Vietnam heroics led to acting career

Press, 25 February 1988, Page 11

Vietnam heroics led to acting career

By

lAN WOODWARD,

of DUO

“At best,” reflects Steve Kanaly, alias cowboy Ray Krebbs of television’s "Dallas,” “an actor’s career is a crapshoot and you really have to be a gambler at heart. “But craps is the only kind of gambling I do. I never go to the racetrack or to Las Vegas. I have gambled enough with my life ... I gamble enough with my career.” He is not joking. When he turns up for work at Southfork with the rest of the “Dallas” cast for the first day of filming after the studio’s annual threemonth break, he will be doing what he has been doing since the series started a decade ago. Thanking his lucky stars.

“It was never even remotely on the cards that I would go into acting,” muses the 43-year-old television heart-throb. “I didn’t even take part in school plays. I studied to be a painter, would you believe?” But then something unexpected happened to change the course of his life. He won a reputation in the United States Army as a sort of latterday

Audie Murphy — World War H’s most decorated GI — by becoming a war hero in Vietnam.

In America’s legendary crack strike unit, the Ist Cavalry Division, Kanaly distinguished himself as “the marksman with the meanest bullet.” This became the astonishing springboard for a future career in films and television.

“Yes,” smiles Kanaly today, “I thank my lucky stars every waking hour for the way things turned out. I could be rotting now in some godforsaken south-east Asian jungle ... or be teaching fine arts in California.” Kanaly, who earns a reputed $130,000 per “Dallas” episode, struts jauntily round the room in the brown Justin boots he endorses nightly on American television. “I had returned from Vietnam and was working as a clay-pigeon instructor at a California country club,” he explains, “when I met the two people who would change my life. Screenwriter - director John Milius. And a beautiful blonde called Brent Power.

“John helped me into films. And Brent became my wife and the mother of our two daughters,

Quinn, aged eight, and Evan, aged six.”

Milius was about to start work on the screenplay for the controversial Vietnam war epic, “Apocalypse Now.” When he heard of Kanaly’s war experiences, he was ecstatic and immediately signed him up as a technical adviser and the two of them worked together on the autobiographical script. “I was bitterly disappointed when the finances were later pulled out,” Kanaly laments. “It was eventually made by Francis Ford Coppoia, using John’s script, but it turned out to be a different kind of movie.

“Then John, by now a great friend, wrote the screenplay for ‘The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean,’ with John Houston directing, and I was given a good part in it. I had never acted in my life, but Huston said: ‘Don’t worry, Steve. Acting’s just like being a big kid.”

When the film was completed, Paul Newman offered Kanaly personal help and encouragement. “You can probably go some place in this goddam business,” said Newman.

He did, but small comfort it was to him.

“I had just got married to Brent, and we had bought a home and wanted to have a normal life, and acting was presenting a very dismal picture,” he recalls. “We

were always down to our last nickel. “But Brent was so supportive. I was emotionally in the pits, rock-bottom with neuroses, really depressed. “Week after week I was

experiencing rejection, and it just built up to a point where I could not stand it any longer. I was hell to be around. As a person, I was a wreck.” He glances at a framed photograph of his wife on a sideboard. "Brent said: ‘Look, if you want to get out of the business, I’m with you. But if you want to try your luck a bit longer, I’m also with you all the way.’

“And then she asked: ‘What’s your next problem?’ ”

He roars with laughter. “Just this morning she said: ‘With ‘Dallas’ you get love letters and the girls all want to kiss you when they see you. You’re a sort of sex symbol. I’m so proud of you.’

“She takes all of this in her stride, understands it, understands the career, and is never jealous. I appreciate her so much for that.”

Kanaly then recalls that when the “Dallas” series was first offered to him by Lorimar, he was given the choice of the three principal roles — J. R. Ewing, Bobby Ewing, or Ray Krebbs. “Take your pick,” they said. “Ray Krebbs intrigued me . . . this guy who is a cowboy, a breed of man I

have always had a great regard for, a man’s man in wealthy surroundings, a man who is totally indifferent to all the other characters in ‘Dallas.’ ”

He grins: “By comparison, J. R. seemed so dull

“We start off each season by shooting just the exterior location scenes for 12 different shows, and then we return to Los Angeles to match the interiors to those scenes.

“We use a ranch north of ‘Dallas’ in a town called Plano, and if any of your readers are going to be out there in June or July, then they can come along and watch us film. Southfork — it really is called that — is now the No. 1 tourist attraction in Dallas.”

Steve Kanaly, ex-Viet-nam warrior, is. a man happy with his lot. At last. “For the first time that I can remember,” he says, “I have found peace of mind. I have found financial security and a certain credibility within the profession. “But, most important of all, I have become an honoured guest wherever

‘Dallas’ is shown. Do you wonder why I count my lucky stars?”