Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 16, 1991 TAG: 9102160513
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
For six seasons on the CBS comedy series "Newhart," Scolari was familiar to audiences as the pretentious Michael Harris, a smarmy, yet somehow likable yuppie. For two seasons before "Newhart," Scolari was Hildegard, Tom Hanks' roommate-in-drag on ABC's cult sitcom "Bosom Buddies." Before that, he was a minor character in the short-lived ABC sitcom "Goodtime Girls."
And before that?
"I was with a decorated theater company in New York," Scolari said, referring to the seven years he spent at the prestigious Collonades Theatre Lab in the company of such actors as Danny DeVito, Rhea Pearlman and Jeff Goldblum. "We were planning on becoming the national theater."
Nine months after the hailed finale of "Newhart," Scolari is now concentrating on dramatic television roles to re-establish himself as an actor to be taken seriously.
On Monday, Scolari stars as an investment banker in the ABC movie "Fire! Trapped on the 37th Floor," based on the 1988 blaze in downtown Los Angeles' First Interstate Bank building. Then, in the Disney Channel's Easter Sunday movie, "Perfect Harmony," Scolari plays a New England choirmaster in 1959 who accepts a post in South Carolina at a segregated boys' academy. And in an unscheduled episode of "Lifestories," the dramatic NBC series now relegated to monthly specials, Scolari portrays a man who fails to see that his marriage is crumbling.
Scolari, 35, believes that it is not too late to establish his dramatic credentials. "Absolutely not," he said, shaking his head.
Although he has achieved undeniable success on television, it was not the kind of success he set out for after venturing from New York a dozen years ago.
"I was very concerned then that I was spending more than 10 minutes in television," Scolari said.
Needing work, however, Scolari's agent suggested he take a role on "Goodtime Girls." The salary was about $70,000 - "more money than I ever thought I'd see in one year," Scolari said. When the series folded after a season, Scolari was about to bid farewell to TV for good when his producers urged him to replace an actor on a pilot.
Before he knew it, Scolari found himself opposite a young actor named Tom Hanks, just discovered in a talent search, on "Bosom Buddies." Because he still carried a "New York snobbery" about acting, Scolari said, "I did not love the shows. Not when we made them."
Asked if he has any regrets, Scolari pointed to one. "Only one, and it's very qualified, because I would not trade my own experiences for anything," said Scolari, happily married to costume designer Debra Steagal with two young sons.
"But as a strategist, as a player - I'm a poker player - I would have loved to have made the choices my own in my early days in Hollywood, and not my agent's. She was a good woman, a bright woman, who saw a light comic actor who was flexible and agile and athletic. And that's where he went, and that's what he did."
by CNB