Casting coup
George Wendt of Cheers fame to star in Drayton’s Death of a Salesman
To kick off our phone interview, I tell former “Cheers” star George Wendt — greeted every time he stepped into the famous TV bar with a rousing chorus of “NORM!” — about my encounter with Potsie from “Happy Days,” eight years after the famed ‘70s sitcom went off the air.
“Anson Williams (the actor who played him) showed up on a Kitchener car lot to drum up buzz for a dinner theatre gig in Toronto,” I inform the 68-year-old comic actor, starring in a decidedly non-comedic Drayton production of the American tragedy, “Death of a Salesman.”
“Even in 1992, most people had no idea who he was. The only one to ask for an autograph was an indifferent seven-year-old coaxed by a reporter, who happened to be me.”
Wendt grunts into the phone, his response noncommittal.
“You, on the other hand,” I tell him, “avoided that fate with post‘Cheers’ appearances on cutting edge shows like ‘Family Guy,’ ‘The Simpsons,’ ‘The Larry Sanders Show,’ ‘Portlandia’, “The Colbert Report” and theatrical turns in “Hairspray” and “Elf: The Musical.” “You, Sir, are a hipster.” Wendt — as genial, laid-back and Norm-like as you might expect — lets out a laugh.
“Anson Williams has all my respect,” he informs in his obliging, low-key way.
“Sometimes you just need to pay the bills, so there are jobs you could probably find that are not as distinguished as Broadway. That happens.
“I just keep myself available and as busy as I can, because a) it’s really, really fun, b) retirement would be kind of really boring and I like the challenge.
“And ‘Death of a Salesman’ is all that, that’s for sure.”
In a casting coup for Drayton, Wendt will play the iconic role of Willy Loman, the white collar loser whose tragic belief in the curdled American Dream exposes it as a fabrication rooted in a lie.
But how can the guy who played schmoozy, beer-soaked Norm Peterson for 11 years star in one of theatre’s most wrenching classics and expect to be taken seriously?
“Yes, it’s a bit of a leap,” laughs Wendt without breaking a sweat.
“You’d think we’re doing the comic version. We’re gonna do everything completely as written, except I’m gonna wear a propeller beanie for the whole show, just to see how that works.”
He’s joking, I think (he doesn’t telegraph his punchlines).
But the affable thespian insists humour always crops up in unlikely places, something he learned during his role in a 2007 production of the nail-biting courtroom drama, “Twelve Angry Men.”
“You know, ‘Twelve Angry Men’ was shockingly funny,” he points out.
“We were all surprised because we’re in a rehearsal room in New York for three weeks and acting our guts out. And we get to New Haven for our initial engagement and there were huge laughs. And we were like ‘What? This is crazy!’
He pauses knowingly. “Willy Loman’s got laughs, no doubt. You’d be surprised.”
A bigger concern, based on past experience, is that midway through a heartfelt soliloquy about the shattered refuse of Willy’s life, some overzealous “Cheers” fan — overcome with emotion — may stand up and shout “NORM!”
“Yeah, it happens,” concedes the Chicago native, pretty much unfazed by everything.
“It’s pretty rare. I sure hope it doesn’t happen with Willy, but it may well.”
He chuckles: “I was the first person through the door in ‘Twelve Angry Men’ as the guard lets us into the room and, in a year of doing that all over the country on a national tour, it only happened once or twice.
“There’s a jolt of recognition and there may be the odd impulse, but it goes away real fast.”
Would he carry on, undeterred, if it happens in St. Jacobs, or deep dive into the audience to exact retribution?
“I think I should just stop the show and take a bow,” he notes mischievously.
“‘OK, one two three, great. OK, we’re done’.”
Despite his joking, I point out, it could happen.
Drayton has always had talented casts, but actors with the stature of Wendt — a TV fixture nominated for six Emmy Awards — are rare.
For a tiny village like St. Jacobs, his arrival — I’m exaggerating only slightly — is akin to The Beatles touching down in North America, or maybe the moon landing.
“I did a project last summer in Muscle Shoals, Alabama — a jukebox musical of all these R&B hits,” notes Wendt, not buying into the myth of his own celebrity.
“And I played one of The Swampers — the session men (at the famed recording studio) — when The Rolling Stones came to town. And the townspeople were completely like they were from Mars.
“They went into a local diner
and the waitress would say, ‘You all aren’t from around here, are you? Are you in some kind of a band?’”
He laughs. “Yes, we’re Martha and the Vandellas!”
But seriously, he says, “I’m sure it’ll be pretty normal. I’m sure it’s not gonna be like some god walking down the street.
He grunts sardonically. “I hope to minimize the walking anyways.”
The reality, he says, is that 24 years after the demise of the show that ensconced him as a life-sized barfly emoji, George Wendt is no longer an A-list celebrity.
“I don’t see paparazzi outside my house, so that’s an indicator,” he notes with the same cheery self-deprecation he brought to his famous TV character.
“So I guess I would be on Kathy Griffin’s D-List.”
Come on, I challenge. After a quarter century on prime time, you’re telling me no one recognizes you when you walk down the street?
“No, I still get recognized,” he concedes.
“But I’m way older and I don’t look that much like Norm anymore, so it’s not like an issue at airports or anything.
“There’s a few people who smile or say hello, but it’s not crazymaking.”
He reflects momentarily: “It was crazy towards the end of ‘Cheers.’ We were paparazzi fodder back then — not just me, but everybody in general.”
Wait, do I detect a note of poignant reflection?
Is it possible this mega-successful TV sidekick shares the same anxieties as the bittersweet grasper he plays in “Death of a Salesman”?
“Oh yes, sadly there’s all kind of things to relate to,” he confides openly.
“I wonder if my life insurance is paid up. I wonder what I’ll leave to my kids, how I’m gonna pay the bills, all kinds of stuff ... sons and daughters. “It’s pretty close to my actual life.” Not wanting to end on a plaintive note, I ask how he reacts when people — in tribute to his suds-guzzling ‘Cheers’ character — insist on buying him a beer.
“Very early on, I would say, ‘oh, that’s silly — it’s the thought that counts. Here, let me buy YOU one!’” he recounts sheepishly. “And their faces would sink.
“And I realized they wanted to say they bought the ‘Cheers’ guy a beer. “So now I just say ‘Yeah, yeah, thanks.’ “But sometimes, as the night goes on, you’ve gotta say ‘OK, I’m good. It really is the thought that counts. I can’t have another drink!’”
Not that he expects an issue in St. Jacobs.
“I did hear there’s some craft brewing going on in your neck of the woods,” he confides in a conspiratorial whisper.
Pregnant pause. “That will be fun.”