How Modesto Revived My Acting Career
I Was 14 When Stage Fright During a New York Audition Foiled My Plans For the Future. A Thriving Arts Scene In California’s Central Valley Came To My Rescue.
As a child, I was always singing. I’d walk up and down my street in New Rochelle, New York, singing the crooner songs I heard at home: Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck, Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett, and Sammy Davis, Jr. In 1967, when I was 8 years old, my sister, Sherille, took me to see the musical I Do! I Do! on Broadway. From that moment on, I started to emulate the big, powerful voices of the Broadway stage.
My mother enrolled me in the Stella Adler Acting Studio and voice …