And he just keeps haunting that theater.That's all I can say.That's amazing. Honestly, people should look it up, The Ghost of the National Theater.It's actually pretty interesting and very hair-raising.
You know, it really, I won't step foot in that theater ever again.
Oh, I believe in hauntings.I used to work at this comedy club called the Holly Hotel in Michigan, and it was haunted.It was a known haunted locale.Oh, wow.So when you did, you did Danny Zuko when you were 40 for the revival.
I was a teenager in my 40s.
Forever young.I guess that's the beauty of acting.Were you the oldest one at the cast at the time or was it all actors around your same age?
No.In that production, the Tommy Toon production, the producers had a gimmick of bringing in a Rizzo once every year.It started with Rosie O'Donnell and then it was Brooke Shields.
The list is absolutely endless, and some of the Rizzo's were close to my age at the time.But to tell you the truth, yeah, I was probably the oldest one in the cast.I'm used to being in so many productions and the chorus being young.
So I'm just used to working with young people all the time.It was also one of the frustrating things of being an actor, of working with young actors who had just gotten their union card.
I just couldn't understand why somebody would audition like crazy and eventually get, like, for example, they wanted me to take, after I did Broadway, they begged me to take the tour out because I was so well educated with Greece.
I knew everything about Greece, and they knew that I would be an asset on the road and I could keep things in shape.I went through, in the four to five years that I was on tour with it, this is not the chorus I'm talking about.
I went through 57 principles in those four years.I just didn't understand why somebody who didn't even have an equity card would come to the tour, be a pink lady or a T-bird, for six months and then leave without having another job.
It was just kind of like that new generation of, oh, I need to do something else now kind of a thing.And in my day, your goal was to get into a huge hit and run it out as long as you can because
Productions in our business don't last very long there's always an ending to a production that you do whether it's television film or broadway and even if probably is a huge hit and last for over ten years, there's still an end to a show so i just thought you just share shit but.
No, but they're all still, both casts, the original and the Tommy Toon cast, they're all dear, dear family friends of mine to this day, and we do Zooms all the time, like I'm doing with you.
There's a thing of like 30 people in little thumbnail pictures in our Zoom calls, and we just catch up every couple of months, see how everybody's doing.
Did you contribute to that book, Adrian Barbeau was part of, with the Greece memories going all the way back?
Yeah, I'm in the book.Some of my stories are in the book.That was a big compilation of all of us in the Zoom stuff and saying, hey, we're going to do this.Get your stuff going.
Tom Moore, who directed the original, would talk to us and coach us on the stories. and everything, and then we all submitted our stories, and then it was really Adrian who edited, put it all together, and Tom who oversaw it.It was really fun.
It's like a running diary is what it is, a running diary of stories of this show that was this phenomenal hit that broke the box office records in the 70s.Of course, Grease won and was one of the biggest grossing movies of all time.
And Grease 2 didn't do too badly.In fact, it does better now than it did when it first premiered, to tell you the truth, in video and rentals and all.It actually outsells and out-rents Grease 1 today.It's a little more kid-friendly.
It is a little more kid-friendly.Yeah.I mean, when it came out, right, I think it made like $15 million.The critics were not kind, but it did go on to become a cult classic.It's like solidified Yeah.
Do you want to know what my favorite line from the movie is?My brother and I, we always say, if someone brings up Grease 2.Yeah.What?It's Dodie Goodman.If someone brings up Grease 2, it's just the first thing that pops in our mind that goes,
Doty was just a treasure and doty doty was exactly that that's exactly the way she was off camera that the person you saw on camera that was doty she was such a wonderful kind sweet lady and very very funny it was it was actually to work with her to check with work with eve arden and since cesar and
Connie Stevens, Tab Hunter.It was just a joy to work with those pros.
So Grease is in your blood.You're Danny Zuko touring Broadway, and then they offer you Grease 2 comes up.
It wasn't just an offer.Believe me, I worked hard at getting that role.
What I mean is, was it a hard decision?I mean, Grease at the time was so iconic.Going to the sequel, to be part of a sequel, it seemed like it would have been great at the same time, but also it would have been like, oh, it's a sequel.
The expectations had to have been so high.
Yeah, I mean, we were all under the gun there.And God, I'm actually glad it was really Maxwell and Michelle on the cover.And I kind of like all the pressure was really more on them.
And honestly, there wasn't very much pressure on me other than to put my Danny Zuko on film and have fun.And Pat Birch gave me carte blanche with that show.She just let me do whatever I wanted to do.
And eventually, when I went overboard, she said, that's a little too much.
Again, I mentioned to you, I don't know whether it was on camera or it was just before we went on and you were taping, but we're honoring Pat Birch for a Lifetime Achievement Award in theater and as incredibly well-deserved and all.
She was my champion.Because Maxwell and Michelle really weren't huge stars at that time, They needed, other than the teachers, who were iconic stars, you know, in their own right, they wanted a rock star in my role.
The producers, Robert Stigwood and Alan Carr, Pat wanted me to do Johnny badly.She knew after all the grease that I had done, that I would be able to infuse the Broadway show into the T-Birds if I was one of the T-Birds and everything.
She just strategically put me, she would send me into audition every time they auditioned a rock star, right after they went in.The one who was the front runner to become Johnny, and I would always outdo them.
Every time they said, all right, it's still his, all right, it's still his.About 10 auditions later, they finally said, all right, it's his.
It was a grueling time, and it was exciting, and it was scary, because, you know, how is this one going to turn out?You know, you think about it, it was really quite a daring thing that they were trying to do.
Two years later, all the teachers are the same, the school's the same, shot at the same school.The only difference are the T-Birds and the Pink Ladies.And they just reversed Danny and Sandy in terms of
One being from, you know, Olivia was from Australia, Maxwell was from England and stuff.So it was a reversal of the roles and stuff.
And it was really kind of ingenious how they did it and kept the teachers as the ones that you remember from the first movie.And again, it wasn't a proven hit on Broadway.
So this was really scary because you just didn't know what people like the songs.The first one was a proven hit at that point, almost 10 years by the time it was released.
Again, as you said, the critics were not kind to it, but the generations of past several decades have discovered it.I have kids who are five years old who come up to me and they do start singing Prowlin or Score Tonight.It's just amazing.
It's like you're immortal.That's the difference between theater and television and film.You're immortalized.I'm glad I have been able to do both in my career.
Grease 2 is one of those movies that you just like the more you watch it.
You discover a lot of things with it, the more you see it.
Some movies you have to watch.Like, I didn't get Pulp Fiction, admittedly, the first time, then it became one of my favorite films.Sure.If someone were ever to say, like, Grease 2?Really?I'm like, you need to watch it again.
You need to just go watch it one more time.
And then... A lot of people have said the same thing is what you're saying, yeah.
Do you remember any of the rock stars?I read that Tom Cruise auditioned for Johnny Nagarelli.Anyone else do you remember of notes that... Oh, God, I remember going in after
Andy give the one of the good brothers casey in the sunshine from kissing in the sunshine i remember he was there for a bit i honestly it's all of a blur to me at this point it was just so intense is all done in in within a two to three week period of you know you'd audition and then go home and.
they'd say, you're still in contention, you're still in contention, they're not giving it to you yet, and just going in and out, but those are some of the ones that I kind of remember.
They tried to avoid me being in the room when they would leave the room, but I would see on the list when I would sign in, they're saying that I was there as to who had just been there.But yeah, you had mentioned Tom Cruise, he was one of them, yeah.
I found, it was on the internet, but I like you doing prowling with the other T-Birds on solid gold.
Yeah.I think Dionne Warwick was the host of Solid Gold at the time.A little quick story about that song.We were so over budget and late in shooting Grease 2 that really we pretty much ran out of time and just had a few days left.
to tie up all the loose ends that needed to be shot.The last song, in movie musicals, you have to record it first, and then they play it back on camera, so you lip-sync to what you do.That's another art in itself.
Lip-syncing, you actually really have to sing out if you're really going to look like you're actually singing the song when you're lip-syncing on film.That song was the last song that we recorded, and there were only a few days left of
of shooting and Pat came up to me and said, Adrian, I'm sorry.I know this is one of your songs, but we're just going to shoot the tail end of it at the talent show, but it'll be on the record.
Then they heard it and everybody across the board said, oh my God, this is probably one of the best songs in the show.You listen to the lyrics are ridiculous.
They're hysterical. You know, where there's a female butcher with best tongue in town.See, it's just, it's just. to live is both night and day."It's just brilliant for a high school kid to be saying these things.
There's an innocence and a naughtiness about it, but it's not nasty or awful.Most kids don't even know what we're saying in the lyrics.But Pat and everybody said, we've got to shoot it.
I don't know how we're going to do it, but we're going to shoot it.So we literally had a 24-hour period to shoot an entire number, which is unheard of. to shoot an entire musical number in a movie in 24 hours.
For example, the bowling sequence, the score tonight, took four weeks to shoot that and quite a few broken ankles because of the gutters and people stepping in the gutters and spinning out, stepping on them and falling and stuff like that.
Pat knew that we were shooting the gas station sequence that night and he said, we're going to start the song there and then we're going to rush back to the high school, which became a little mini movie studio because we all had lockers there and our motorhomes were all there and stuff like that.
We finished it as if we were rehearsing it on stage. That's how we managed to do it in that 24-hour period.And I mostly choreographed everything.I choreographed everything that I did.
And Pat was busy with the director of photography trying to figure out how to shoot it and the logistics of actually getting it done.It was really an exciting 24-hour period.
It was like doing live theater because it was so immediate and had to be done.And we didn't have a lot of takes to do it.We literally had to do everything in one take. every camera angle that she came up with.There was just no room for error.
It was a pretty exciting time.
That's awesome.It made it in the movie.Pat's probably winning the award just for that and then some other stuff.
That's the kind of stuff she does.
One of the things about Pat and one of the things I'm going to say to her when I help present the award for her is she's a master at taking your talent, what makes you unique, and exploiting it, making it even better. than what you can bring to it.
I'll never forget how I watched her pull a magnificent performance out of Michelle Pfeiffer when she did Cool Rider.She was terrified of doing a musical.She had never done a musical.
And Pat just pulled out, and I just saw her working with her hour after hour on
just letting her body improv improv and do things okay okay that's good that's good i do it a little bit further which is appearance she would develop it pull it out of you and all that's the kind of director she wasn't kind of and i said that's the same with a choreography she just took what you did naturally and made it better brilliant very few directors work that way.
No, in defense of Greece too, when we say it only made 15 million and the expectations were against Greece, which made like a hundred million or something like that. The weekend that you guys came out.
Greece won, I think made 180.And I think we, we made around, it went all of a sudden done around 70 to 80 million is from what I remember.
At least I may be wrong.Maybe it was just, I mean, those are early times.I'm just, I'm just reading IMDB.So you're probably right.It's the end.
I'm saying that the, even when the video generation started, it still was picking up even at that time.
What I was going to say was when you guys came out, you guys came out against E.T., Star Trek II, Rocky III, and Poltergeist.So it was a pretty heavy weekend.
Yeah.Yeah.And it's funny, I was actually doing T.J.Hooker at that time and Bill was opening in his movie that same weekend.We had dueling movies and he'd make fun of me all the time.He says, we're going to kick your ass at the box office.
Well, Star Trek II was the greatest Star Trek movie of all time, so.
It was brilliant.It was.Yeah.
I want to talk about TJ Hooker and William Shatner, but I did want to... Michelle Pfeiffer had moved on from you in the movie.She was done with Johnny.
But you got to spend a lot of time with Lorna Luft, Judy Garland's daughter.
Oh, still a dear, dear friend.I became very, I got close to Lorna and still am quite close.She probably, she had the best voice of the entire cast.And she had very few lines to sing in the show.She should have had her own song.
She truly had the best voice of the entire cast.To be perfectly honest, she had a better voice than her mom and her sister.She's amazing.She's quite amazing.
Yes, she had little parts in the songs, yeah.
Right.I mean, she had that little soft voice that she used all the time in it, and then all of a sudden in the middle of score tonight, it was like, holy mackerel, just came out of her.
Was it true that this was meant to be the start of multiple sequels and a TV show?They were going to turn this into a whole kind of thing when they revived Grease with Grease 2?
Yes, I think that they wanted it to just to go on and on and there be a Grease 3 and a franchise, because actually that's when franchises were starting back in the 70s and 80s.
And they wanted it to be that, but I guess we didn't do as much as they wanted at the box office and it just never came to be.
Look, they have been wanting to do another, they've been wanting to do a remake of John and Olivia's Grease, the first Grease for years.At one point, Britney Spears was going to play Sandy.
It's been on and off and on and off for years, and I think eventually they just all thought, why fix it if it ain't broke?You can't really make it any better than what it was to begin with.
I hate when they remake movies.When they do Grease Live on TV, where it's kind of a theatrical thing,
Yeah, that's that's a different thing, because they're actually doing the theater version of it.And you know, the theater version is different than the than the original first movie.Number one, Grease was meant for adults, not for children.
When it premiered on Broadway, it was raunchy.And there was a lot of swearing and a lot of gestures of FU and all that kind of stuff.And everything, even the subject matter, it's about Rizzo possibly being pregnant.
Sandy changes into a little bit of a slutty girl for the end.It's almost completely unpolitically correct in so many ways.But Jim Jacobs, who wrote it, is one of my dearest friends to this day.We're both from Chicago and diehard Cubs fans.
I talk to him all the time and he walks to his mailbox and pulls out a stack of residuals from a production that's somewhere in the world of Grease to this day.I say he's the luckiest guy in the world.He's just amazing.
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And now back to my amazing conversation with Adrian's med.Let's talk a little more cubs.I love the cubs.My, uh, I I'm from Detroit, so I liked it.I love the tigers, but I see your, I see your, uh, tiger's hat.Yeah, I do.
But, um, growing up though, and like my brand was in Chicago.So we would go to Wrigley field all the time.Only bleachers.We'd only ever sit in the bleachers.That was his thing.And it was like, it was the greatest.It was great.
I grew up five blocks from Wrigley Field, and I spent my youth, if I couldn't get into the bleachers, I was out on Waveland or Sheffield Avenue with my mitt waiting for the balls to come over the fence.
One of the great, great, incredible moments of my life was I started playing softball with a team called the Hollywood All-Stars.
We used to go around to Major League Baseball parks to play a game before the night game for a charity of that local ball team.We did it in Chicago, and we played the 69 Mets in Wrigley Field, and I played center field.
My big idols from when I was a child growing up, Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, Glenn Beckert, Billy Williams, they were all on that team.I played I played baseball against them in Wrigley Field.It was just one of the greatest moments of my life.
In fact, in my office, I have pictures of some of the stuff from that day specifically.
That's awesome.That is really cool.
It was a great time.But the bleachers are the place to sit in Wrigley Field.Yeah.Because you can't wait for the home run ball to come into the bleachers from the opposing team and throw it back.We originated that.The left field bleacher bumps.
originated, throw it back, throw it back.And you, you were pressured to throw it back.Of course, you wouldn't throw a Chicago Cubs ball back.You'd keep that one.
I remember that very, very well.So, you know, you know how your phone knows what you're doing because it listens to you and stuff. So my phone knows I'm going to be talking to Adrian Smith.
So on TikTok, what pops up out of nowhere, literally, like days ago?This Cool Rider.I guess it's a play that they've been doing for 10 years in London.
In the UK.Yeah.Yeah.I was actually in the UK doing a production of Le Cageau Fall just before the pandemic.So I know a lot about that show.Yeah.
Yeah, because it was a clip of a woman who was reprising her role singing Cool Rider.
Oh, I actually haven't seen that.I haven't seen it.You say it's on Instagram or TikTok?TikTok.At least TikTok.It's on TikTok?Yeah.And I think Maxwell is going back this year to play a teacher.Mr. Stewart.Yeah.Mr. Stewart.
The one that they're doing this year.
That was Tab Hunter, right?Yeah.
He was awesome.So Maxwell Caulfield's going from... He'll be singing Reproduction, which is... Another, such a great song.Come on, is it?It's so clever.I love that song.
As a matter of fact, when my daughter, when my wife was, you know, getting all excited and talking about, oh, I danced her back to school again.
And then she pulled up, I don't know why she chose to pull up reproduction to play for my daughter, but that's the song she pulled up.And so, yeah, it's great.
So I guess my only follow-up question is, is it really Christopher McDonald going, where does the pollen go?
That's Chris.Oh, yeah.That is Chris.Where does the pollen go?Yeah, we did that.Boy, a little side note on that.Boy, we got very horny while we were filming that thing.Oh, my goodness. Yeah.The whole song's about sex, I mean.Right, right, right.
And metaphors.To remove Back to School Again and Prowling from the list, which ones then fall into your favorites?I'm just trying to remove the obvious ones because I'm sure you love those.
It literally has to be Prowling because of the story behind it that I told you.It was the song that almost did not get into the movie.And because we worked the T-Birds, and I and Pat Birch and the crew worked in that 24-hour period to make it happen.
So it wasn't just that was a really fun and great song.It was the effort.It was truly a team effort to actually make that thing, make it into the movie.
Do you have a second choice just for one that you enjoy that you're like, oh, that's a great song soundtrack wise?
Yeah, well, I look at it and I remember every second of shooting and stuff like that.But I have to admit that doing the whole it was it took, like I said, for four weeks to shoot that whole bowling sequence, the scene and the the song.
I mean, score tonight was pretty fun to do doing these slides down a bowling alley.Everybody wants to do that.
Yeah, that's that's a great number.
You know how many times I had to do that knee slide?Because I had to hit a mark.In acting, if you walk into a room, the camera is in focus for a certain spot for when you stop.
And you have to kind of, out of your peripheral vision, see where you're stopping.Well, I had to do a knee slide from one end of the bowling alley to the other end of the bowling alley.
I had to go down at the right spot, practice it so many times to even get close to where the mark is.And then they start rolling the cameras.
Fifty takes later i finally hit the mark agree stuff with that floor is greased up with my bloody knees is really.
I already had broken my leg in high school and already had a bad knee i thought my career that particular my right knee was always a problem for me i was i could barely walk after after doing all those fifty me slides.
I've always had to favor my left leg throughout all the productions that I've done in musical theater.I've been doing musical theater for over 40 years at this point in my life.
I just did a production of Akasha Fall in the United Kingdom for a year and was still dancing. What the pandemic did for me was I said, well, maybe this is a good time to replace my knees.So that's what I did during the pandemic.
I replaced my knees and a hip as a result of all of the dancing and all of the stuff I've done in musical theater.And I feel like I can play Danny Zuko again.I'd have to dye my hair, but I feel like I'm a kid again.
That's awesome.Well, that's good.I'm glad you're feeling good.And I'm sorry that Grease 2 destroyed your knees or took what was left of them.It was worth it.
But it wasn't just Grease 2.It was all years and years of, like I said, I probably, a total of 10 years doing all of the Grease and versions of Grease that I did on stage, probably close to 10 years of performances. It's what it was.
There isn't anybody else who's done Danny Zuko more than I have.You can ask Jim Jacobs, who wrote the damn thing, about that.
He would be a great interview.He's an incredible storyteller.
One last trivia thing I found.I guess in South India, they remade the movie.They made a remake of the movie.What?Yeah, it's called Premaloka, P-R-E-M-A-L-O-K-A, in 1987. Uh-huh.Yeah, I guess they adapted the screenplay.
And when we talked about earlier, I read, you know, I say I read because who knows if it's true.
When they were going to make it, you know, the trilogy and all that kind of stuff that when they decided and bailed on it, that became High School Musical, or at least High School Musical was based on that.
Well, I can see that actually at this point, but I've got to look up this.You said that a version was done in 87 in India?
Premaloka, you said?Yeah, P-R-E-M.Ah, Premaloka.I wonder what that, that must mean Greece.There's always been international versions of Greece done.Even when I was on Broadway, there was a South American and Mexican versions of Greece
And they called it basalina.
Basalina.Doesn't have the same ring to it, but yeah.
Right.Basaline.But when you actually look at all the versions in all the countries that were done of it, they used their version of what Greece meant. to their culture.
Yeah, Jim Jacobs has hundreds of posters from all over the world of versions of Grease that were done.It's really quite a legacy.
That is amazing.Yeah.All right, so you mentioned horniness during reproduction, but you were also, if we can go to the mid-80s in one of the best sex comedies ever, Bachelor Party. I loved your face.
You're like, where's he going?
I did one in the 90s, and we can touch on that one in a second.But yeah, I had just finished doing a second year of TJ Hooker.And Bachelor Party came up, and I was able to do it in my hiatus from TJ Hooker.We actually shot that.
We just had an actor strike last year. The strike before that was when we shot Bachelor Party.
We actually shot Bachelor Party during an actor strike, and the way we were able to do that is the producers said that whatever is agreed on as the final negotiations, with the actors' contracts and everything like that.
We will compensate the actors for the whole thing, whatever is agreed on.There was a whole clause.We were able to actually shoot.We shot.We were one of the only productions going on during that strike, which was in the 80s, early 80s, actor strike.
And Tom and I, I knew Tom because I had done a guest spot on Bosom Buddies.We knew each other really well and lived very close to each other.And we used to carpool
to work because we lived in the San Fernando Valley in Studio City, and the studios were the Culver City Studios, which became the Sony Studios.And it's the old MGM Studios, too.And we had to go down.You've always, comedians joke about the 405.
in los angeles it's like a parking lot so we can we call ourselves the diamond lane boys because we did the hd lanes were now you know the way to go because you can just go past all the traffic and while we're in the hd lane going to work we discuss on what we're gonna do after bachelor party was released because i careers are probably over cuz all we did was goof off for thirteen hours a day for three months,
That's all we did was goof off.And we thought it was going to be the worst movie ever made.And it actually, when we saw the director's cut, it ended up looked at each other and said, this turned out pretty good.It's funny.
And again, it's, it's one of those shows that movies have become a cult classic.It is.And I, I just rewatched it.I wasn't a hundred percent sure I'd ever seen the whole thing.I knew I saw, I remembered like parts of it.
Cause I probably hadn't seen it forever.Like I remembered Tom or maybe it was Hugo. Are these on?You know what I mean?And stuff like that.And so I rewatched it.It holds up, you know what I mean?
Because sometimes you watch an 80s comedy and you're like, ooh.But it was still hilarious.And I forgot how goofy funny Tom Hanks was.
Yeah, he was brilliant.He was quite brilliant in that role.And then when he went on to do Big, it was even better and more challenging.And I thought he should have won the Academy Award for Big.
That should have been his first Academy Award, because that was one of the most brilliant performances I had ever seen and all.But yeah, it does hold up.And I think it's because so much was real, what we were doing.
we would literally be improv-ing off camera and then director said, okay, all right, come on, get in front of the cameras.Let's do that.Let's do exactly what you just did.
And then we'd improv a little bit more and it would go a little weirder and stuff.And so much of it was just us just goofing off and improv-ing with the whole thing.It was a blast.We had so much fun doing that movie.
So I have two questions.One, the car or Debbie? But my real question is, when the hookers haven't shown up yet and you're like, how's the party so far?
And it's just the guys there and they whip that can at you and you catch it and then just take a drink from it.How many takes did that take?That's all I need to know.
I don't even remember how that eventually, I think in all the takes that we did, something was coming my way and I actually did grab something and I started It was something that I could eat and I ate it.
And then I think it was Neil Israel who directed it, who said, hey, let's do a can.And he literally had a crew guy in the middle of all that, just kind of like fling the can up into that direction so that I could catch it and take a sip of it.
And that was one of the only things that was actually set up, the can, the actual can.But it came out of doing it many times and me grabbing a couple of things and taking a chunk out of an apple.
or a bag of potato chips or something like that and stuff.But we did that quite a few times.
It was fun.It's so much fun.And then you sang in this movie, too.You've got a great voice, by the way.
Well, thank you.Thank you.It's like, uh, cause I came from my roots were in musical theater and the, the producer knew exactly who Joe Roth was the producer of that, uh, of that movie.
Joe went on to become the head of Disney and produced tons and tons of huge blockbuster movies.And he was, we were.
Close friends and he knew joe from a workshop musical that i had done for him and it was when i remember the old the old movie called the warriors i think so movie about gang gangs in new york and stuff like that and there was a whole big thing about gangs.
gang pictures, warrior, you know, gang movies.And this was a musical based on that.He knew what I could do.And he actually purposely wanted me to do that role.And he wanted to have to me to be on the soundtrack.
and wanted the song to be one of the songs at the party, the bachelor party, Little Demon.We actually snatched it from Kiss.They were about to record it, and we grabbed it before they did.
Rick Derringer produced that song, one of the great lead guitarists of all time.
It's a great song.It really is.All right, so TJ Hooker, how was working with William Shatner other than him just giving you a hard time about dominating with Star Trek II?Yeah.
We actually got along extremely well, and to this day we still do.I just saw Bill last week at 93 years old, and he acts like he's 60.He's just amazing.He's like a miracle of science.He's just amazing.I got along very well with him.
I think it's because there was such a vast age difference between the two of us.He became my mentor, you know what I mean?Like a father figure to me and all, and it became a true partnership. of the two of us in the car.
And I looked up to him and I really did learn a lot, quite a lot from Bill just by watching what he did.Hooker was, I had done two series before Hooker that each one only lasted about seven episodes before that.
And I still was very young being on camera.And it's very different transferring your theater technique and putting it on film
And stuff so i just learned a lot by watching bill and learn to trust myself rather than i want to cure cancer with my acting that is and i over did it i always over acted and i push too much and everything is a whole term that directors use with with actors who are more like me and that is less is more of the term less is more.
And i was the poster child for that term but honestly by us most is just watching bill and how he handled himself himself in close up and what he did was just like a master class that i spent five years with him doing and we just we had a blast on the show i mean come on we were playing cops and robbers and we were getting paid for it
I know it must have been great.You got to awesome.You got to wear a cool uniform.
We did our own stunts, especially with the cars and stuff.I mean, we did a lot of our own stuff and everything.It was just we had a blast.It was absolute blast.Met a great, great cast.Heather was an angel.Jimmy Darren was awesome.Richard Heard.
The captain was great.So much fun.
Yeah.Cause Shatner, you could probably learn a lot from Shatner.Talk about someone who's like so iconic, but like you can't just call him Kirk without acknowledging TJ Hooker, Boston legal, even his, just his appearances in the twilight zone.
You know, it's just, it's like, there's a lot of things that pop there.
Yeah.There aren't many people in Hollywood who have had his career.He has never stopped working.Yes, there are. And again, he mentored me.He said, when I was making a really great paycheck every week doing Hooker, he kind of said, save your money.
Save your money.Invest it wisely.It's not going to last forever.TJ Hooker will not last forever.And I did.I did everything that he told me to do.It was just great advice from him.And he's always been important to me in my life.
And now, after going up in space, now he's going to the Antarctica. this year.
Oh, really?And he still does comic cons.He still does.He still holds core to comic cons.
Yeah.So amazing.You must have loved hosting Dance Fever.
Well, yeah, because I had been away from singing and dancing.Okay, I did.I did do Grease 2, where I was able to sing and dance.And then when I first went to Hollywood, I had just left the Broadway show of Grease.
And Saturday Night Fever had already come out. Everything when I arrived in Hollywood in 1978, they were spinoffs of Saturday Night Fever, and I was the poor man's John Travolta.
I had just come from Hollywood starring as Danny, and I had a string of guest spots on iconic shows where I had to dance, where I danced, disco danced, and did things.
In fact, I played one of my great roles, was a disco dancing pickpocket killer on Starsky and Hutch.
That was your first thing, right?
Well, no, I had done quite a few guest spots at that point, but it was one of my guest spots where I was disco dancing, and Aaron Spelling produced that Starsky and Hutch along with Leonard Goldberg, and they were about to do DJ Hooker, and they specifically wanted me to be in Hooker because of that guest spot.
They remembered me from that.Actually, that was my audition for Hooker.You never know.
You never know what's going to lead to what.
And then when Hooker was canceled, I had already done a few guest appearances on the Merv Griffin Show.And Merv, Dance Fever was already running for about five years at that point.He was replacing Denny Theriault in like year seven.
He wanted to get 10 years out of Dance Fever. When he found out that Hooker was canceled, it was literally the day after we were canceled, his office contacted my agent and asked me to host it.
I said, how often do I get to sing and dance in Hollywood?I grabbed it in a second.The crazy thing about it was that two weeks after I had agreed to do it, we actually started going into rehearsals for for Dance Fever.
My agent was called and said, hey, guess what?We have 11 more episodes that we're going to do of TJ Hooker, and it's going to be in late-night television, and it's going to be on at 11 o'clock at night.
And the reason for those 11 episodes was to complete the five-year syndication package, apparently to sell a series in syndication that would air Two times in a year-long period, you had to have five years of 26 episodes a year.
They needed to finish it.I couldn't do both at the same time.I had already signed the contract for Dance Fever at the time, so I couldn't shoot those last 11 episodes, which was tough for me because Hooker was my home and I wasn't able to do it.
On the other hand, I was grateful that I was able to have three years doing Dance Fever.
It was a blast.It was so much fun.Awesome on Dance Fever.That's a bummer though on T.J.Hooker because I can imagine.It's like graduating and they're like, oh, wait, what?I missed the part.
Right.There's another class I needed to take, but I want to go finish it.Yeah.It worked out okay.Dance Fever was just a blast. Like I said, how often... And you know, Dance Fever was the precursor to everything, all these competition shows today.
Think about the format of Dancing with the Stars.It's three judges who make comments about everybody who just did their dances.The main difference is that the judges were TV icons, TV and film icons.The dance partners were from all over the country.
They got their few minutes of stardom, you know, by doing that.But that's the format that everybody uses, is the three-judge format. on all of it.Again, Merv Griffin broke the mold on a lot of things, and he knew what he was doing.
Two of his shows are still running, Jeopardy!and Wheel of Fortune.We shot Dance Fever in the same studio where Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!were shot, and we shared the same dressing rooms while we were shooting Dance Fever.So I got
be very good friends with Pat and Vanna and Alex Trebek and stuff in those three years of doing it.And his stuff is still running, which is amazing.
That is amazing.Quite a legacy.Yeah.One other cameo that you made, which is in one of my favorite franchises ever, which is Sharknado. I love Chuck.I have a whole episode where I talked to Thunder Levin, who wrote one through four.I just love it.
So you have the honor of being killed by a shark in the opening of of the fourth Sharknado for the fourth awakens.Yeah.Yeah.Me and Wade Newton. Yeah, you and Wayne Newton, right?Yeah.So you get it right in the chest, though.You get it in the chest.
I live in Vegas now.And I had just moved to Vegas when they were doing that.And they found out that I was here.They coaxed me to come in and say, hey, can we kill you in our movie?It'll be the opening sequence.You'll see it right away.
What the heck?Let's do it.By four, it was super cool to do that. Yeah.They had to earn that a couple of times.I remember for two, they were like begging people.I can't thank you enough.This was so fun.I had so many great stories.
Oh, thank you.You were terrific.And it was nice to go down memory lane and to talk about all these wonderful little stories of things that I've done in my life.
Oh, well, thank you for sharing them with me.You're awesome.And I'm going to go brag to my wife that I talked to.
Thank you very much.Thank you so much.
And to all your audience out there.Hello, everybody.Have a good time watching this.Take care.
All right, how amazing was Adrian Smedd?So much Greece, too.Great insights into his time as Danny Zuko in Greece.TJ Hooker, the Cubs.Ah, bachelor party, this episode had everything.
All right, well, with the interview over, I can't believe it just flew right by.Thanks again to Adrian Smedd for hanging out with me.And thanks to all of you for coming back week after week.It means the world to me.And I'll see you next time.
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Classic Conversations.If you like what you heard, don't be shy and give us a follow on your favorite podcast app.Also, why not go ahead and tell all your friends about the show?
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