1978 Article on Ralph Waite

[ForeverWaltons]

St. Petersburg Times – January 26, 1978

RALPH WAITE PUT THE BOTTLE DOWN AND DRANK IN LIFE
by William Overend



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It became very clear that the key for any kind of life for me was not drinking. I was out of that nightmare… Just not drinking, one day at a time.
… That's really the most important thing to me. Maybe that's why I can do these other things. I've learned that everything else will take care of itself."
– Ralph Waite, a recovering alcoholic
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



… LOS ANGELES – Skid Row is a strange place to find the head of the Walton family out on an afternoon stroll. But Ralph Waite seems at home as he walks past the rescue missions and the cheap hotels and bars that line E. 5th St. in downtown Los Angeles. They call this strip "The Nickel," Waite says. It will the setting for the movie he is here to make.
… Waite already has spent several months down here, getting to know the people in the area. His movie – planned for November theater release – is called Rose's Park. It's about these people, and it attempts to tell something about the way they live. For lack of a simpler description, the people around Waite call it a love story.
… Waite was still drinking when he landed the part of John Walton on the Walton's seven years ago, he says. He'd show up on the set in the morning with a quart of vodka and orange juice to get him through the day, then drink himself into a blackout every night. But he realized he couldn't last much longer, and one day he found his way to a recovery program for alcoholics. That was almost 6 years ago. Waite hasn't had a drink since.
… IN FRONT of a bar called Hardrock Cafe, he pauses for a moment to say hello to an old man named Thousand Mile Shorty. Then the tour continues. Waite points out St. Vincent's Center, known as misery house. Not far away is the Emmanuel Baptist Rescue Mission. "They call it Gravy Joe's because they mainly feed 'em bread and gravy." Waite says.
… He has put a lot of himself into this movie. He wrote the script and borrowed the money to produce it himself. He is directing it as well as playing one of the lead roles. Now there are some final details to go over before the filming starts. Waite won't have time to talk much more about the movie or his own story until filming ends in another six weeks.
… "I don't go out of my way to dwell on my alcoholism," he says, heading back to the downtown hotel where he has set up his production offices. "As far as the movie goes, you can't do any preaching. But I have found so much humility down here. And Skid Row alcoholics aren't treated humanely. I would hope the movie might help to change that. I'm so grateful for my own recovery… There is a way out… If I can communicate that, that's really my life's work."
… He was born in White Plains, New York, not quite 50 years ago, and he didn't decide to become an actor until he was 32. Before that, he had been a social worker, a minister and a publicity man for the religious books division of a New York publishing house. He had some early successes after he started working as an actor, but his career was just sputtering along when he landed a job on The Waltons. And so was his life.
… Waite is home now, relaxing after the conclusion of the filming. There's a new England flavor to the relatively modest house on Mulholland Drive where he lives with his second wife, Kerry Shear, an actress whom he married last year. She's back in New York at the moment. He'll be seeing her there in a few days – taking the train back, something he's always wanted to do, he says.
… EVERYTHING, it seems, has gone well for Waite since he stopped drinking. The Waltons, now entering its seventh year, made him wealthy and famous. The success of the Los Angeles Actors' Theater, which he founded three years ago, gave him added prestige. At the same time, his personal problems overcome, he's been able to put his energies into social causes that had always interested him, from the United Farm Workers to alcohol rehabilitation programs.
… "The idea of doing my own movie started about a year ago," Waite says. "I thought this was going to be the last year of the Waltons, and was planning on going back to serious theater in New York, thinking of splitting my time between there and Los Angeles. Before I left, I wanted to do my picture here as sort of a goodbye. But I really didn't know what kind of picture I wanted to do."
… "Then I read the stories in the Los Angeles Times of Skid Row winos who had been turned over by the courts to hospitals," he says. "That interested me. I went down and started walking around, got to know some of the people and heard their stories. What I found was a real community of people overlooked by the rest of society in the most callous way. I've always felt the artist in society is here to speak for those who can't speak for themselves."
… Waite's story revolves around three characters, Sam, an ex-drunk who returns to Skid Row in a search for an old friend; CG (played by Waite), Sam's friend, who dies from his alcoholism, and Rose, who was in love with CG. Most of the money to produce the movie was borrowed from CBS and Lorimar Productions, which produces the Waltons, in exchange for Waite's agreement to play John Walton for another season. "In a way the film is about two men, one who's sober and one who's dying of drink," Waite says. "The man who is drinking is full of Life. The man who is sober is full of hang-ups. Somehow, in his friend's death, the sober man is freed."
… "I HAVE a feeling it could be a successful little film," he-continues. "But I'm not particularly concerned at at this point about making a lot of money. I've set it up so that the actors and technicians will get a percentage of the profits. I also want to make sure that the people on Skid Row aren't ripped off. We used a lot of them in the movie. I want to make some kind of contribution to the area, possibly a park with some public restrooms. There aren't any down there now."
… As a result of his first movie, Waite's not quite so sure now about an immediate move back to New York. He's considering another film, but he is unsure about the subject. He would like to do something exploring the nature of love, he says. But he doesn't feel any pressure to make a quick decision.
… "I married, I have work I respect and I'm a happy man," he says. "I was never a happy man. If I just stay off my own case and let things happen, they'll happen a lot better than if I tried to make them happen."
… What is the key to the changes in Waite's life since he stopped drinking? If there's any single factor, he suggests, it might be that for the first time he respects himself. It's an emotion that is frequently contagious.
… "I never really respected myself before," he says. "I was always just kind of drifting."
… WAITE HAD toyed with the idea of teaching philosophy while he was in college. But, after graduating from Bucknell, he became a social worker instead. One day, after some personal crises, including the death of his parents, he "just kind of wandered" up the school of Divinity at Yale University. He began taking classes in theology, earned a degree and wound up as a minister for several years at Union Chapel on Fishers Island, New York and the United Church of Christ in Garden City, Long Island.
… "I wasn't a very religious guy, but what I found there was some sense of seriousness in life – a sense of community," Waite says. "There was a lot of talk about social justice, and I was involved in some of the early civil rights activities in the 1950s. But I was young and in a hurry. I also was a compulsive drinker. I'd get drunk two or three times a week while I was a minister, go to sleep half splashed most of the time."
… He had taken his church position in Garden City because he thought it was an opportunity to influence the "real decision-makers" toward a more active commitment to social justice, Waite says. But when only two members of his church showed up to support an NAACP boycott of local stores that refused to hire blacks, he quit and moved to a farmhouse in Connecticut to ponder his future.
… Waite worked as a bartender and a salesman in a bookstore for a while, then moved to New York City to take the publicity job with the religious book department of what was then Harper Brothers. By then his first marriage was crumbling, he was putting away several martinis every lunch hour, and "everything started falling apart." A friend suggested he go to an acting class with him, and he quickly discovered that he liked it. It was, among other things, a chance to get rid of the hostilities that were building inside him.
… "WITHIN A year I was working pretty steadily," he says. "That lasted about four years. Then I got the lead in a play called 'The Watering Place.' "I was sitting in Sardi's on opening night when the reviews came in. They panned it, and the play closed that night. I was drunk. My wife had moved to Carmel Valley with our three kids. About this time, my oldest child died. I came to Hollywood, very disillusioned."
… "The drinking changed here," he says. "I was picking up a couple hundred here and there playing small character parts, settling into a copout kind of life. Then I got the call that they were trying to cast the father in a new series called The Waltons. I was hung over the day I tested. Nobody thought the series would last more than a season. I figured I'd make enough money to get back to New York."
… He was constantly amazed that nobody said anything to him about his drinking during the first months of filming the series, Waite says. He was drinking on the set, collapsing into a blackout every night and thought he looked like "the town drunk" when he saw himself on film. That's when he decided to "wander in" to one of the regular meetings of the alcohol recovery program that turned his life around.
… "Everything changed almost immediately," he says. "I never had a strong desire to drink again. My whole attitude about life turned. I began to do the things I'd always wanted to do, but only talked about before. I'd been too afraid and too ashamed before to stand up for the things I believe in. It was as if they might find out I was a drunk. For the first time I was free of all that fear, all those humiliating years."
… WAITE still regularly attends meetings of the recovery program. It's traditions discourage members from identifying their affliction. In the process, the former minister also has acquired some new beliefs about the spiritual side of life.
… "I do not have any real theology," he said." I just know there is a force at work in life that's turning me around, God, I guess. My whole relationship with God was something that is very vague to me, but very powerful. There's too much mystery and magic in my life now not to feel it. I sense this power everywhere."
… For Waite, it is a power that has brought him closer in touch with the humanity around him. That humanity, he says, is what struck him most during the months of filming on Skid Row.
… "There was so much humor, so much humanity," he said. "I go from a day on Skid Row to a party in Bel Air, and it became quite clear there wasn't really that much difference. Those are human beings down there, our brothers and our sisters. On the other hand, they are dying. Who's happier? Who can say? The only people I know who are happy are recovering alcoholics and the people around them."------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The name of this movie ended up being On The Nickel (1980). It also has Hal Williams (Harley Foster), James Gammon (Zack Roswell) and Donald Moffat (played John Walton's office boss in the episode John's Crossroads) in it. As the above article states Ralph Waite was married to Kerry Shear at this time. Kerry played Mrs. Kass on one episode of The Waltons (The Innocents 1979). Her mother is Pearl Shear (Zulieka Dunbar). So she was Ralph's mother-in-law for a few years.

[mtdawg]

Great article. Thank you for sharing. Ralph seemed to have had some evolution in how he thought about church and religion. My biggest take away was he consistently said in interviews once he had the role of John Walton and the kids were looking up to him, he changed. So for all the Walton cast..GOD BLESS. You saved his life. What a testimony and a credit to each of them.

Also, credit to Ralph. So many people in real life never change. He loved these people.

[Alexis From Texas]

That is so interesting! I am learning so much about him, what a remarkable man he was. Thank you so much for sharing.

[wmfan/waltonsportwriter]

Feb 20, 2014 20:55:38 GMT -5 ForeverWaltons said:

St. Petersburg Times – January 26, 1978

RALPH WAITE PUT THE BOTTLE DOWN AND DRANK IN LIFE
by William Overend



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It became very clear that the key for any kind of life for me was not drinking. I was out of that nightmare… Just not drinking, one day at a time.
… That's really the most important thing to me. Maybe that's why I can do these other things. I've learned that everything else will take care of itself."
– Ralph Waite, a recovering alcoholic
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Great story about Ralph Waite and his drinking and recovery. A nice and interesting touch in light of his death. Thanks for sharing ForeverWaltons
… LOS ANGELES – Skid Row is a strange place to find the head of the Walton family out on an afternoon stroll. But Ralph Waite seems at home as he walks past the rescue missions and the cheap hotels and bars that line E. 5th St. in downtown Los Angeles. They call this strip "The Nickel," Waite says. It will the setting for the movie he is here to make.
… Waite already has spent several months down here, getting to know the people in the area. His movie – planned for November theater release – is called Rose's Park. It's about these people, and it attempts to tell something about the way they live. For lack of a simpler description, the people around Waite call it a love story.
… Waite was still drinking when he landed the part of John Walton on the Walton's seven years ago, he says. He'd show up on the set in the morning with a quart of vodka and orange juice to get him through the day, then drink himself into a blackout every night. But he realized he couldn't last much longer, and one day he found his way to a recovery program for alcoholics. That was almost 6 years ago. Waite hasn't had a drink since.
… IN FRONT of a bar called Hardrock Cafe, he pauses for a moment to say hello to an old man named Thousand Mile Shorty. Then the tour continues. Waite points out St. Vincent's Center, known as misery house. Not far away is the Emmanuel Baptist Rescue Mission. "They call it Gravy Joe's because they mainly feed 'em bread and gravy." Waite says.
… He has put a lot of himself into this movie. He wrote the script and borrowed the money to produce it himself. He is directing it as well as playing one of the lead roles. Now there are some final details to go over before the filming starts. Waite won't have time to talk much more about the movie or his own story until filming ends in another six weeks.
… "I don't go out of my way to dwell on my alcoholism," he says, heading back to the downtown hotel where he has set up his production offices. "As far as the movie goes, you can't do any preaching. But I have found so much humility down here. And Skid Row alcoholics aren't treated humanely. I would hope the movie might help to change that. I'm so grateful for my own recovery… There is a way out… If I can communicate that, that's really my life's work."
… He was born in White Plains, New York, not quite 50 years ago, and he didn't decide to become an actor until he was 32. Before that, he had been a social worker, a minister and a publicity man for the religious books division of a New York publishing house. He had some early successes after he started working as an actor, but his career was just sputtering along when he landed a job on The Waltons. And so was his life.
… Waite is home now, relaxing after the conclusion of the filming. There's a new England flavor to the relatively modest house on Mulholland Drive where he lives with his second wife, Kerry Shear, an actress whom he married last year. She's back in New York at the moment. He'll be seeing her there in a few days – taking the train back, something he's always wanted to do, he says.
… EVERYTHING, it seems, has gone well for Waite since he stopped drinking. The Waltons, now entering its seventh year, made him wealthy and famous. The success of the Los Angeles Actors' Theater, which he founded three years ago, gave him added prestige. At the same time, his personal problems overcome, he's been able to put his energies into social causes that had always interested him, from the United Farm Workers to alcohol rehabilitation programs.
… "The idea of doing my own movie started about a year ago," Waite says. "I thought this was going to be the last year of the Waltons, and was planning on going back to serious theater in New York, thinking of splitting my time between there and Los Angeles. Before I left, I wanted to do my picture here as sort of a goodbye. But I really didn't know what kind of picture I wanted to do."
… "Then I read the stories in the Los Angeles Times of Skid Row winos who had been turned over by the courts to hospitals," he says. "That interested me. I went down and started walking around, got to know some of the people and heard their stories. What I found was a real community of people overlooked by the rest of society in the most callous way. I've always felt the artist in society is here to speak for those who can't speak for themselves."
… Waite's story revolves around three characters, Sam, an ex-drunk who returns to Skid Row in a search for an old friend; CG (played by Waite), Sam's friend, who dies from his alcoholism, and Rose, who was in love with CG. Most of the money to produce the movie was borrowed from CBS and Lorimar Productions, which produces the Waltons, in exchange for Waite's agreement to play John Walton for another season. "In a way the film is about two men, one who's sober and one who's dying of drink," Waite says. "The man who is drinking is full of Life. The man who is sober is full of hang-ups. Somehow, in his friend's death, the sober man is freed."
… "I HAVE a feeling it could be a successful little film," he-continues. "But I'm not particularly concerned at at this point about making a lot of money. I've set it up so that the actors and technicians will get a percentage of the profits. I also want to make sure that the people on Skid Row aren't ripped off. We used a lot of them in the movie. I want to make some kind of contribution to the area, possibly a park with some public restrooms. There aren't any down there now."
… As a result of his first movie, Waite's not quite so sure now about an immediate move back to New York. He's considering another film, but he is unsure about the subject. He would like to do something exploring the nature of love, he says. But he doesn't feel any pressure to make a quick decision.
… "I married, I have work I respect and I'm a happy man," he says. "I was never a happy man. If I just stay off my own case and let things happen, they'll happen a lot better than if I tried to make them happen."
… What is the key to the changes in Waite's life since he stopped drinking? If there's any single factor, he suggests, it might be that for the first time he respects himself. It's an emotion that is frequently contagious.
… "I never really respected myself before," he says. "I was always just kind of drifting."
… WAITE HAD toyed with the idea of teaching philosophy while he was in college. But, after graduating from Bucknell, he became a social worker instead. One day, after some personal crises, including the death of his parents, he "just kind of wandered" up the school of Divinity at Yale University. He began taking classes in theology, earned a degree and wound up as a minister for several years at Union Chapel on Fishers Island, New York and the United Church of Christ in Garden City, Long Island.
… "I wasn't a very religious guy, but what I found there was some sense of seriousness in life – a sense of community," Waite says. "There was a lot of talk about social justice, and I was involved in some of the early civil rights activities in the 1950s. But I was young and in a hurry. I also was a compulsive drinker. I'd get drunk two or three times a week while I was a minister, go to sleep half splashed most of the time."
… He had taken his church position in Garden City because he thought it was an opportunity to influence the "real decision-makers" toward a more active commitment to social justice, Waite says. But when only two members of his church showed up to support an NAACP boycott of local stores that refused to hire blacks, he quit and moved to a farmhouse in Connecticut to ponder his future.
… Waite worked as a bartender and a salesman in a bookstore for a while, then moved to New York City to take the publicity job with the religious book department of what was then Harper Brothers. By then his first marriage was crumbling, he was putting away several martinis every lunch hour, and "everything started falling apart." A friend suggested he go to an acting class with him, and he quickly discovered that he liked it. It was, among other things, a chance to get rid of the hostilities that were building inside him.
… "WITHIN A year I was working pretty steadily," he says. "That lasted about four years. Then I got the lead in a play called 'The Watering Place.' "I was sitting in Sardi's on opening night when the reviews came in. They panned it, and the play closed that night. I was drunk. My wife had moved to Carmel Valley with our three kids. About this time, my oldest child died. I came to Hollywood, very disillusioned."
… "The drinking changed here," he says. "I was picking up a couple hundred here and there playing small character parts, settling into a copout kind of life. Then I got the call that they were trying to cast the father in a new series called The Waltons. I was hung over the day I tested. Nobody thought the series would last more than a season. I figured I'd make enough money to get back to New York."
… He was constantly amazed that nobody said anything to him about his drinking during the first months of filming the series, Waite says. He was drinking on the set, collapsing into a blackout every night and thought he looked like "the town drunk" when he saw himself on film. That's when he decided to "wander in" to one of the regular meetings of the alcohol recovery program that turned his life around.
… "Everything changed almost immediately," he says. "I never had a strong desire to drink again. My whole attitude about life turned. I began to do the things I'd always wanted to do, but only talked about before. I'd been too afraid and too ashamed before to stand up for the things I believe in. It was as if they might find out I was a drunk. For the first time I was free of all that fear, all those humiliating years."
… WAITE still regularly attends meetings of the recovery program. It's traditions discourage members from identifying their affliction. In the process, the former minister also has acquired some new beliefs about the spiritual side of life.
… "I do not have any real theology," he said." I just know there is a force at work in life that's turning me around, God, I guess. My whole relationship with God was something that is very vague to me, but very powerful. There's too much mystery and magic in my life now not to feel it. I sense this power everywhere."
… For Waite, it is a power that has brought him closer in touch with the humanity around him. That humanity, he says, is what struck him most during the months of filming on Skid Row.
… "There was so much humor, so much humanity," he said. "I go from a day on Skid Row to a party in Bel Air, and it became quite clear there wasn't really that much difference. Those are human beings down there, our brothers and our sisters. On the other hand, they are dying. Who's happier? Who can say? The only people I know who are happy are recovering alcoholics and the people around them."------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The name of this movie ended up being On The Nickel (1980). It also has Hal Williams (Harley Foster), James Gammon (Zack Roswell) and Donald Moffat (played John Walton's office boss in the episode John's Crossroads) in it. As the above article states Ralph Waite was married to Kerry Shear at this time. Kerry played Mrs. Kass on one episode of The Waltons (The Innocents 1979). Her mother is Pearl Shear (Zulieka Dunbar). So she was Ralph's mother-in-law for a few years.

[wmfan/waltonsportwriter]

SORRY MY Comment got mixed up in the top of the post. Very interesting article about Ralph Waite, his drinking and recovery in light of his death more Interestingto hear. Thanks for sharing ForeverWaltons . WMFan

[sdw]

That was a very good article ForeverWaltons.Thank you for posting this on the forum for everbody to read.I wonder if Pearl Shear got the role of Zukeila Dunbar because she was Ralph mother in-law,and he told the others about her.

[JeriJet]

Ralph was always a highly philosophical, deeply spiritual person, cared about many social causes, etc.-- whether he was drinking or not ... I love his understanding of "Skid Row" people and now need know (or remember!) whether he ever finished making his movie....

It doesn't appear that he joined AA but got help elsewhere -- I wonder if it was that Passages place in Malibu, which I've seen advertised on tv frequently....

[patriciaanne]

What a great article! Thank you for posting it. I had no idea of his connection to Pearl Shear. I can't visualize who his ex-wife is on "The Innocents." I'll have to watch for that episode. He was a deep and amazing man. I have a similar belief to him--of God being a force all around me. Have always felt that strong, guiding divine hand--especially during the tough times.