Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 23, 1993 TAG: 9301230014
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
ACTING ON EXPERIENCE
TOM Mason says it was pure coincidence.Mason appeared on PBS this week in "Simple Justice," the story of Thurgood Marshall's legal battles against segregation long before he became the first black Supreme Court justice.
The Roanoke actor played Judge Armistead Dobie, one of the judges who presided over the Prince Edward County school board trial in the 1950s.
Dobie was the dean of the law school at the University of Virginia when Mason was there and taught Mason criminal law.
Mason's agent submitted his photograph and his resume to the filmmakers, who apparently liked what they saw.
"They didn't know where I was from or anything else," Mason says. "Some lady from New York called me up and said she was the diction coach." She asked Mason when they could get together to work on his accent.
"I said I'm a native Virginian and so was Judge Dobie," Mason recalls. "She said: `Then you can coach me.' "
The part wasn't a large one, but it was significant to the story. Though the judges found against Marshall's efforts to desegregate the schools in the Virginia county, their decision was important because it set the stage for the Supreme Court hearing that ruled segregation unconstitutional.
Mason says he didn't try to imitate his old law teacher. Rather, he brought his own interpretation to the role.
"I was just speaking the lines as they should have been spoken," Mason says. "Judge Dobie was a brilliant lawyer and teacher, and I was determined not to cast him in a negative light."
"Simple Justice," part of PBS's "American Experience" series, marks the third time Mason has played a judge on screen. He played a judge in Alan Parker's civil-rights drama "Mississippi Burning," which starred Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe.
Mason also played a judge in the 1991 CBS TV movie, "In a Child's Name."
Coincidence, it seems, is working overtime in Mason's acting career because he spent much of his working life in courtrooms and law offices.
He served as United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia from 1961 until 1969. Then he went to work for the Norfolk and Western Railway as general solicitor.
Mason, 74, retired from the law in 1983 and found a whole new career. He has been interested in acting since he put on childhood plays in Lynchburg. Over the years, that interest brought him to community theater stages in Lynchburg and Roanoke.
"It's difficult thinking like a lawyer all day and then changing gears at night," Mason recalls. But the demands of his legal career often put his acting hobby on hold.
Those restraints were lifted when Mason retired, and he has been a busy actor for the last 10 years, joining both the Screen Actor's Guild and Actor's Equity trade unions.
Currently, he's appearing in a production of "As You Like It" at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts' Theatre Virginia in Richmond. The production went into rehearsal Dec. 21, and Mason's only had three days off since.
Mason has appeared in several productions at Mill Mountain Theatre, and he's almost made a sub-career out of "On Golden Pond," the popular family drama. Six productions in several states including Illinois, Florida and West Virginia have featured Mason as the crotchety Norman Thayer.
Mason began his screen career in 1986 with the movie version of Beth Henley's Southern Gothic, comedy-drama "Crimes of the Heart." He played Uncle Watson to Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange and Sissy Spacek.
"I was naturally apprehensive and awed, but everyone was as nice as they could be," he remembers. In all, Mason has been in seven feature and TV movies.
On short notice, he'll drive more than six hours to the film studios in Wilmington, N.C., for a one-minute audition.
"Acting's like fishing," he explains as he munches chocolate chip cookies in his Roanoke home. "You do a lot of casting and every now and then something happens."
It's an apt analogy, because Tom Mason is definitely hooked.
"Acting is so fulfilling," he says. "There's nothing better than being accepted and nothing worse than being rejected.
"I guess I'll keep acting until I get too old to play old-man parts."
Keywords:
PROFILE