I was first introduced to my newest interview subject, Gabe Jarret, when I saw The Karate Kid, Part III on The Disney Channel in the 90s. In that movie, he played Rudy, the club kid who who gets paid to be beaten by Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso. Many years later, Charles Sherman, who set up my 2020 interviews with Amy Stoch and Rich Manley, connected me to Gabe, and we had the pleasure of talking to each other earlier this month. I hope you all enjoy getting to know him.
I first came to know of Bruce Vilanch’s work in the 1990s. Whether it was through the jokes he wrote for Academy Awards hosts like Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal, or through his deliciously saucy answers on the late-90s incarnation of Hollywood Squares, Mr. Vilanch made quite an impression on me. In 2021, with the assistance of Clay Mills of The Katz Company, I was able to set up an e-mail interview with Mr. Vilanch about various aspects of his work. Even in written format, his unique wit comes shining through, and I hope you all enjoy this interview.
My first exposure to my newest interview subject’s work came from the late 80s to the early 90s. I saw Stuart Pankin on both HBO’s Not Necessarily The News, where he played anchorman Bob Charles and many other characters, and ABC’s Dinosaurs, where he provided the voice of Earl Sinclair. As I grew older, I would see Stuart Pankin in movies like Love At Stake and Arachnophobia, and find him to be a very funny talent. My friend and former interview subject Kim Hopkins, who worked with Stuart in The Hollywood Knights, suggested Mr. Pankin to me as a potential interview subject and helped to connect us on social media. I spoke to Stuart on Monday, July 27th, and I hope you all enjoy getting to know him.
My newest interview subject, Deborah Dutch, is a talent I’d been hoping to interview for several years. I would see pictures of her shared by Facebook friends, and I was taken by her beauty. Looking at Deborah Dutch’s extensive list of credits, I was impressed by all the films she did and talents she worked with. I was first connected to Deborah by my friend and two-time interview subject Debra Lamb, a long-time friend and collaborator of Ms. Dutch’s. From there, Deborah and I became fast friends, and we had two great, long conversations that form the basis of this interview. I hope you all enjoy getting to know her.
Sondra Currie, whom I had the great pleasure of interviewing recently, has a career that stretches back to the 1970s. Over the years, she’s appeared in a wide variety of projects, ranging from 70s cult classics like Policewomen and Mama’s Dirty Girls to guest roles on shows like Three’s Company and The Golden Girls in the 80s and Murder, She Wrote in the 90s, to playing Linda, the mother of Alan (Zach Galifnakis) in the Hangover trilogy. This is in addition to a lengthy stage career that’s seen her essay roles in classics from A Streetcar Named Desire to Death Of A Salesman.
If you love cartoons, you’ll recognize Lori Alan’s voice. Over the course of the past 20 years, she’s done the voices of characters as diverse as Susan Storm on Fantastic Four, Diane Simmons on Family Guy and Pearl on SpongeBob SquarePants. Before she started a career in voice-over work, she was a live-action actress who made her debut on the original Law And Order, and has continued to be seen on camera to this day, with recent appearances on shows like Disney XD’s Mighty Med and Nickelodeon’s Nicky, Ricky, Dicky and Dawn.
