BUFFALO COURIEH EXPRESS. Wednesday. May 11, 1977
Ex-Amherst Soap Star in ’Plaza Suite’ Role Here
THE POWER OF television's daytime soap operas and their stars — including former Amherst actor Tom Hallick — is at work for the benefit of "Plaza Suite.” a Neil Simon staple for years as a stage and movie comedy. Hallick was in town Tuesday to talk of ins upcoming appearance in "Plaza Suite," to be staged on May 21 at the Century Theater. He and his parents. Mr. and Mrs. Harold Hallick of Clarence, lunched appropriately at the Plaza Suite restaurant with this writer.
"A group of us from the soaps have been presenting this comedy in a number of cities, for the past year." said Tom. "We work weekends and during our vacation periods from our respective shows. The soaps grind out all year round, and we have to fit this venture into a pretty tight schedule. “After our Buffalo appearance, we’re going to do a full week's stand in Pittsburgh. It took some doing to get off the hows that long. Doing the daytime serials is a rough grind, but what fame we have has been won by becoming so well known on the tube to those fantastic soap-opera fans. And it s bringing them out in droves to see ‘Plaza Suite,’ which most have never seen before.”
Tom is well known to the soap addicts through his role as Brad Eliot in "The Young and the Restless,” one of the highest-rated series of the lot. "We’re No. 1 in most of our markets,” said Tom. "Would you believe we quite often get a 40 per cent share of audience?” The Young and the Restless” appears locally at 11:30 mornings on Ch. 4, and again at 4 afternoons on Ch. 11. Brad Eliot, or Tom Hallick, is a handsome young newspaperman who is married to a beautiful pianist. In real life, Tom is handsome, but his wife is not a pianist. Facially, he’s a corbon copy of his father, and also bears a strong resemblance to Dick Gautier, who played Robin in the short-lived Mel Brooks comedy series, "When Things Were Rotten.”
Tom lives in Los Angeles, and battles the freeway traffic each day to his soap-opera chores, which begin at 8 a.m. in CBS’ Television City. "We shoot 32 pages of script a day,” said Tom, "compared to six or seven which are done for each half-hour situation comedy. We get home late in the evening and start studying our lines for the next day. It’s rough, but I’ve weathered four years on the show and enjoy it.
“I MAKE NO apologies for the soaps, or serials, as we prefer to call them. The actors are good, and the scripts deal with the real stuff of life more than the prime time shows, where the only superior thing is the stars’ money. “And the soaps have opened doors for me to do a lot of other things. I’ve done a lot of game and interview shows, as host and as a panelist. In Florida, I had the only interview show in town, did things with the astronauts and all the entertainment biggies who came to town. "One of my biggest thrills there was riding in the photo plane that accompanied a rocket blastoff at Cape Kennedy." “It was a strange kind of a thrill for me,” said Tom’s mother, “to see you mobbed by fans and autograph seekers when you played in ’Plaza Suite’ in Rochester. My son, the star.” Tom’s a graduate of Harlem Rd. Elementary School in Snyder, and of Amherst Central High School. He worked as an NBC page in New York City,and also did stint as a news caster and weatherman at WKBW-TV. “I’d have paid them to put me on screen.” said Tom. “I guess I’ve always been a stagestruck ham."
TOM’S PARTNERS in the Buffalo appearance of "Plaza Suite” also carry soap-opera pulling power for fans who recognize their faces everywhere they go. They are Janice Lynde and Jeanne Cooper of "The Young and the Restless"; John Lupton of “Days of Our Lives”; and Emily McLaughlin and Jim Sikking of "General Hospital ” Off-screen, Tom’s hobby is backpacking in the remote areas of the national parks. He's a wildlife conservationist with a particular interest in saving what remains of the majestic North American grizzly bears. ‘T'm a lover of the big bears,” both the grizzlies and brownies, magnificent animals. I’d say my second biggest thrill to the photo-plane ride was meeting a brownie face-to-face on a remote wilderness trad near a river. I guess the bear and I wanted to fish in the same stream. When he reared up to 11 feet high, not 10 feet away from me, I didn't argue the point. But we both retreated. I wasn’t really scared right then, just awed at the closeup encounter with this mighty beast.”
Then we retreated to watch Tom on that other mighty beast, the TV tube. Thursday he was a participant in "Match Game” (3:30 p.m.. Ch. 4). and wanted us to see him in it. As Tom was first on screen, and pointed that out proudly to his parents.
HE WAS somewhat taken aback when Harold Hallick, as fathers will, said, “You’ve got the same shirt on you're wearing now.” And mother chimed in, “Also the same jacket.” Tom, somewhat abashed, offered. "We wear several wardrobes while taping game shows,’’ and watched the proceedings in silence. His latest effort on the small screen, outside the soaps, is the 90-m i n u t e interview-variety show. “The American Flyer.” “We do a lot of location shooting on it," said Tom. “I’m cohost with Dan Rowan, and we do comedy blackout skits in places like the Grand Canyon and other scenic areas. The show's now being syndicated to stations around the country.
Tom seemed to have a lot of irons in the fire, but once he left Y&R it all seemed to fizzle. His return to soaps as Maxwell Hathaway saw him pushed aside when they got Joseph Mascolo to return. They even made his daughter Stefano's.
By
Paul Raven ·
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