I follow the Texas Rangers baseball team (unfortunately, THEY usually follow all the other teams).
I think The Ventures are the coolest band ever to put out 319 albums without ever cracking the Billboard Top Ten Albums. (They just got elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!) I spent my life being tempted to skydive and now I've got a 6-year-old and won't risk it. I think being on TV is a lot better than being behind one fixing it. (That's not really an interest, is it?) If there weren't a study requirement, I might have been a physicist. I love languages. I've studied German, Japanese, and French, and can get around a little in Italian and Spanish. I'm interested in Japanese culture. I'm interested in the fact that I spent eight years in the Marines and all I got was this lousy bayonet wound. I'm really interested in the Cocoanut Grove fire, Tokyo Rose, Audie Murphy, Dickey Chapelle, Sacco and Vanzetti, Mum Bett, and having my affections toyed with. Oh, yeah, and film history. I've been published a couple of dozen times on the topic, and it's what led me to acting, so I'm grateful to it and would buy it a house if it wanted.
Adventurous, creative, intelligent, loving, and sensual people with a quick wit and a wide-ranging, blazing sense of humor. That's all I want. Oh, and fifty million dollars. That'd be nice, too.
The music that grabs me is
Beethoven
Charles Ives
Gilbert & Sullivan
The Beatles
the blues
Steve Goodman
jazz
Django Reinhardt
orchestral soundtracks
Phil Ochs
Rick Nelson
Dropkick Murphys
The Eagles
Eva Cassidy
Michael Nesmith
The Dresden Dolls and Yul Brynner singing Russian gypsy songs.
Favorite movies:
The Searchers
Ride the High Country
Farewell, My Lovely
Yojimbo
Sherlock, Jr.
Gallipoli
Under Fire
The Grapes of Wrath
Crash
Seven Samurai
Love Actually
The Alamo
In Country
Meet John Doe
The Yakuza .... and "The Tall T."
"Deadwood," of course. My own claim to fame, and the best show in television history, to boot. Currently and in the past:
The Sopranos
My Name Is Earl
Rescue Me
NYPD Blue
The West Wing
Combat!
Hill Street Blues
St. Elsewhere
Adventures of Superman
The Lone Ranger
The Office - The BBC Series
Extras
Little Britain and my two previous claims to fame, "Reasonable Doubts" and "Thunder Alley."
Look Homeward, Angel, by Thomas Wolfe
Wanderer, by Sterling Hayden
Farewell, My Lovely, by Raymond Chandler
The Orchard Keeper, by Cormac McCarthy
DÃa De Los Muertos, by Kent Harrington
Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
A Study in Scarlet, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Films of Akira Kurosawa, by Donald Richie
Suspects, by David Thomson
From Here to Eternity, by James Jones "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values," by Robert M. Pirsig ............ anything by Ed McBain or Rex Stout or Ross Macdonald, ............ "Benedict Arnold: Patriot or Traitor," by Willard Sterne Randall. And I'm reading biographies of all of the U.S. presidents, in order. I'm up to Cleveland. (He's number 22 & 24, for those of you counting at home.)
In life: my father, Norman Beaver, and my best friend, Tom Allard.... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....In history:
Sterling Hayden
Moe Berg
Phil Ochs
Abraham Lincoln
John Adams
Benedict Arnold (Read up on him!)My professional heroes:
John Wayne
Laurence Olivier
Groucho Marx
Robert Mitchum
Toshiro Mifune
Buster Keaton -- the absolute best at what each of them did... ..... ....... . ..... ............ . ..... .... .... . .......... . .... .......... .... ....... ....... ......... ... ....... ... ... ... ....... .. . ..... .. ....... ... ........ ... .......... .. ........ ........ ... .......... .. ... .... .... . ..... ..... ..... .. ... ....... ... ... . ... ... .... ..... ....... ......