Hollywood Everyman: A Conversation with William Schallert (page 2)

William Schallert as Admiral Hargrade on "Get Smart" with Don Adams and Edward Platt

Sam:  When you finished The Patty Duke Show you went right into Get Smart, where you developed one of your most popular characters, Admiral Hargrade, which you’ve reprised in various productions.

Bill:  Yeah. I just loved that character and I had a lot of fun,so anytime I had a chance to do this guy my brain would kick into freewheeling.  If I have a strong accent or a good character I’m impervious to fear.  I’ll get on my feet in front of a thousand people and entertain without any script at all.

"Oh heck!" William Schallert being falls again as Admiral Hargrade: "So I realized that somehow or another that as you get old that you fall and you get used to it."

Sam: Where did the character of The Admiral come from?Bill:  It was written by Leonard Stern who was the lead producer of Get Smart.  I didn’t work on Get Smart the first year.  We were finishing The Patty Duke Show and they were about two stages down from us.  I remember wandering down there and thinking “Oh!  What a cool show!  I want to be a part of this!”  I worked a lot in the 50s and 60s because there were a lot of casting directors who knew me, but each one of them knew me for different kinds of things.  There were three different kinds of things I do for one, and three different kinds of things I do for another and I could do accents and old people.  But for Get Smart I got called in to read for it and I took a look at the script and I put it down. I didn’t even read the whole scene I was to do.  I didn’t need to.  I had The Admiral tucked away in my back pocket.  I had developed this odd character one time when I was in an improvisational class.  I knew when I think about him, his eyebrows are way up and he looks startled.  That’s the funny thing about old people.  They don’t know what’s going to happen next because they can’t see very well, they don’t hear very well and everything is always surprising them; that was my key to the guy.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was kind of imitating my grandmother.  Also, I automatically added something to the script that wasn’t there:  I would fall down, and as I started to fall I’d say “Oh heck.”  My mother died in 1967, which was the first year that I did Get Smart, and I had to take care of my father for a short time after that.  I remember I was in the house and I heard a terrible clatter and I went into the other room and my father was lying on the floor and his cane was next to him and he was on his back and I said “Dad!  Dad!  Are you alright?”  and he said “…oh yeah…”  So I realized that somehow or another that as you get old that you fall and you get used to it.  Of course it can kill you.  But I loved doing that character.

William Schallert would reprise his role of Admiral Hargrade in strange productions like "Gremlins" and the cult favorite "Legends of the Superheroes" where he played Retired Man. Mr. Schallert is the character in the orange tights, third from the right, between Green Lantern and The Huntress

Sam:  One of the strangest places you played The Admiral was in the two hour long Legends of the Superhero TV specials from the 1970s with Adam West and Burt Ward, where you played Retired Man.

Bill:  You saw that?

Sam:  I own those.

Bill:  Oh do you?  Oh God!  They were badly done.    I remember some of the jokes.  [I’d say] “Time to fly” and then I would just kind off walk of stage.

Sam:  Were you able to maintain financially with shows like Get Smart?

Bill:  No.  That wouldn’t be enough to keep me together and my kids were getting ready to go to college.  What saved me is I got into voice over commercials.  In 1966, when we finished The Patty Duke Show, I got a call from a guy named Bud Davis who was working in a new agency with a guy named Bill Cunningham.  It became Cunningham and Associates and it became the best voice over agency then, and I believe it is the best voice over agency today.  I went with them in 1966 and they are still my agents today.  That’s 43 years.  I don’t know if I know of anybody who’s been with an agency that long.  Its very rare but there was never any reason to leave.  I went with them, they started sending me out, I started getting jobs and within two years, from 1968 to 1970 I could do no wrong.  I got everything I went out for.

William Schallert would play TV fathers for three generations of television watchers including "The Patty Duke Show" (1963 - 1966), "The Nancy Drew Mysteries" (1977 - 1979) and "The New Gidget" (1986 - 1988)

Sam:  They obviously kept you working.  You did something every year since the 1950’s.  When you go down your credits on the imdb there is not a single year where you haven’t appeared in at least something.

Bill:  Its true, and I did a lot of series.  Dobie Gillis, Patty Duke, Get Smart and then Nancy Drew and Little Women, which only lasted six episodes.  Then I did The New Gidget and then I did The Torkelsons so I never stopped working as a series regular, but I worked in movies. I was in a lot of very good movies, including an AcademyAward-winner, In the Heat of the Night.

Sam:  In the Heat of the Night was such a groundbreaking film.  When Sidney Poitier slaps the industrialists it was the slap the shocked the cinematic world.  What kind of an impact did that film had at the time it came out?

"In the Heat of the Night" (1967)

Bill:  It won Academy Awards.  It was one of the most relevant films ever.  It is one of the only films of that era that still hold up today and is still a relevant picture about race issues in America, because it is very real.  It had a great script by Sterling Silliphant, top notch cast in everywhere and very well directed by Norman Jewison.  Everything about that picture was done well.  You know how I got that part?  Lynn Stallmaster was the casting director for it and he knew me.  He had often seen the Circle Theatre productions and he had gone to UCLA and he knew who I was and used me in a number of things.  He got me in to meet Jewison and to play one of the city councilmen.  I read the script and I was feeling kind of full of myself in those days and I thought to myself “I don’t want to play one of those guys.  You can’t tell one guy from the next and they have nothing significant to do, but the mayor would be an interesting part.”  So when I went in I said “I’m here to read for one of these parts, but if you’d allow me I’d like to show you what I can do with the mayor, and the reason I think you should let me do it is because I look sort of like a northern politician.  I think its really interesting that when you scratch this guy’s surface that he is really the biggest bigot in town.  He looks so up to date but he is really a throwback.”  Jewison said “That all sounds great.  Read it for me.”  I read it and he said “Yeah.  Yeah.  That’s good.”  I said “I think he could be a used car salesman” and Jewison said “No, I got a better idea.  I’ll make him the John Deer tractor salesmen.”  That all happened on the interview and it was one of the times where my input made a difference in the picture and I got the part too.  That was a good experience all around.

Sam:  Did you get to spend much time with Sidney Poitier when you were doing the film?

William Schallert appeared with Sidney Poitier in two films - "In the Heat of the Night" (1956) and "Band of Angels" (1957) where his performance as a union soldier was so realistic it even unnerved Poitier

Bill:  No.  No.  I don’t think Poitier was comfortable with the cast. Not only were we white but we were acting like southern whites.  But the funny thing is that I had worked with him before in Band of Angels in 1956.  It was a poor man’s Gone with the Wind.  Clark Gable and Yvonne DeCarlo were in it and I don’t know what it was based on.  Poitier played a slave and I played a bigoted solider and I remember when we rehearsed it I thought I would let it all hang out.  Well we finished this one exchange and we were just kind of running through it and he gave me this funny look because I had been really tough with him and I said “I’m just acting you know.”  Well he laughed and we hugged and it was okay.  But In the Heat of the Night was in 1966, one year after the civil rights voting act.  We couldn’t shoot down south.  Poitier said “I’m not going to go down there where I can’t stay in a hotel.”  So we shot it in Missouri just outside of St. Louis.  That was a different time but how much has the country really changed?  There is still a lot of racism.  But then we were just turning the corner.  It was a very important film for the time and it still is.

William Schallert as politician Nilz Barris in the classic "Star Trek" episode "The Trouble with Tribbles"

Sam:  Now before we slip too far away from your work in television, one of the really iconic episodes of television science fiction that you had the privilege to be in was the classic Star Trek episode The Trouble with Tribbles.

Bill:  (Laughs)

Sam:  I mean it is just such a famous episode.  I’m not a Star Trek fan….

Bill:  Neither am I.

Sam:  But even I know about The Trouble with Tribbles.  I’ve watched that episode for the first time in years while I was preparing for this interview.  The chemistry between you and William Shatner is incredible.  Its very funny.  I know there are people who love William Shatner and people who loathed him.  How did you feel about him?  Were you really acting?

William Schallet was featured in the famous scene where Captain Kirk gets a truckload of Tribbles dropped on him: "People don’t give (William Shatner) credit for being a really good low key comedian"

Bill:  There is two things to say about Bill Shatner:  first of all people don’t give him credit for being a really good low key comedian.  He is very good at that, but on The Trouble with Tribbles he had that bemused quality of a guy that is dealing with something so stupid and alien that he can’t believe what is happening.  I really have one up on poor Shatner, I really give him a hard time. I did not watch Star Trek.  I had given up on science fiction twenty years before.  I used to read Astounding Science Fiction until I  read something called Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard.  The first version of it appeared in a science fiction pulp magazine and it’s a pity it didn’t stay there.  Well anyway, I was no longer a science fiction fan so I didn’t watch Star Trek and I had no idea what I was involved in, but shortly after I did it I got invited to an early convention which was held at the Marriott hotel near the airport, and I walked in through the door and there were a bunch of people dressed up like aliens with antenai waving like killer bees on SNL.  As I walked in they all yelled “Nilz Barris” and I looked around and they said “No!  That’s you!”  There was something about that experience though that was amazing, because there was a boy there who had only six months to live and he had come all the way across country and he was in a wheelchair and he was there because he had to contact the people from Star Trek.  He wanted to be with them, and I knew that there was something special going on there when a kid’s dying wish is to be there. I thought that that was amazing.

Sam:  Now one of your longest roles that you held down was the voice of Milton the Toaster in the Pop Tart commercials through the 70s and the 80s.

William Schallert voiced Milton the Toaster for Kellogg's Pop Tarts commericals in the 70s and 80s: "I used to love the character! I put my kids through grad school with Milton."

Bill:  I used to love the character!  I put my kids through grad school with Milton  I used to read Winnie the Pooh to my kids, and when I got the script for Milton I figured he’d be sort of like Winnie the Pooh.  Sort of cuddly, but his name was Milton so I figured he might be from back East.  So I made him like Winnie the Pooh but with a New York accent. I was on the air for ten years as that character and then they killed it by accident.  I think the writers used to really hate writing for Milton.  There wasn’t much you could do with Milton because he was such a ridiculous character.  They were beginning to go crazy coming up with things for me to do that were worthwhile to put on the air and they got this idea that I’m talking to this little girl named Suzie and she says “Hi Milton.  What’s a matter.”  I say “I don’t know Suzie.  I’m working very hard.  Maybe I’m working too much.”  She says “Are you feeling all right?”  I say “I don’t know Suzie.  I think I may be a little sick because I’m extra tired today, working so hard making Pop Tarts and all.”  So she puts her hand on me and says “ Milton!  You’re running a fever!”  I said “I knew it!  I knew I was not feeling right!”  Well, Kellogg’s got letters from people saying “How dare you show a small child putting her hand on a hot toaster!”  Kellogg’s said “All right.  Kill that toaster.  We don’t want to see him again.”  So that was the end of the gravy train all because they overreached a little bit.  I did four spots a year, it paid off like a slot machine and there were no conflicts with anything else I did.  It was an ideal job.  It’s too bad.

Sam:  Now you just kept working through the 70s and the 80s, and you worked in so many things and with so many people.  You know the game “The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?”

Bill:  Yeah?

Sam:  Well, your career is more like “The Two Degrees of William Schallert.”

Bill:  (Laughs) I never thought of it that way, but it may be true.  I did know everybody.

Sam:  Do you still know everybody?

William Schallert was both the president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1979 to 1981 and a governor of tje Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences

Bill:  No.  Well, its surprising how many people I do know because I am a trustee of The Motion Picture and Television Fund, and I’m a trustee of the SAG Producer Pension and Health Plan.  I sit on a board with eighteen of my colleagues from the acting profession and eighteen from management, so I know a lot of big shots.  Also, at one point, by accident, I joined the Motion Picture Academy in 1970 when Gregory Peck was president.  I didn’t feel I was worthy of it before that, but I did a picture that Greg Peck produced, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine where I played the judge, so I figured that I’m going to ask if Greg would be willing to sponsor me.  He said “Of course.  I didn’t know you weren’t already a member” so I became a member, and because I was a new member and I got nominated to be a governor of the Academy.  I was working with the Actors Union at the time, so I think a lot of people were voting for me, and Richard Dreyfuss and Lou Gossett Jr. were my competition and I beat both of them.  So I became a governor of the Academy for two years.

Sam:  Now I could go through your list of credits and start picking out names of icons that I love, but who are the people that you enjoyed working with the most?

William Schallert and Walter Matthau met on the set of "Lonely are the Brave"(1962): "He was my best friend"

Bill:  Walter Matthau.  He was my best friend.  We did Lonely are the Brave and we just bonded on that.  His wife and my wife got along really well and Carol and Walter lived just on the next street over.  I can throw a rock from my back window and hit their house.  Walter and I were very close friends from the early 60s on.  I wasn’t part of his usual crowd.  I wasn’t a gambler and I didn’t go to the track, but all of the family occasions, Christmas and during the summer, our families would get together.  He knew the boys and he loved them and they loved him and he would take them to the track sometimes.  He was one of the great people I knew.

Sam:  It seems that television actors are generational.  They seem to work in television for about twenty years, but as the medium changes they have a difficult time crossing over.  You, on the other hand, are still appearing on shows such as Desperate Housewives and True Blood.  How have you been able to maintain your momentum and make the transition over the decades?  How do you remain relevant?

Bill:  The truth is that I am amazed.  A lot of people grew up watching me.  For several generations I was the father figure.  I was Patty Duke’s father, Nancy Drew’s father, The New Gidget’s father and so I became a TV Dad.  The other thing is that although my hair is silver, I haven’t really changed much so that stays the same.  My voice has never changed.  I know how to do curmudgeons.  I played one in the final episode of According to Jim, and a brief thing in How I Met Your Mother.  True Blood turned me off.

Sam:  Why was that?

William Schallert played Mayor Norris in the first season of the cult series "True Blood" but left unimpressed by the series' sexual content: "Vampires bore me. I just don’t get it, and they are all over the place."

Bill:  The blatant pseudo-sex scenes.  It looked pornographic but it wasn’t, but it was probably my wife’s reaction.  She was really offended.  And I got to tell you.  Vampires bore me.  I just don’t get it, and they are all over the place.  We have a granddaughter who loves Twilight and she thinks those are great.  But I think the idea of vampires are idiotic, and they bore me.  I was spooked when I first read Bram Stoker’s Dracula because that’s a powerful piece of writing.  The first movie with Bela Lugosi was sensational, but now we have CGI and people  can leap up and spin in the air and come down on their finger tips and everything is very artificial.  I prefer it a little less obvious and to be more mysterious.  I don’t know.  Believe me, I was a big fan of Lord of the Rings.  I loved Harry Potter, but only the first four and then I got bored of it.  I managed to get through the fourth book and then I started the fifth one and I realized I wasn’t really interested anymore.

Sam:  You’ve been in this business a long time, and you’ve seen a lot of actors come and go.  Do you think the professional ethics in young actors have changed?

William Schallert at Los Angeles' Monsterpalooza in 2010 with a model of the alien from his breakout film "The Man From Planet X"(1951)

Bill:  I don’t know what it’s like for the younger people.  It’s an over-crowded profession, but I think the people are better trained then they used to be and there are a lot of good teachers in Los Angeles.  When we opened the Circle Theater in 1947 we were the only place in town to do anything.  But that situation today have multiplied to fifty.  There are fifty really good, small theatres here.  There is good work done everywhere.  There are a lot of skillful actors available now.  Even though I am in the select group of people who are older then almost everybody, when I go out for an audition for something now, they are all very good actors but you can throw a dart at the room and whoever gets hit could get the part.  At my age it’s even more competitive.  I’m probably the oldest one in the room, but otherwise it’s competitive.  I’m 87 now.  I can’t believe I’m still working.

It is had to believe, but at 87 William Schallert is still going strong in Hollywood.  One of the most wonderful men I’ve ever interviewed, Mr. Schallert is a true pop culture treasure.  However, throughout the interview I was shocked how many times Mr. Schallert referred to his stories as being “dull.”  There is certain humbleness to William Schallert which is almost shocking.  He has had a career longer and more varied then anyone in Hollywood.  He has worked with the biggest icons in the most beloved productions.  He has seen it all, done it all, and lived a life of Technicolor fantasies.  He has lived the history of entertainment, but he has never allowed it to completely go to his head.  However, that doesn’t stop Mr. Schallert from knowing that he is good at what he does, which has kept him in an often cruel business that is famed for chewing people up, and spitting them out.  However, William Schallert is a perennial favorite, and clearly his talent and his down-to-earth persona is what has kept him alive in the entertainment world, and has brought him into our homes year after year, decade after decade, and generation after generation.

POP CULTURE ADDICT NOTE:  I want to give a special thanks to Carol Summers for arranging my interview with William Schallert.  Her kindness in putting together this unique opportunity is greatly appreciated and won’t be forgotten.  Thanks for all you’ve done for us Carol.