Peter Mark Richman
If you have ever watched a TV show you have seen Peter Mark Richman for he has been on well over 500+ shows and is one hell of an actor. I had the great opportunity to talk with this TV legend and did it ever open my eyes to the world of Television and how things have changed...or not changed. So this is the interview and I think it's a must read for anyone who wants to know the real goings on in television today. This is the Peter Mark Richman interview...
Marcus:: Hello?
Peter:: Hi!
Marcus:: How are you doing?
Peter:: I'm Good! By the way, where are you calling from?
Marcus:: Boston.
Peter:: From Boston? Ok...what can I tell you my friend?
Marcus:: Ok I have about 20 questions for you.
Peter:: 20? That's all? (Laughs) I'm teasing you!
Marcus:: (Laughs) Ok, Let's start from the beginning. Where did your love for acting begin?
Peter:: Uhhhh Well it became evident when I was a little kid, going back to first grade, second grade, things like that. I had a feeling about being in a play. I had an interesting experience when I was about 6 years old and I was in a Christmas Cantata and I was suddenly playing the father in a play and I did the first morning performance and it was a morning and afternoon thing and I couldn't do the second performance cause I got chicken pox! That ended my first initial effort.
Marcus:: Oh wow. Who was your biggest inspiration?
Peter:: The biggest inspiration into acting?
Marcus:: Yes.
Peter:: I don't know. When I was a little boy I lived in south Philadelphia on a place called Pacciunk Avenue. There are many names in Philadelphia with "unk" in it and those are Indian names. So Pacciunk Avenue is where I was raised and across the street from my house was a movie theatre called the Alhambra theatre. I would see 4 or 5 programs a week, I was a movie buff as a kid. Whether I would pay 10 cents to get in or sneak in or whatever I did, I saw untold number of films. I talk about this in my book of short stories called "The Rebirth of Iron Masters" which is on my website. There is a section in there about my childhood talking about the movie theatre. It is really quite extensive about my experiences as a kid. I had a lot of awareness of films and acting from the time I was a little kid. I was impressed with that image on the screen, I had a very dysfunctional childhood, a very terrible childhood and this was sort of a escape for me and was a great help for me in my life.
Marcus:: I read that you played football for 2 years in a Pennsylvania league called Eastern Pro Conference, you were then sidelined and became a registered pharmacist.
Peter:: Well that's a long story....want to hear briefly what that is all about?
Marcus:: Sure.
Peter:: Well I was a High school star in Philadelphia
and I was captain and full back of our high school team which were
called the Rams and we won the city championship when I was the captain in High
School. They used to call me the battering ram. I had a lot of interest in me to
go to college and play foot ball but the war 
was on. The second world war, and
it was a question of me going to war or me going into the navy so at 17 I
enlisted in the Navy. And then I went away and before to long, we dropped the
bomb in Japan and the war was over. I came back and I was scouted again to go to
many colleges to play. Meanwhile, there was a conference call that I used to see
back in Philadelphia called the Pro Conference league and one of these guys that
were in a gambling syndicate came up to me and said they wanted me to play for
this league in a particular team called Pacciunk Square which was an area that I
grew up at. And it had teams like Conchihaka Pros and Chester Pros, Frankford
Yellow Jackets...all these names that had to do with names that were in Philadelphia
and Eastern Pennsylvania. So I played and I was pretty good and I
got scouted again and I went up to Dartmouth and I got invited up to University
of Maryland and they wanted me to start there and all that. Meanwhile I was
going with a girl and I decided ohhh Do I want to play foot ball for the rest of
my life blah blah blah. They wouldn't give me a course, I was more interested in
radio and television...well not television it hadn't started yet. I was
interested in communications, expressing myself, stage whatever. There was no
such thing, they were looking at me kind of weird when I said that in terms of
football. They wanted to give me business courses so that disillusioned me and
meanwhile I had an entrance to the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy since my
brother was a pharmacist and I resisted that. A year went by and I had
matriculated to Dartmouth or Penn and I found myself as a freshman in the Philadelphia
College of Pharmacy. Second year rolled around and I was suddenly
playing for the Shamrocks a different team and I got a terrible, terrible injury
to my right leg and had to have knee reconstruction. That was the end of my
football days and I thought I would flunk out but I stuck it out and I became a
registered Pharmacist in Pennsylvania and then I took a state board in New York
but that's a whole other long story! Otherwise I could go on for a days and a half!
::laughs:: I better quit while I am ahead! ::Laughs::
Marcus:: ::laughs:: That's pretty cool though...
Peter:: yeah the thing is I took the New York State Board, the Pennsylvania State Board and there was a gentleman in the New York State Board named Leslie C. Jayne, I never forgot that name. He was the president of the state board and I called him on the phone on a phone booth that was outside the college and said..cause I had been rejected by the New York State Board to take the examination...and I knew I was going to go to New York and wanted to be an actor. They turned me down because they weren't to keen on having out of state pharmacists come at the same most states aren't keen on having out of state people take there state board especially New York. So I call up the president of the state board and it took A LOT of balls to do this and I got the secretary and she says what can I do for you? and I said I would like to talk to the president of the board she said about what? I said well it's imperative that I speak to him because blah blah blah I'm coming to New York and she says just a moment. He comes on the phone and says what can I do for you son? I tell him my story...which took a lot of guts really...I must come to New York, I am coming to New York...I must be a pharmacist in New York, I have a license in state board I just past blah blah blah he says alright son come ahead. So I went and took the New York State board and at the time I stayed in Jack Klugman's apartment and another actor who I knew, I had done a Philadelphia acting school with...a young actor named Charles Buchinsky...
Marcus:: Oh wow Charles Bronson? I was a big fan of his!
Peter:: Yeah well Charles Bronson and I knew
each other way back when he started in acting school, he was in a acting school
that I did a summer course in that I was in on a G.I. bill called The Betsy
Bahicks school of 
drama in
Philly. He was a kid who came in wearing dark glasses
and a pin stripe suit and he was a very quiet and shy young guy...nice and
sweet, sweet young man. He came from Scranton I believe and we became friends and
so I passed the New York State board and that summer I went away to a camp cause
I was a dramatic director of a summer camp, the second season, I took the board
and I went with the camp and I passed the New York State board and I had a
license in two states. I never worked in New York, it was just a back up because
I knew I wanted to be an actor. I went in during the early days of television
which started in Philadelphia and I had done radio in Philadelphia so I was a
radio actor, started when I was about 16. To give you a long winded answer to
your question...
Marcus:: ::Laughs:: You have performed on and off Broadway, in theatrical movies, guest starred in well over 500 TV shows, you produced, wrote, and starred in your own movie so tell us, what is the REAL Peter Mark Richman like?
Peter:: Well I'm a multi talented fellow frankly. I am a good guy and I have 5 children and I have 5 grand children. I have a wonderful wife and I just celebrated my 51st wedding anniversary . . .
Marcus:: Congratulations!
Peter:: Thank you! I have very talented children in fact, in 10 days I am going to Knoxville Tennessee because my son Lucas is the music director/conductor of the Knoxville Symphony....
Marcus:: Oh WOW!
Peter:: . . .and I am going to do the Lincoln Portrait with the Knoxville Symphony.
Marcus:: That is just awesome.
Peter::...Yeah my son Lucas is an extremely
gifted young conductor for 6 years he was with the Pittsburgh Symphony as
resident conductor and now he has his own orchestra. He was a disciple, protégé
of Leonard 
Bernstein. My oldest son Howard is a gifted pianist and a teacher of
piano in California, and my daughter Kelly was a musical comedy person,
wonderful actress and singer and she put her career aside to raise 3 children at
the moment...and I have a third son Orien who is an actor and right now he is in
St. Louis still...he runs a company called Cooks Warehouse. He is a Spieler, do
you know what a Spieler is, they sell things at fairs and at
conventions, they have a product and they do demonstrations...you see them on
television. He runs this company that sends out 25 people all over the country
so this week he is in St. Louis and they were on the Rams game on Monday night.
My younger son Roger who is also a Spieler is with Orien for the company.
Marcus:: So you are very close with your family I take it?
Peter:: Oh yes, we are all very close. We love each other DESPERATELY! To much! Very close knit family, very warm, sweet, and loving to one another. I had such a terrible childhood with a mother and father that had a very conflicted relationship and I swore when I matured and became an adult . . .that my children would NEVER go through what I went through. Luckily that has come to pass. 3 of my children actually have websites, there links are on my website,
Marcus:: I noticed on your website you are an artist, I have seen some of your work and it's amazing!
Peter:: You can actually check out more on my site, I have had 17 one man exhibitions and a couple of museum shows. I am really a very serious artist not just an actor who paints but a very serious artist.
Marcus:: How long have you been doing it for?
Peter:: Since I was a little boy.
Marcus:: How many paintings have you done?
Peter:: Oh boy! I couldn't even begin to tell you! ::laughs:: I have not been as busy painting recently because for the last two years I have been working on my autobiography so it's been consuming my life. But until that point, I am very prolific, I have a giant collection and a lot of my stuff is out there so...its good stuff.
Marcus:: I tried to find your actual first guest appearance on a show but the dates were messed up so...what was your actual first guest appearance on a TV show?
Peter:: Actually my first guest appearance on a TV show was actually in Philadelphia on a show called "Ranger Joe" in 1950 or 1951 I can't really remember that, ya know, I'm an older fella! ::laughs:: Even thought I don't look it. I got hit in the face with a can of beans, I was the bad guy on a local western. But that was my first introduction to television.
Marcus:: What was that experience like for you?
Peter:: It was very messy! ::laughs:: Now after doing live television in New York, the golden age of television, shows like "Studio One" and "Philco's Playhouse", I went out to Hollywood to do television after my first film. My first film was "Friendly Persuasion"...
Marcus:: In it you played Gardner Jordan? What can you tell me about that character?
Peter:: Yes. He was the Lieutenant officer in the army who was boarding up with Gary Cooper's 16 year old daughter! It was a lovely film, they put it out on DVD and it's just BEAUTIFUL movie. They show it on Turner Classic Movies very often. With Dorothy McGuire....actually it was Tony Perkins' first film and myself, and an actress named Philly's Love who plays Mattie, the girl I am in love with. I also had a great relationship with Gary Cooper who was a wonderful man, I loved him.
Marcus:: You also worked on "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", now did you actually get to work with Alfred Hitchcock?
Peter:: Never worked with Alfred Hitchcock no.
I never even met him, and I did several of those. I also did a 
film that ended
up becoming a released film called "The Dark Intruder" but it was
originally a pilot where I guest starred. It was a pilot for Leslie Neilson, it
was 1890 spook, supernatural stuff. I played Robert Vandenburg, I actually play
2 people. It's a hell of a picture! One day I got a call from Nina Foesh and she
says "Your movie just opened in New York." I said what movie? And it
turns out it got a great review! It was a 59 minute film, they released it to be
co-billed with a Joan Crawford movie. Just weird. But they released it because
Universal made a lot of money and if they were going to release it as a film
they should have released as an hour, or a 90 minute film because there was
plenty of film there to use. They just clipped it down to release it for the
billing stuff. Interesting...
Marcus:: Is that actually out on DVD?
Peter:: I don't think you can get the
"Dark Intruder" anywhere, there is some contractual horseshit that is 
tied up with that. I don't know why because it's a wonderful small film.
Supernatural theme about the occult, one is the deformed Robert Vandenberg and
the other one is the guy who is going to marry this girl and it turns out the
deformed one inhabits the good looking guy. Spooky, spooky film! It was also
directed by a friend of mine named Harvey Heart who has then since died. We
ended up becoming good friends and I owned Philip Roth's first novel
"Letting Go" And I wrote the screenplay for it and we were going into
production for it in 1969 and Philip Roth, the first class bastard
writer/novelist tried to screw us on the rights and we went into litigation for
10 years...so that picture was never made and it's unfortunate because I wrote
the screenplay and it was a hell of a screen play. We were in production and we
were like, 30 days away from shooting...
Marcus:: Damn! When something like that happens.....how does that make you feel?
Peter:: Very debilitating....it sent me into a funk for quite a while. But that's show biz, nothing is guaranteed in life and it was a dreadful experience, cost me a lot of money, it was very hurtful...but you rise above it and move on and do what you have to do...try to put it behind you. I vowed though from that moment on I would never be involved in anyone else's work. I was always saddened because I know it would have been the definitive Philip Roth picture.
Marcus:: Actually the first time I saw you on TV was as Christie's Father, Reverend Snow on Three's Company. What was it like being on the show and working with the now late John Ritter?
Peter:: John was a lovely young man, I really
liked him. I was hired to do that show 
in a situation where they would be
developing my character, but I only did 3 shows. It seems like everybody thinks
I did 400 because it's been repeated so many times but I was being developed as
a character and also my salary was being elevated each time I performed. Unfortunately, Suzanne
Summers got a bug up her noggin there, she caused a lot of
problems with renewals of her contract and salary....and they said get lost and
they fired her. So there went my job...my repeated appearance on Three's
Company. I like Suzanne! I liked her! She was a nice gal but she just got
greedy...or her husband got greedy I don't know which one. They fired her for
she wanted an enormous amount of money for renewal of her contract.
Marcus:: Back in 1981 you were in a show called "Dynasty" playing Andrew Laird, what can you tell me about the character and your experience working on the show?
Peter:: It was a terrific experience, I enjoyed
it very much. Initially the original part I was supposed to play was the one my
friend George got, who I knew from way back in 
New York, he got this break and
then his career was pretty hot from films. He was behaving very poorly during
the pilot of the show and they fired him. He had been complaining about this and
about that, I had said to him, "George...you better cool it! They are
writing your character and it's a whole breakdown phase and series are like that
etc etc" and he says "Ahhh the hell with it!" So the next thing
you know he is sending a telegram off to the president of ABC and they dumped
him. The company went into hiatus then they revived the whole thing with John
Forsythe and I had to go back and shoot stuff all over again with John Forsythe
replacing all the stuff I had done with George before. It was a nice
experience! I was always wanting them to develope my character a little bit more
but they didn't do that so eventually after 4 years...I had a offer from a soap
called "Santa Barbara" and I left "Dynasty" to do Santa
Barbara and that was an awful mistake for me...although I did make a lot of
money but I hated soaps. I just hated it!
Marcus:: Well didn't you create your own character on Santa Barbara?
Peter:: Yeah well I was the lead character C.C. Capwell, played all over the world. But doing it yourself is just....soapy....I'm not a soap actor.
Marcus:: I read that you created a show called "Cain's Hundred"...
Peter:: Yes! That was my first series!
Marcus:: What was that like?
Peter:: That was pretty exciting! I was a New
York actor coming up to Hollywood to do my first work. I had 
been migrating back
and forth from New York to Los Angeles. I would fly out to do a television show
in California and then back to New York and they kept on calling me back
and forth to do so many things I was just so many different things...Hitchcock's
ya know...westerns...and the first Rawhide that was ever made Playhouse 90 back
and forth, back and forth and then finally I said I would never move to
California unless I had a series so I did move out for an extended period of
time to do this series Cain's Hundred and then I bought a home in which I am
still in right now. We filmed about 30 episodes....61-62 season. IT was such a
great show, we were always number 2 in the ratings, the first one was the
"Gary Moore Show" with Carol Brunette and we were always number 2. The
3rd was the "Fred Astire Show" The Nelson Ratings were idiotic and
they still are...but everybody believes them and that's the way they govern
television. And they wanted to get "violent" shows off, although our
show wasn't as violent as the "Untouchables". I was a Lawyer who works
for the mob and I make a change they don't like and they accidentally try to bump
me off and kill my intended wife. So I make a resolution to prosecute 100 of the
mob, Cain's Hundred. I was Cain and hundred was the goal to prosecute and endite
the 100 men. I only got to 30 though...
Marcus:: That's awesome! Wish they kept it on! You starred in Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan as Charles McCullough and I thought you were just great in that!
Peter:: Oh! Well thank you . . .you thought I was great?
Marcus:: Yeah
Peter:: Oh well that's very nice! Thank you!
Marcus:: Yeah, very rarely do they get people with great acting skills and talent in these movies.
Peter:: ::Bursts out laughing:: That's funny! That's funny....oh that's funny! I appreciate that! I really do!
Marcus:: Just being honest, so what was your experience like?
Peter:: Well I had done so many television shows...there was a gag when I was a younger actor and it was "Get Richman! He makes shit look good!" ::laughs::
Marcus:: ::laughs:: A new slogan!
Peter:: Yeah! Get Richman! He makes shit look good! That was a standing joke with my agent and some other people who always thought I enhanced the dreadful scripts I was involved in.
Marcus:: What actually attracted you to the script of Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan?
Peter:: I don't know I thought it was an
interesting role and there was a young director, Robert Haden who I liked a lot
when we talked and met. A charming young fellow, and I thought
"Hey this might be fun!" I had a good shoot, it was a very difficult
shoot actually, it was shot in Vancouver! It rained for 7 weeks, every week,
except for the week my wife came up and the sun came out. That's the truth! We
shot night shooting, it was just terrible, 6 days a week. We would start
shooting at 5:30 in the evening cause we were shooting on a ship and where they
were located was a commercial shipping area an hour out of Vancouver. We
couldn't interfere with the ships there so we had to shoot at night. It was so
friggin cold that I was wearing thermal underwear, a plastic covered sheet to
protect me from wetness, and then my own clothes on top of that and I looked
like I weighed two hundred and sixty pounds half the time! Anytime you had to go
to the bathroom...that was a real problem! It was just exhausting! I would get
back to the hotel the next morning at 7:30, 8 o'clock and try to get some sleep
in the day time! I would get about maybe 4 hours sleep and then at 5:30 I would
be back out there again. This went on 7 weeks! It was one of the toughest shoots
I ever experienced!
Marcus:: Wow! That's just wow....Have you been a fan of the Friday the 13th series?
Peter:: No.
Marcus:: Oh, Paramount is releasing a box set for the Friday the 13th series, are you involved in it?
Peter:: They are releasing a box set? I don't
know anything about it, you're the first one to tell me. I am very 
involved with
the Screen Actor's Guild at the moment and the administration is a dastardly,
stupid bunch of people and we are trying to correct the whole thing because the
DVD situation and the residuals situation is horrifying what's happening to
actors getting screwed! With the next election coming up, we are trying to
change that by changing the board because they are a bunch of no nothing stupid
people who are in charge at the moment. The executive who is running the
organization, the Screen Actor's Guild in Hollywood California I have absolutely
NO respect for whatsoever. Who happens to be on the board of Netflix which
happens to be the biggest DVD distributing company in the world!
Marcus:: I never liked Netflix, I personally never used it because I always felt it was shady how they can send you 3 movies and you can keep them for how ever long you want to. Just didn't sit right with me....
Peter:: Well the actors are not getting there do rights! The company Netflix is getting billions of dollars and the actors are getting ZILCH! ZERO!
Marcus:: That's not right!
Peter:: It's obscene! And the administration of the Screen Actor's Guild has got there head up there ass! Anyway...enough about that ::Laughs::
Marcus:: Ok! You worked with Leslie Nielsen who also has been in well over 1000 movie's/shows...
Peter:: Oh Leslie is a wonderful actor! He has done a lot of stuff and he has been around even longer then I have!
Marcus:: You worked with him on Naked Gun
2 1/2...
Peter:: Yeah. We're old friends, we go back a long time. I worked with him also on the "Dark Intruder" He's the guy who's pilot was being made at the time. He was starring and I was a guest star...it was a pilot for Leslie Neilson . . .that turned into a movie.
Marcus:: What was it like working with him on the sequel to Naked Gun?
Peter:: We are just old friends, it was like a brother you hadn't seen in a couple of years. We are both also members of the actor's studio in New York.
Marcus:: Naked Gun is known for it's over the top and insane sight gags, was it hard keeping a straight face while the gags were going off?
Peter:: Naaww you don't do all of that when you are just seeing your brother you know what I mean? That's the public stuff when people do things and say things, zany things outside but generally speaking you are just like anybody else when you sit down and have a cup of coffee.
Marcus:: You wrote, produced and starred in your own movie, "4 Faces" where you play 4 different roles...what inspired you to come up with the idea for the movie?
Peter:: Which incidentally hasn't gotten released yet...it is a very difficult road to get a picture released especially an art film.
Marcus:: The reviews I read were really good, I am very interested in seeing it.
Peter:: It's a very interesting film...one day I will get it released on Bravo or something like that, doubt it will be a theatrical release. It's been in several film festivals and the director's guild finders series and I was nominated for a Prism award 2 years ago. It's just an interesting picture. My son Lucas wrote the music
Marcus:: Was it hard playing 4 characters?
Peter:: Well I had done this as a play,
because of my background as an actor I had developed into writing things. It
just evolved and if you check my website you can see that I wrote a novel and a
book of short stories! The character development with each 
character
for me is an evolutionary process with me. And I had written about 6 characters
and my wife had said "You better take them out of the drawer and do
something with them! "you better take those characters out of the drawer
and do something with them!" so I went to the actor's studio and started to
work on them. Took it out of the literary part of my brain and they were very
well received. First the pastor, then the father whose son is into drugs, then the Nazi officer who is hiding in South Africa and finally the holocaust
survivor so I called the thing 4 Faces. I was out at Chapman University in
Orange County and I had lunch with the president of the university because I was
supposed to do an art show out there. We were having a lovely lunch and he asks
me what am I doing now and I told him "I am doing 4 Faces" and he says
would you like to premiere it here? I dropped my fork into my plate and was like
sure! He took me down to the beautiful 250 seat theatre and I began to do the
Pastor on stage. So he loved it and 3 months later I was playing 4 Faces there
and it was very well received! Arthur Penn who directed "Bonnie and
Clyde" asked me to come to New York and I did it for 21 performances.
Then a big business man came and said why don't you make a movie of this. So I
did!
Marcus:: Oh wow, how has your choice in roles varied from when you began acting to now?
Peter:: Basically when I look at a role today I wonder if I even want to do it, I don't like to repeat the things I have already done. I have reached the age where I don't have to do those kind of things. In a sense, I am very, very picky. I don't want to do anything I have no interest in, the characters I choose have to basically, be 3 Dimensional and impact the story in some way. My life as an actor has changed, I guess it comes with maturity and wisdom. I guess I like the quietness and solitude of writing now, the business has changed so much I mean, some of the TV shows they have on are just revolting! All these shows with the ridiculous situation comedies, they are absolutely dreadful! It's moronic! I mean how many dysfunctional family shows can you have with 4 husbands running around with there heads up there asses?! And children you want to hit in the head with a baseball bat! Big boobed wives who are so revolting and there values are so stupid you can't even watch 10 minutes!
Marcus:: And it's also so unbelievable you have a super model mother, but they will have the average looking guy as the father who is overweight working the regular job! There is just no realism anymore!
Peter:: No. There is no realism, no moral purpose in them or learning curve for anyone they are just all obnoxious! As the father of 5 children who has gone through all kinds of things with children and everything.....to look at these shows it's like...WHY do they bother doing this? Why are they throwing all of this garbage at people? Why? To sell soap? I find most of the reality shows as a front to our sensibilities. Only thing I look forward to now are British shows on PBS or plays they air like "Death of a Salesman" or something...How many cop shows can you see? I DID THAT 40 YEARS AGO!!! THE SAME SHIT!
Marcus:: Your latest movie, Pool hall Junkies has you teamed up with Christopher Walken, what was it like working with him?
Peter::
Oh he's a doll! He is just great to work with! I had a great time! My son Orien
is in that film! He was also in 4 Faces, I will tell you something about 4
Faces, I hired very experienced men in key places with 50 year resumes! My
director was 81, my set designer was 80, my sound person was 78, I had a script
supervisor who did Easy Rider, I hired all people in senior positions! It was a
very experienced and top notch shoot. But anyway, to get back to the question on
Pool hall Junkies...my son was in the film and he was a close fried of the
director, Mark Callahan and he is friends with all of these young
producer/director guys and he calls me and says "Dad, Mars would like you
in the film but he is a little shy on calling you and asking you." I said
have him call me! So he sent me the script and he told me I had a couple of
scenes with Christopher Walken, so I said great! That's how I did the film! I
said as long as you give me star billing it will be alright!
Marcus:: ::laughs:: What advice do you have for the little guy? The people trying to make it in the business?
Peter:: Well if you want to be an actor, you have to have a burning desire to be an actor without any distractions or anything standing in the way of your dream. It really has to be a overwhelmingly profound desire to be an actor...because being in an acting profession it is so fraught with difficulties and disappointments and rejection you have to be a particular kind of person to be able to withstand it. If you want to be an actor, and you have all of that, get some GOOD training. University or High School Training is never enough. If you really want to be an actor, after you get out of college you should really study with a well known teacher. If you are in a small town you find someone with some kind of a background and have to leave the small town and come to New York or Hollywood but New York is the place to get the real training to go on the stage. Get as much stage training as you can and learn what the hell acting is all about. It's not up in your head, it's a whole understanding of learning what your instrument is. The instrument being you. What makes you tick and how you can utilize every impulse to express verbally....and when you are quiet. It takes 25 years to be a good actor. It takes long for an actor to be a GOOD actor then it does for a doctor to be a good doctor. I don't mean television series, you can watch television shows from 5 years, 10 years even 3 years ago and ask "Whatever happened to that person?" Dead as a doornail! Next! But if you have talent and you really developed that talent...your day will come.
Marcus:: True words of wisdom.
Peter:: Thank you.
Marcus:: What's next on your plate?
Peter:: I am finishing up my autobiography which is going to be a hell of a book. I am working very hard at it. Still trying to get my film released. Sloooooooowly...pursuing all avenues. I have a play that I have written that I would like to get down. So playing the field and taking what comes...playing the possibilities and living my life...enjoying myself and God willing something good will happen.
Marcus:: Hopefully, finally...do you have anything you want to say to your fans?
Peter:: To my fans, I respect them and I enjoy hearing from them and I hope they enjoy me continually and talk about me. Actually last weekend we had a Twilight Zone Convention, that was a wonderful weekend. Saw some people I never expected and I had some people come to see me from long distances. Autographed a lot of books and movies, took a lot of pictures....fun time. I did a Twilight Zone radio drama thing, this person got a agreement from the estate of Rod Serling to do radio drama shows. I did a track on the 10 disc package and it was a nice set. So it's always fun to see these fans at these conventions so it's interesting. It's a pool of never ending relationships with people you worked with in the past ya know? So I hope I have given you a lot of stuff to mull over!
Marcus:: Oh yes! I honestly want to thank you for this great opportunity and I have had one awesome time, a great experience for me.
Peter:: Well thank you! I wish good luck to you!
There you have it folks, the great PETER MARK RICHMAN and you can find out more about him via his website "Http://www.petermarkrichman.com" I want to thank Peter for taking the time to do the interview and I think he is one of the greats. He has been around from when television first started out, made a name for himself and has had one marvelous career since. Let's all hope and keep our fingers crossed for 4 Faces to get released! I know I can't wait to see it!