Jay Robinson, R.I.P.

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Actor Jay Robinson died last Friday at the age of 83. Jay was a fascinating man whose personal story was probably as interesting as any movie or TV show in which he appeared.

Jay was a major star on Broadway and was "discovered," as they say, in 1953 and cast in the motion picture, The Robe. It's hard to get noticed in a film that stars Richard Burton, Victor Mature and Jean Simmons…but Jay, in the key role of Caligula, earned some of the film's best notices. It led to many important roles (including a reprise as Caligula in Demetrius and the Gladiators) and he was just becoming a major star when it happened.

"It" was an arrest in December of '59 for possession and sale of heroin. He served jail time but when he got out, he discovered his career was over. Studios wouldn't touch him. He drifted into other work in mostly menial jobs, got into all kinds of trouble and wound up behind bars again. Finally, in 1968 when he got out, he cleaned up his thoughts and mind — and finding Jesus, he said, was the big thing — and made an all-out attempt to rebuild his acting career. While he never attained his pre-arrest stature, he did manage to find steady work, mostly in small roles. Once typed as Caligula, he found himself now typed for over-the-top roles of a fantastic nature. He did a lot of horror and science-fiction films and finally got himself cast in a Saturday morning series, the Krofft SuperShow, in which he played the villainous Dr. Shrinker.

I worked with him on a subsequent Krofft series in which he played a similar, scenery-chewing mad scientist. He was awfully good…a very nice man who worked very hard at his craft.

I have two main memories of Jay, both from that series. Jay wrote his autobiography…a soul-cleansing book he called The Comeback. It was a little preachy but then so was Jay. One day shortly before it came out, he came up to me on the set and asked me if I'd like to have lunch with him and some of his friends that day. He said, "You're interested in Watergate, aren't you?" I told him I was, yes, very much. "I remember you said that," he continued. "Well then, you have to come to lunch with us."

An hour or so later, his friends came on the set — all of them way too well-dressed to be in our crummy studio. The leader of the group was Charles Colson, once hailed as "Nixon's hatchet man," who'd served time for his Watergate-related crimes and then run a religious organization since his release from prison. I don't recall if he was publishing Jay's book but he was involved in its marketing and that's what the lunch was about.

Before long, I was sitting among his entourage at a big table where not a word was said about Nixon or Watergate but there was constant mention of Jesus, God, Our Heavenly Father, etc. Me aside, everyone alternated: One sentence about how to boost the gross of Jay's book by strong-arming it into religious stores and book clubs, then one non sequitur paying lip service to Jesus. It was like they were all convinced that when you reach those Pearly Gates, you are judged not on anything you've done but wholly on how many times in your life you mentioned God. One of the few things I said to Mr. Colson — and I actually said this — was, "Praise the Lord and pass the ketchup."

He didn't get it. He passed the ketchup, said "Praise God," then turned to Jay and explained how he was going to (nicely) threaten some distributor of religious books and get them to drop a certain other book and push The Comeback. Jay was pretty serious about not caring about the money. He just wanted people to read his story so that they might benefit from his experiences. For everyone else there though, it was just product to be hustled hard for profits.

That was one memory I have of Jay. The other one was a few weeks later, I believe. The show we did together featured the Bay City Rollers, a once-kinda popular rock group that was about fifteen months into its Year at the Top. I believe they'd actually retired but upon being offered this series, had reassembled to make a few more bucks Rollering before they went their separate ways.

The Rollers were great guys but one of them had what seemed like a bit of a drug problem. One day, he was woefully late for a taping and when he came in, he didn't know his lines but he did know an array of excuses no one believed. One of the other band members, in front of everyone, accused him of being too stoned to get up that morning. The tardy Roller shot back that he could handle it. It wasn't going to get in the way of whatever career they had left. Then Jay stepped in and began lecturing the young man about the evils of narcotics.

That Roller's first response was along the lines of "What do you know about it, old man?" Then Jay said, "I knew plenty about drugs before I went to prison for heroin, and what I didn't know, I learned behind bars." Everyone around got instantly silent and he launched into his story — the ruined stardom, the lost years, the hard climb back…all of it. And I'll give this to that Bay City Roller: He listened. I don't know if he took any of it to heart but he listened. The 15-minute version that Jay delivered was a riveting, emotional story that I'm sure would have helped some drug abusers if they heard it.

And that's mainly how I remember him…telling his story of how he'd destroyed his life…hoping that by sharing it, he'd do somebody some good. He was a kind, compassionate man. And just last week, I saw him on a rerun of an old Banacek and I was reminded he was a darn good actor, too.