TV/Radio & Cable Week, Sunday, June 24, 198
Groh wild about villain role on 'GH' By STEVE WEINER
lt’s no more Mr Nice Guy for Rhoda’s ex, actor David Groh, who once wooed and wed TV’s Rhoda Morgenstern in a ceremony that rivaled that of Charles and Diana. Groh is now thriving on ABC’s daytime super-soap “General Hospital,’’ weekdays at 3 p.m. This often intense veteran actor has built up the role of D.L. Brock, a paranoid wheeler dealer type, into one of the most well-liked bad guys in daytime drama.
Lately, it seems that nothing is going right for the demon of Port Charles. To begin with, his business has failed, his wife Bobbie walked out on him and he’s gone out on occasional drinking sprees. Quite to the contrary, as an actor, Groh has struck gold with the Brock character. “I love the character. I think it’s going to stand me in good stead for the rest of my career,” Groh told TV Week. “Brock is a real wild guy; he’s crazy! He’s paranoid and thinks anyone who disagrees with him is out to get him. It’s me against them. He’s diamonds in the rough. That’s an interesting type of character to play and I want to move in that direction. You don’t get very far playing Mr Nice Guy.” Brock has earned quite a reputation around Port Charles with his shady business deals and general lack of charm and finesse Long time fans of the show might even recall Scotty Baldwin, a scheming attorney who was practically ostracized from the make-believe Long Island shore town for equally backstabbing propositions.
However, there are some good qualities underneath Brock’s snakeskin You can safely say he works hard at what he does and he does it well, even if he is pulling the rug out from under his fellow Port Charlestons. The curly haired 40-year-old actor is quick to admit he shares many similarities with the Brock character “I’m not paranoid but I think I’m ambitious. I'm a hard worker like he is, but I believe in the positive way of doing things He’s just more extreme I have D.L Brock in me but he’s under wraps Acting gives me the license to drop those wraps and try to express what I think is really there.” David Lawrence Groh even loaned his initials to D.L. Brock, whose first name is Donald — a name Groh isn’t too keen on for his devilish character. “Danny would have been a great name for him.” Groh pauses “Dan Brock" he enunciates as if imagining the name for the first time on a Broadway marquee.
Unlike the character he portrays, Groh followed more traditional methods in his quest for success. The Brooklyn-born actor attended Brown University where he received a prestigious Fulbright Scholorship in drama allowing him to study in England at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. He appeared on and off-Broadw|ay in such critically acclaimed plays as “Hot L Baltimore" and “Antony and Cleopatra” with Katherine Hepburn. Groh, who rarely watches the soaps, eventually moved to the daytime serials including “The Guiding Light”, “The Secret Storm” and “Love is a Many Splendored Thing” Later, he led the cast of Neil Simon's Broadway play “Chapter Two” and did several TV movies including “Smash Up on Interstate 5” and “Victory at Entebbe.”
Perhaps, Groh’s best known for his role as Joe Gerard, the handsome young husband of Rhoda Morgenstern played by Valerie Harper on the CBS series “Rhoda” in 1974. A spinoff of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Rhoda” was a huge ratings success. Still, the show’s producers decided to divorce Groh from “Rhoda.” Groh explained with apparent signs of resentment. “They (the producers) just said they didn’t feel it would be as good to write for a happy wedding which I didn’t particularly go for because Lucy had a happy wedding and that was some of the greatest sitcom ever. I think the character of Rhoda had to be a loser and she was losing that image. She was too happily married to the ideal guy and Brenda, her sister, became the new Rhoda and was getting better parts. Perhaps, they felt the audience wouldn’t identify with her. The producers said we think that it will be very good for your acting if the marriage split up and ended in a bittersweet romance.” And so it did.
Much like the Joe and Rhoda romance, Groh has learned once again that love and marriage isn't all that it’s cut out to be. His “General Hospital” marriage to Bobbie Spencer (Luke’s sister) played by the attractive Jackie Zeman has crumbled to pieces ending with a physical argument in which a drunken Brock kayos Bobbie.How did audiences feel about that dramatic scene depicting wife abuse on television? “Thus far the response has been very good” says Groh. People keep saying we don’t like a guy like Brock but we sure love you. Personally, I think that it’s very good because there’s a lot of wife abuse in this country and generally women don’t do anything about it. Therefore they try to brush it under the carpet and pretend that nothing has happened and you see them walking around with black eyes and broken noses. It’s good to present it and get it out in the open. Bobbie left him because of that. She acted in a positive way and maybe in a small way it might help somebody.” Groh confirms rumors of his off-camera romance with his TV wife Ms Zeman, although there’s no future plans for marriage. “We go out. I think we both date other people. I think the world of her. Besides being a fine actress she’s a fine person," he said.
Their close relationship and respect for each other off-screen is beneficial to the couple on screen, he says. However, Groh admits there are difficulties, though. “I guess it could hinder if you have a real master fight or jealousy occurs and you’re in a situation where everything is going peachy on the show. It’s difficult if you have to go against what’s going on between the two people.
By
Paul Raven ·
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.