An Actor's Life: My Unfinished Story, with no ending in sight.

Watching my mother’s brother portray Captain Dave on the children’s show “The Alphabet Set” is where my love for acting began and I owe it Although my late uncle David Stacks aka Charles Davis as he was professionally known at various media-related jobs during his life from the morning weather guy at B98.5 to the early morning news guy at KTHV, a CBS affiliate, to a news reporter for KKYK TV, a former WB affiliate and lastly Ron Sherman Advertising. 

 

Yet, it wouldn’t be until my 10th-grade year of high school when I would entertain the idea of acting. Yet, my know-it-all attitude would prevent me from learning any valuable lessons Ms. Kelly Webber tried to instill in me.

In the beginning, fear chased me from my first stage production at the University of Central Arkansas Youth Theater ended with dropping out of the performance. 

A couple of years later, at Arkansas State University at Beebe, same college actress Tess Harper (Crimes of the Heart, No Country for Old Men, and El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie) had once attended. I would try my hand behind the curtain as a stage-manager for a production of William Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor.

After leaving college, note I didn’t say graduating from college; I put being on stage or behind the curtain on the back burner and instead tried my hand at writing as I wandered aimlessly in the asphalt jungle of life, attempting to figure out my life’s purpose. 

Flash forward twenty-something years later, I would find myself staring at a blank screen with ideas bouncing around my brain and out of frustration, I chose submit for an on camera acting gig as a background actor. Soon I found myself working on the film set of Antiquities as a patron of the Crazy Girls adult nightclub, followed by 1st Summoning, then my first speaking role in the film Indestructible: Reckoning and onto an episode of the third season of True Detective.

 

 

The lesson here is never to give up and recognize not everyone will become a household name or earn enough to own a house, much less a mansion. 

Lastly and most importantly, from Tom Hanks to myself, the common factor between us is that we chose to live our lives for the love of the craft, and that is worth more than any of the trappings money or fame can provide.

Though, it would be nice to keep the collectors at bay.