Quiet success defines actor Anthony Zerbe's career

Hollywood is filled with veteran character actors who have long, solid careers without ever achieving the level of fame that makes them household names.

They’re the actors who, when you’re struggling to describe them to friends, you say, “You know, that guy.”

In scores of movies and TV shows, “that guy” has been Anthony Zerbe.

From his earliest guest spots on TV (“Naked City,” “Route 66”) to his role as Councilor Hamann in the last two “Matrix” movies, Zerbe’s career has spanned nearly five decades.

He’s bringing that experience to Springfield over the next few days in a series of lectures and workshops, all leading up to a performance of “It’s All Done With Mirrors” Saturday evening at Sangamon Auditorium.

The program, which Zerbe crafted and has performed since the 1970s, draws on the poetry of E.E. Cummings.

“He’s presentable, he’s actable, speakable,” Zerbe said during a recent telephone interview. He said Cummings’ focus on the individual remains interesting today.

But time has a way of changing the way artists are regarded. Some are canonized; some are consigned. In an era when text messaging has rendered capitalization and punctuation an afterthought, some of Cummings’ more gimmicky innovations have lost their ability to surprise. This does not diminish his importance.

“At one time he was a contemporary poet, and now he’s a classical poet,” Zerbe said.

‘The readiness is all’

“As I get older, I think I get maybe a little smarter and a little dumber,” said Zerbe, 74. In other words, ideas once held tight have become less valid over time, and perhaps it doesn’t matter anyway.

“Conviction is not my forte,” he said. “I just let things happen — let it occur. As Hamlet says: ‘There’s special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: The readiness is all.’”

And there, in just four words, is Zerbe’s guiding philosophy. Be ready for whatever’s next.

In Zerbe’s formulation, being ready does not mean being passive. It means being available.

That seems to explain how he has consistently found work for more than four decades. He’s been in TV shows from “Gunsmoke” and “Hawaii Five-O” to “Frasier” and “Chasing Amy.” He won an Emmy in 1976 for his ongoing supporting role in the series “Harry O.” He has also appeared in movies both classic (“Cool Hand Luke”) and forgotten — in a serendipitous coincidence with this week’s Springfield concert announcement, Zerbe played the lead villain in the 1978 TV movie “KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park.”

Zerbe will discuss his career and the last four decades in film and theater in a free lecture titled “True Grit to True Grit,” set for 7 p.m. today in the Studio Theatre at the University of Illinois Springfield. (Zerbe appeared with John Wayne and Katherine Hepburn in “Rooster Cogburn,” the sequel to the original “True Grit.”)

‘Three Days of Theatre’

While talking about Cummings, Zerbe said the poet — and indeed every artist — was rooted in his era. He said the same holds true for his own work as an actor.

“When I came onto the scene, (Marlon) Brando and (Montgomery) Clift had just broken through, and the whole world was looking at a new kind of acting which was real or natural or — to put it in the worst term — method,” Zerbe said.

And in the last 50 years, he said, acting has continued to evolve and improve.

While in town, Zerbe will do what he can to help that process of improvement in a program called “Three Days of Theatre.”

Zerbe will give a lecture just for students, and will then work one-on-one with 10 actors: five from UIS, two from Lincoln Land Community College, one from Millikin University and two from the community.

He said most of his students “just” want to be good actors, as opposed to stars. That’s part of what Zerbe sees James Franco (“127 Hours”) bumping up against in his career: he’s an excellent actor that the studios are attempting to make into a star.

“Luckily for him, the piece of material startled everybody into the notion that he was much more formidable than anyone realized before,” Zerbe said, referring to “127 Hours.” “And maybe he was startled as well.”

In other words, he was ready.

Brian Mackey can be reached at 747-9587.