Terry Carter
Actor & Film Maker
The true measure of life, someone once said, should be its quality, not its longevity. By any gauge, so far, I have had a full and happy life. At this writing, I'm past the halfway mark of my projected stay on this planet. (My goal is 150 years.) As Robert Browning wrote, "a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"
When I began my acting career, I felt I would be content working on the stage for the rest of my life. I remember saying that if I could earn $100 a week as an actor, I would be fulfilled. Circumstance, happenstance and inflation conspired over the years to pull that dream into an unrecognizable shape. Duke Ellington once described "luck" as being in the right place at the right time with the right stuff for the right people. I couldn't agree more. I have been lucky.
In 1956, strolling on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, I ran into a friend, fellow actor Ned Glass, who was a regular cast member of the hit comedy TV series You'll Never Get Rich (later known as the Sgt. Bilko Show and then The Phil Silvers Show). Ned told me that they were casting for the new season and that I should make sure to call for a casting appointment. I did just that, and landed a role that lasted me three great years.
Walking up Broadway in midtown Manhattan in 1965, I ran into an old acquaintance, producer Chet Collier, who informed me that Westinghouse Broadcasting was looking for someone to become the nation's first Black TV news anchor. That chance encounter landed me a three-year contract in Boston.
In 1970, as I was having lunch one day in the Universal Studios commissary in Studio City, a casting director I knew saw me and said "I didn't know you were in town!" When I explained that I was now living in L.A., he said "Call me!" I did, and the result was an offer to play a principal role in McCloud. My agent had already submitted me for two other series pilots: Douglas Selby, D.A. and San Francisco International, either of which was mine for the asking. But McCloud's star was Dennis Weaver, whose work I had seen and admired in the Bonanza TV series and especially in Orson Welles' now-classic film, Touch Of Evil. I made what turned out to be the right choice. The McCloud series lasted seven wonderful years; those other series projects never got beyond the pilot stage. Being in the right place at the right time, etc. served me rather well...
I firmly believe that, in one way or another, we are all connected. What we do affects people we know, as well as many we don't know, directly or indirectly, in ways we can hardly imagine. John Donne's observation that "no man is an island" resonates strongly with me. I believe we are one, with all the interpersonal responsibility and compassion that such an idea implies.
Some years ago, I attended a conference in Washington, DC. A young Black man came up to me, shook my hand warmly and said "I want to thank you!" I was thoroughly confused since I had never laid eyes on this fellow before. He saw my puzzlement and went on to explain: "I used to watch Battlestar Galactica as a kid and I admired the authority you brought to the role of 'Colonel Tigh'. I wanted to be like you. So I chose my career path, studied hard and became an aeronautical engineer. It never would have happened if it weren't for you!
I have also experienced other kinds of connectedness. The incident in which I broke my ankle while out roller-skating at the beachfront in Venice, California brought two strokes of good luck:
My loss of the role of "Lt. Boomer" in Battlerstar Galactica: When the producers were told my leg was in a plaster cast, the call for my replacement as "Boomer" went out immediately. Among the many young actors who responded was Herb Jefferson, Jr. But Herb was already in a TV show. Herb tells me that the Galactica producers compelled him to resign from his other gig before they would even audition him for the role of "Boomer". He decided to take the plunge, gambling on the chance that he might land the role. And he got it. So, for Herb, that was good luck, stroke one.
To tell the truth, at the age of 50, I didn't feel fully inspired by the demands of the "Boomer" character: jaunty, gung-ho, impetuous. When producers Glen Larson and Leslie Stevens later offered me instead the role of "Col. Tigh", I knew immediately, upon re-reading the script, that that character was where my head and heart were: passionate, dedicated, loyal, and observant of the Big Picture. For me this was good luck, stroke two.
Had I not stepped into that damned hole in the sidewalk when I was out roller-skating with my daughter, we might not be commemorating that TV event of more than a quarter century ago.
... All things, by immortal power,
Near or far,
Hiddenly to each other linkèd are,
That thou canst not stir a flower
Without troubling a star ...
(Excerpt from "The Mistress of Vision", Francis Thompson, 1908)
When the wonderful, resourceful and clever creators of this website asked me to participate in its making, I immediately saw it as something more than a premature epitaph and less than an overdue autobiography. But, just as they say about that tree falling in the forest, if I have lived the life I lived and no one knows about it, have I really lived it?
When I began my acting career, I felt I would be content working on the stage for the rest of my life. I remember saying that if I could earn $100 a week as an actor, I would be fulfilled. Circumstance, happenstance and inflation conspired over the years to pull that dream into an unrecognizable shape. Duke Ellington once described "luck" as being in the right place at the right time with the right stuff for the right people. I couldn't agree more. I have been lucky.
In 1956, strolling on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, I ran into a friend, fellow actor Ned Glass, who was a regular cast member of the hit comedy TV series You'll Never Get Rich (later known as the Sgt. Bilko Show and then The Phil Silvers Show). Ned told me that they were casting for the new season and that I should make sure to call for a casting appointment. I did just that, and landed a role that lasted me three great years.
Walking up Broadway in midtown Manhattan in 1965, I ran into an old acquaintance, producer Chet Collier, who informed me that Westinghouse Broadcasting was looking for someone to become the nation's first Black TV news anchor. That chance encounter landed me a three-year contract in Boston.
In 1970, as I was having lunch one day in the Universal Studios commissary in Studio City, a casting director I knew saw me and said "I didn't know you were in town!" When I explained that I was now living in L.A., he said "Call me!" I did, and the result was an offer to play a principal role in McCloud. My agent had already submitted me for two other series pilots: Douglas Selby, D.A. and San Francisco International, either of which was mine for the asking. But McCloud's star was Dennis Weaver, whose work I had seen and admired in the Bonanza TV series and especially in Orson Welles' now-classic film, Touch Of Evil. I made what turned out to be the right choice. The McCloud series lasted seven wonderful years; those other series projects never got beyond the pilot stage. Being in the right place at the right time, etc. served me rather well...
I firmly believe that, in one way or another, we are all connected. What we do affects people we know, as well as many we don't know, directly or indirectly, in ways we can hardly imagine. John Donne's observation that "no man is an island" resonates strongly with me. I believe we are one, with all the interpersonal responsibility and compassion that such an idea implies.
Some years ago, I attended a conference in Washington, DC. A young Black man came up to me, shook my hand warmly and said "I want to thank you!" I was thoroughly confused since I had never laid eyes on this fellow before. He saw my puzzlement and went on to explain: "I used to watch Battlestar Galactica as a kid and I admired the authority you brought to the role of 'Colonel Tigh'. I wanted to be like you. So I chose my career path, studied hard and became an aeronautical engineer. It never would have happened if it weren't for you!
I have also experienced other kinds of connectedness. The incident in which I broke my ankle while out roller-skating at the beachfront in Venice, California brought two strokes of good luck:
My loss of the role of "Lt. Boomer" in Battlerstar Galactica: When the producers were told my leg was in a plaster cast, the call for my replacement as "Boomer" went out immediately. Among the many young actors who responded was Herb Jefferson, Jr. But Herb was already in a TV show. Herb tells me that the Galactica producers compelled him to resign from his other gig before they would even audition him for the role of "Boomer". He decided to take the plunge, gambling on the chance that he might land the role. And he got it. So, for Herb, that was good luck, stroke one.
To tell the truth, at the age of 50, I didn't feel fully inspired by the demands of the "Boomer" character: jaunty, gung-ho, impetuous. When producers Glen Larson and Leslie Stevens later offered me instead the role of "Col. Tigh", I knew immediately, upon re-reading the script, that that character was where my head and heart were: passionate, dedicated, loyal, and observant of the Big Picture. For me this was good luck, stroke two.
Had I not stepped into that damned hole in the sidewalk when I was out roller-skating with my daughter, we might not be commemorating that TV event of more than a quarter century ago.
... All things, by immortal power,
Near or far,
Hiddenly to each other linkèd are,
That thou canst not stir a flower
Without troubling a star ...
(Excerpt from "The Mistress of Vision", Francis Thompson, 1908)
When the wonderful, resourceful and clever creators of this website asked me to participate in its making, I immediately saw it as something more than a premature epitaph and less than an overdue autobiography. But, just as they say about that tree falling in the forest, if I have lived the life I lived and no one knows about it, have I really lived it?
