It's good to be king

By Mike Dunham
mdunham@adn.com

Published: April 8th, 2009 05:32 PM
Last Modified: April 8th, 2009 05:54 PM

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Photo by Eric Jamison

"Spamalot," one of the offerings for the Anchorage Concert Association's 2008-09 season.

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Late on Sunday night, John O'Hurley will take his final bow in the closing production of the musical "Chicago" in Washington, D.C.

About 48 hours later, he'll step onto the Atwood stage as King Arthur in the Anchorage Concert Association's presentation of "Spamalot." In between he has to make the long flight from the East Coast, check into his hotel and grow a beard.

"I don't know if this has been attempted before," he said by phone. "And it probably shouldn't be."

But O'Hurley -- famed as the pompous J. Peterman on "Seinfeld" but perhaps better-known in Alaska for the GCI ads that featured him for many years -- is nothing if not a multi-tasker. His often simultaneous careers embrace comedy, drama, voice work, musicals, dance, instrumental music, movies, live theater, television soaps and probably some other things we don't know about.

O'Hurley caught "Spamalot" two and a half years ago and thought it was "the funniest show I've ever seen." He called up the producers, who told him they were about to take the show to Las Vegas. He took the Arthur role and ran with it there for two years.

"I have molded this character into the characters I play," he said. "Arthur is J. Peterman separated by 1,200 years. They have the same sense of 'hoist-with-your-own-petard' self-deprecation, the same sense of constantly trying to justify yourself. Arthur's problem is that no one really realizes that he's the king."

It's "dizzying" work, he added. "I've never seen a more technically complicated musical. It has 24 scenes and every one is a spectacle backstage. Unbelievable choreography, 17 costume changes for some of the people.

"I make very few guarantees in entertainment, but people will laugh from the moment the baton drops until the curtain falls."

Not just the audience. Even the performers aren't immune to the silliness. "A lot of time in every show, I have to turn my head so that I won't laugh," O'Hurley said.

His professional debut wasn't so mirthful. Graduating with a degree in theater, he said, "I got scared of the business, so I retreated to advertising and public relations."

That lasted five years, "until I spent too many sleepless nights worrying about a life that really wasn't my own. I decided to listen to my imagination. Went to New York and landed my first show 48 hours after I arrived. It was the worst musical ever done on Broadway."

O'Hurley described "Eternal Love," a song-and-dance show based on the love story of Abelard and Heloise, as running "Six hours long. They cut it to three hours, but it still didn't have any laughs."

And why would it? Abelard was a medieval monk and philosopher. Heloise's infuriated uncle had him castrated. O'Hurley still snorted at the absurdity of what was obviously a vanity production.

"It was like the original 'Springtime for Hitler,' with every bad accident ever put into a musical," he said. "But it got me everything I needed, my agent, my equity card, experience. So, embarrassing as it was, I'm eternally grateful to 'Eternal Love.'"

He became a fixture in television serials, "The Edge of Night," "The Young and the Restless," and prime time's "Valley of the Dolls" as well as guest parts on scores of television shows. But it was the role in "Seinfeld," the No. 1 show of its era, that made him a household face. That job led to others -- game show host, spokesman for GCI, voice of cartoon characters and, most surprisingly for him, dance star.

"I trained classically as an actor and as a singer," he said. "What was the one thing I forgot to learn?"

He found out when he was asked to appear on the first season of "Dancing With the Stars." "It was God's great practical joke on me. Nine parts Marine boot camp and one part cocktail party, the single most physically and mentally exhausting thing I've ever done."

It started out with few viewers, but suddenly became the hit show of the season. In the finals, the judges eliminated O'Hurley -- but public outcry (and marketing savvy) demanded a rematch, which he and his partner won.

In dancing, as in comedy, timing is essential. "I think of comedy as more of a musical thing," he said. "You can either feel it or you can't. You can't teach it. In that respect it's very operatic, every rise and fall has got to be inside you."

Recently he's taken that rise and fall into a new genre, musical composition, with recordings of his own music played on piano or piano and cello. He's self-taught as a pianist, "I can only play my own music," but his style is clean and melodic and the recordings have sold well.

"I do it as a very private thing," he said. "I love Mancini, the late '50s when melody was the most important thing. Over-produced percussive tracks are the thing now. People aren't singing. 'American Idol' is teaching us to wail, not sing, and there are no great singers anymore."

Does he ever wish things had turned out differently? Not really, he said. "But if I had any druthers, I'd wish that 'Seinfeld' had gone on another year. I think we were just hitting a stride, getting to a new level, a new style. And I miss it."

• Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332.

Spamalot Presented by the Anchorage Concert Association at 7:30 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 3 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday from April 14-24 in Atwood Concert Hall. Tickets are $61-$86, at centertix.net and the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts box office, or call 263-2787. Discounts are available for most performances for groups of 20 or more by calling 272-1471.

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