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Entertainment
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November 14, 2007 21:07:23
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Haworth's Philip Bosco is a seasoned star
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
By VIRGINIA ROHAN
STAFF WRITER
Philip Bosco's voice, rich and authoritative, suggests that he might have come of age in an old-money burg in New England rather than the gritty urban locale where he grew up -- Jersey City.
"It's not an act. This is how I talk," says an undefensive Bosco, who attributes his "heightened speech" to vocal training for classical theater he received long ago at Catholic University.
The 77-year-old Tony winner -- a veteran of stage and screen whose face, if not his name, is as instantly recognizable as that voice -- has been acting professionally for 52 years. And so there is much to chat about on this day, in the living room of the Haworth home he and Nancy, his wife of half a century, built a decade ago. Airy and inviting, it's amply large to accommodate visits from their seven children and 15 grandchildren, whose photos adorn the walls.
"It's lived in," says Bosco, who moved to Haworth after 31 years in Teaneck. "It's a meeting place for all the family. When we're all together, we have 27, 28 people, including the grandkids and what we call the 'outlaws.' "
This warm and happy image is a stark contrast to Bosco's latest movie role -- as an irascible father who's estranged from his grown children -- in the independent film "The Savages," slated for Nov. 28 release. Written and directed by Tamara Jenkins ("Slums of Beverly Hills" , it also stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney. They play siblings forced to deal with their dad, Bosco's disagreeable Lenny Savage, after the old man's girlfriend dies and just as he's showing signs of dementia.
Savage is a big departure from his attorney Hollis Nye on the FX drama "Damages" and the other dignified characters that Bosco generally plays.
"The trick was not to make him lovable irascible," says Bosco, of playing the crude, scruffy Savage. "There are maybe one or two times where you saw that there might have been a germ of affection towards the kids. There was a glimmer of humanity. But he was not a pleasant person."
Bosco thought his Nye might also be a heavy on the multilayered "Damages," which recently ended its first season and has been renewed for two more. But then, in the season finale, Nye lured young lawyer Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) into a meeting with two FBI agents. (And they really were FBI agents, Bosco says.)
Guidance in school
Bosco expects he'll be asked to be a regular cast member. One of the best things about "Damages," he says, is that it's filmed in and around New York City -- close to home.
Bosco's desire to be an actor crystallized at age 13, when he played Machiavelli the Cat in a play at St. John's School in Jersey City. The nuns fitted him with a costume with a big tail, which he played with onstage for comic effect. "I was the hit of the show," he says.
More than the laughter and applause, what tickled him was that his mother "beamed" when neighborhood folks gushed about her talented son.
Bosco's dad was a carnival worker, a concessionaire who ran ball toss and all sorts of other stands at "small-time carnivals," in school lots and such. In the summers of his youth, Bosco traveled and worked with his dad.
It was at St. Peter's Prep High School in Jersey City that Bosco met his mentor, a retired actor named James Marr.
"He saw something in me that I wasn't even aware of," Bosco says.
Besides guiding him to triumphs on the debating team and in school plays, Marr, most crucially, steered Bosco to Catholic University -- where he met his future wife.
"It's amazing how your life can be changed by one decision," he says.
Bosco actually had two stints at Catholic U. His first time there, he got expelled as an 18-year-old freshman -- "I was so tied up in the theater, I neglected my studies," he explains.
Drafted by the Army, he was sent to signal corps school in Georgia. That's where, in an amateur theatrical group, he got to work with a young and then dark-haired Jayne Mansfield.
"She was just a kid, just about 18," Bosco recalls. "Oh, she was gorgeous."After he returned to Catholic University in 1955, he met Nancy Ann Dunkle, an Ohio girl who also had been steered to Catholic U. They married in 1957, shortly before Bosco's graduation.
After several seasons of doing plays at Washington's Arena Stage (while also driving a tractor-trailer and doing graduate studies), he got a call from director Alan Schneider, whom he'd worked with at Arena. He wanted Bosco to play Angelo in "Measure for Measure" at Joe Papp's new theater in Central Park. Bosco was reluctant, but Schneider persisted.
"I went up three times to audition. Joe Papp turned me down twice," Bosco recalls. "The third time, I learned later, Alan said to Joe Papp, 'I know what he can do. And if you don't let me have him, I'm not going to do the show.' "
That well-reviewed role changed Bosco's life. He got an agent, came to New York in 1960 and soon did his first Broadway show, "The Rape of the Belt," which won him a Drama Critics Award, his first of a number of Tony nominations and lots of attention.
Onstage to onscreen
Since then, Bosco estimates that he has done about 100 plays in and around New York on and off-Broadway, including his Tony-winning role in "Lend Me a Tenor" in 1989. He also has been in more than 40 movies, including "Children of a Lesser God" and "Working Girl." Though he has had lead roles in a few indies, of which he is proud, he says he didn't have much to do in the bigger films because he didn't seriously go into movies until he was 55.
"I mean, what do they do with a brand new 55-year-old?" Bosco asks. "Most of those parts are already given to the 55-year-olds who have been part of [the movies] for years. So, I get the kind of leavings. I don't say this with any bitterness. It's just a fact of life."
Currently, Bosco has a recurring role as a judge on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" (which stars Mariska Hargitay, Mansfield's daughter). He also has appeared on "Criminal Intent" and many episodes of the original "Law & Order."
"I played I can't tell you how many different lawyers, usually corrupt, usually defending the mob or something," he says, chuckling.
Despite his amazingly full resume, Bosco did have a couple of lean years in the early 1970s, he says. Nancy helped the family make ends meet by working as a waitress and as a distributor of The Record, working out of their Teaneck garage. Bosco did his part, too.
"The thing that killed us all was the inserts [for] the Sunday paper. It would take us forever," he says. "But it got us through the tough times. We were so grateful. And then I started working."
And since then, it seems, he has never stopped.
E-mail: rohan@northjersey.com
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