Superboy the TV Series and The X-Files: What's the connection?

Article by Rennie Cowan



Article by Rennie Cowan

This is a fun article that appeared on the old site The Boy of Steel TV. Often, when one watches the 'Superboy' TV show, one might actually realize that Superboy was ahead of its' time. Looking at say the Sci-Fi channel today, or movies like 'The Matrix' it is hard to argue against this notion. Ever notice that the whole Bureau for Extra-Normal Matters plot that occured in season 3 and 4 of "The Adventures of Superboy" (TV series) resembles 'The X-Files' TV show? Or, ever notice the string of plots from 'Superboy's' most cherished "Roads Not Taken" part 1 and 2, where Superboy travels into alternate Earths (meeting different versions of himself where history is totally different)? It is very similar to the later popular mid-90's show 'Sliders'.

Chris Carter, the creator of the 'The X-Files' may have never seen 'Superboy', but it is fun to compare more recent televsion shows, and recent films we see in the theaters, taking into account that 'Superboy' aired prior to 'The X-Files', 'Sliders', and the theatrical release of 'The Matrix' (NOTE: watch the episodes "Know Thine Enemy" Part 1 and 2 for a comparison of 'The Matrix').

Taking a look at 'The X-Files' we see a pairing of two government investigators (or Agents). In 'Superboy', Clark and Lana are field agents (interning as a field agent, actually) and in 'The X-Files' we have Mulder and Scully who are FBI Agents. Both pairs are continually assigned to check out and investigate unexplained occurances during each episode(s). Clark and Lana act as partners to unravel recent or sometimes ancient mysteries. Much the same as what Mulder and Scully did...investigate the paranoia and unexplained occurances. Both plots appear to focus on the super-natural for story-telling; each plot would entail that the two pairs come across dangers during their investagations. This led to unexpected adventures and discoveries and usually by the end of each episode they would solve their case. The main difference is that in 'Superboy' the solving would be done mostly by Superboy's help and super powers.

So, could Chris Carter, the creator of the reknowned 'X-Files' series been inspired by 'Superboy's' 3rd or 4th seasons? Probably not. But some food for thought here--if you take away Superboy and make Clark and Lana regular FBI agents...then the 3rd and 4th seasons of 'Superboy' would be very similar, if not identical to 'The X-Files'. This is just an interesting theory of mine, and the same could be said for 'Sliders' and 'The Matrix'. But of course, most of the ideas in 'Superboy' have been floating around in comic-bookdom for years. However, I just like to think that 'Superboy' took that extra step into the future...a step many were not willing to take on film until years later....

Jim Calvert played TJ White on Superboy, the TV Series.

Article by Rennie Cowan

Ever wonder if there was a connection between the Daily Planet and Superboy, the TV Series? There was, and his name was TJ White. TJ was Perry White's young son on Superboy, the TV Series. TJ was, coincidently, a photographer. This may have been an attempt to fill the boots of Jimmy Olsen, and it worked well. Both TJ and Clark worked for the college paper which was called The Shuster Herald. TJ's full name was Terrence Jenkins White III (the third). The actor who portrayed TJ actually invented the name of his own character. Years later he told the webmaster, "I didn['t realize it back then, but now I see that being TJ the third would have been impossible because his Father's name was Perry!" He didn't realize it, and nobody else did either. The actor who played TJ White was an unknown named Jim Calvert and now he is forever immortalized in Superman history. TJ also appeared in the short run Superboy the TV Series comic book.

Below, watch a clip of Jim Calvert with a Spanish Superboy comic book at the 2012 Los Angeles Science Fiction and Comic Book convention (Calvert's first convention appearance):



Below are photos of Jim Calvert from the 2012 Los Angeles Science Fiction and Comic Book Convention. The bottom photo (starting from the left) is John Haymes Newton, Ilya Salkind and Jim Calvert:

To be inserted very soon....

Jor-El and Lara in Superboy the TV Series.

Article by Rennie Cowan

Superboy didn't know his Kryptonian heritage during each four seasons of the Superboy TV Series. Except for the snippet of information that Clark received in the episodes "Rites of Passage" part 1 and 2 (he was informed he was from another planet) the show ended with only that information given and Superboy knew nothing about what planet he was from, who his parents were or who he was exactly. However, he did actually find out (and very briefly) that he was from Krypton and who his real parents were in a two-part, second season episode(s) titled "Abandon Earth" and "Escape to Earth". But because time was changed, Superboy lost that information in time itself.

It must be noted that these two episodes are one of the best storylines of the series. We also see some very good performances from Gerard and Stacy, as Lana and Superboy have some very critical moments. Superboy is led astray in the episode "Abandon Earth" and it appears that all of his questions about his heritage were about to be answed and by his real parents: father Jor-El and mother Lara.



Superboy, Jor-El (Vorok) and Lara (Mir) stop a bank robbery (left photo); Superboy is reunited with his parents who are really imposters (Rigth photo)

This two-part storyline in the episodes "Abandon Earth"/"Escape to Earth" has been criticized as being the best - and oddly, the worst of the Superboy series. Perhaps this is because Jor-El and Lara were not exactly who they claimed to be, but were imposters of Superboy's parents. The fans on message boards appear to be divided on it; they either love it, or they hate it. I, on the other hand, loved it! Indeed, this tale had many strong points. For one, we get to see Jor-El and Lara.



Vorok and Mir pretend to be Superboy's parents in "Abandon Earth".

For two, Lana discovers Clark's secret identity. She is angry at Clark at first and says, "We've known each other all our lives...and you didn't trust me." This was a great dramatic revelation...Lana's revelation.

We also see Superboy's cave, his iconic hideway that we find in the old DC comic books of the Superboy titles (underneath the Kent farm).

In these two episdes we discover that Superboy had molded a secret cavern (a cave) to store away memorable artifacts attained through previous episodes, like the large crucifix used to defeat Byron in "Run Dracula Run". In the pre-crisis Superboy comic books, Superboy had a hideaway underneath the farm house and this is where he stored many things from many of his earlier adventures. The Superboy TV Series was truly paying homage to the Superboy DC comic books when it utilized the historical setting of the pre-crisis Superboy cave.

This dual episode storyline was also very original and had an unexpected out-come. Apparently, these two people were not his real parents, but grotesque aliens in true form; but they can emulate any species they choose. They pretended to be Superboy's parents and convince Superboy with a lie to go to Krypton with them so that they could lock him up in their inter-planetary space zoo.

Superboy eventually learns the truth. Andy dies. And Superboy learns that his real parents died when Krypton exploded. Last but not least, the fourth strong point is an obvious one-- Lana Lang and Superboy profess their love for one another and embrace in a passionate kiss before they fade away from time. This was undeniably one of the most poignant and heart-felt moments of the series.

The weak points are George Lazenby (who played Jor-El; in real life he was the one-time James Bond in 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service') and Britt Ekland (who played Lara and coincidently was a former Bond Girl, Mary Goodnight). Their performances were sterile and cold, not to mention over-the-top at times (maybe even corny). However, if we compare them to the John Bryne's version of Jor-El and Lara who were intially written as cold on the surface, then it makes sense. And they do have a good excuse; they weren't exactly the real Jor-El and Lara of Krypton. They were imposters posing as Superboy's parents. They ran a space zoo, and they wanted to collect Superboy as their specimen.

Their real names were Vorok and Mir, not Jor-El and Lara. They had taken the identities of Jor-El and Lara from Superboy's infant memories. Lana explained it in a nut-shell during the episode "Escape to Earth" when she said, "You two are really sick!" Jor-El and Lara arrived on Earth in a Doctor-Who-ish vehicle than began to destory landmarks and property to get Superboy's attention. Once they got his undivided attention, they told Superboy that he is from a planet called Krypton, the planet of his birth. They wanted Superboy to go back home with them, where he truly belonged.

Later of course, Superboy learns about Vorok and Mir's lie ...and that his real parents were really dead. Krypton had been destroyed, along with his parents. Earlier on in "Abandon Earth", Vorok had killed Andy McAllister (Clark's roomate) and Lana finds out Clark's true identity. The plot had thickened, but Superboy made the choice to turn back time and erase all the damage Vorok and Mir had done. Sadly, this meant that he couldn't keep the new knowledge he had acquired about Krypton (nor could Lana keep her revelation about Clark being Superboy). But in the long run, it was the right thing to do.

Time was changed--Andy never died and Vorok and Mir never started their space zoo. Lana and Superboy declared a deep love for one another just before they disappeared in time. Everything went back to normal but both Lana and Clark felt that something had happened at the end, but couldn't quite put their finger on it. "Escape to Earth" ended on nice touch.

"Abandon Earth"/"Escape to Earth" are one of the best episodes of the series, and clearly demonstrates how having a lack of heritage about Krypton brought sympathy to the Superboy character.

NOTE: In the third season episode called "Mindscape" we actually do see (rather vaguely) and hear the voice of Jor-El when Superboy has a near-death experience. Superboy fights off an alien who is sucking his life-force and Jor-El tells Superboy that it is not yet his time to die. Superboy doesn't learn anything about his heritage, but he does discover he has a purpose.

Bizarro on SUPERBOY: THE TV SERIES

Article by Rennie Cowan

Yes, Bizarro had a featured role in the Superboy TV Series. The make-up (a six piece latex mask) for the Bizarro face looked exceptionally real and all done by Rob Burman. And what Superboy fan could ever forget the classic Bizarro line: "Ah, now me remember. Me am Kent Clark, and me go to school." Bizarro was played by actor Barry Meyers (which was a stage name). He now goes by Douglas B. Meyers. The role of Bizarro actually enabled him to get his SAG card. The Bizarro mask was made out of latex and took 2 and 1/2 hours each morning to put on -- and 1 and 1/2 hours to take off at the end of the day. Surprisingly so, the mask wasn't hot as Barry Meyers himself stated to me during a discussion on facebook: "When the mask was put on it was in 6 pieces and glued to my face so there was no where for hot air to be...but the suit was a different story."



Due to budget cuts on the Bizarro costume itself, it came from the old ones which were the John Haymes Newton Superboy costumes. The special effects movie make-up glue that was used on Barry Meyers was called 455. All of the Bizarro costumes came from the first season of the John Haymes Newton year; which is obvious because the "S" emblem on Bizarro's chest was smaller (overall) like how Newton's costume was. Traditionally, Bizarro is supposed to have a backwards "S" emblem on his chest because Bizarro is from Bizarro world where everything is backwards; because he is a backwards version of Superboy/Clark Kent (and he gets the real world kind of mixed up at times). However, Barry Meyers stated to me on facebook: "Bizarro was not really the backwards Superboy he was really more the imperfect duplicate as he was made from the Professor's duplication ray...not from Bizarro world...".

On the Superboy show, Bizarro's logic is imperfect, as Meyers described it. Barry Meyers the actor starred as Bizarro in 8 episodes of Superboy the TV Series. He also appeared as a different character named Caliban in the 3rd season episode "Special Effects", the episode where Andy McAllister comes back for season 3. The Caliban make-up took 2 hours to put on, so it wasn't as much work as Bizarro. And it was not unusual for actors from different episodes of Superboy to later play entirely different characters in different seasons. You can often spot them, but it isn't always obvious. Of course, with Barry Meyers he was wearing a mask for both characters so we don't know it's him. Barry did get the chance to take off the Bizarro mask and be human as "Bill Zarro" and this was when Bizarro was cured in the third season episodes "To Be Human" Part 1 and 2. Barry Meyers also clued me in on the fact that Gerard Christopher actually passed out in Part 1, inside the transfer chamber due to a smoke lead inside the tube.

There were other Bizarros on Superboy as well. Including Bizarro Lex Luthors, a Bizarro Darla and Bizarro pigeons. Lana Lang was also made into a Bizarro-Lana by Lex Luthor because Bizarro wanted "someone to love" and that was the only way Luthor could get Bizarro to kill Superboy. But we all know that striking a deal with Lex Luthor never turns out for the better; to Bizarro's distaste, the Bizarro-Lana had a natural defect and exploded right in front of Bizarro's eyes. This occured in the two-part third season episode titled "The Bride of Bizarro" (part 1 and 2). What should be commended is Rob Burman's make-up on the Bizarro mask. Compare that with the Bizarro on "Smallville" which only has blocky pieces super-imposed on Tom Welling's face (by using CGI), you really see that the Bizarro in the Superboy TV Series is a perfact match to the comic books. Rob Burman continues to do make-up in Hollywood and worked on the latest Star Trek movie. You can view a very cool clip of him doing make-up for 2009's Star Trek movie here.

Barry Meyers began his career performing as a character called "Mr. Silver" in which he would paint himself silver and do robotic moves like what Michael Jackson did when MJ did the robot (around 1974). In fact, Barry still performs as Mr. Silver today and you can view the Mr. Silver The Performer Demo on youtube. Barry was inspired by Michael Jackson for all his robotic moves; this really shows when you watch the demo. Barry also choreographed a live show for LaToya Jackson back in 1989. He has visited the former Never Never Land Ranch and rode Michael Jackson's famous train. So he has had an interesting career and the Mr. Silver performance is quite a spectacular show. Children really seem to love Mr. Sivler so he wants to produce the character into a TV series for children. His latest endeavor has been work on the TV Show "One Tree Hill" (on the East Coast).

The creator of Bizarro was Alvin Schwartz, by the way. You can read an article about him here.

Below, watch the trailer for part 1 of "Bizarro...The Thing of Steel" (second season episode) right below, provided by the Superboy Theater youtube channel.

What ever happened to Andy McAllister?

Andy McAlister played Clark Kent's roomate in season two of Superboy the TV Series. The actor for the role was IIan Mitchell-Smith who starred in the 1980's classic "Weird Science" the motion picture. Andy became the comic relief for the show. By the third season, he had left the series but appeared as a cameo appearance in the season 3 episode "Special Effects". After his short cameo in season 3, Andy McAlister never returned to the series again. Below is a funny clip of Clark and Andy going clubbing in a season 2 episode:



In real life (and with much nobility), IIan Mitchell-Smith, the actor, gave up his acting career to become a University Professor shortly after his cameo in season 3. He realized that he really wanted to work in Academia so he pursued a PHD in Medieval Studies to become a college professor. He has taught History at Texas A&M University and English at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas where he continues to teach. He doesn't like students taking his picture and if anyone wants an autograph then that can only be done on the first day of class. After that, no autographs. He is married to Susannah Demaree and has two children, a boy named Asher and a daughter named Eloise. Who would of thought that the college slacker Andy McAlister was really that smart? But, apparently - IIan Mitchell-Smith the actor was that smart.

Article and interview with Gerard Christopher (1991) by Seli Groves

Gerard Christopher speaks to preschoolers in Florida. This picture goes along with the article.

Interview with Gerard Christopher by Dan Recchia of Teen Magazines, Inc. December, 1990.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIBED By Rennie Cowan



This is the second unpublished interview conducted by Dan Recchia, the former Art Director of Teen Magazines, Inc. As opposed to the first phone interview, this interview took place at the offices of Viacom in New York directly after the 3rd season premiere, the two-part episode "The Bride of Bizarro" (Viacom scheduled the interview). Like the previous interview, this has never been read or heard by the fans until now - at Superboy Theater! Please, do not reprint this without my permission. Dan entrusted this interview to me before he died and I do have the original audio cassette tapes of the interview. Also, you will notice that present in this interview is Viacom's PR Representive. Enjoy!



Dan Recchia: You came up from Florida and I bet you thought it was going to be cool up here right now.

Gerard Christopher: And it's not [laughs]. I called them up last night [Viacom] and asked what the weather was like. Though she told me there that's what happens before it rains; might be some rain coming in.

PR Representative: Yeah, well that happens when it rains but it hasn't rained at all. It's very uh, warm. So does the weather bother you?

Dan Recchia: Nah, I'm alright. So this is really the second part now of the interview that we did earlier this year.

Gerard Christopher: Yeah. It's so funny because if I just turn this way I feel like I'm on the phone. And I really know even the cadence of your voice over the phone.

PR Representative: Wow.

Dan Recchia: [laughs] Well, it was a nice interview with Gerard this year. And I'm trying to remember where we left off on. We talked about George Reeves. And we talked about George Lazenby. Things like that.

Gerard Christopher: Hmm..Hmm.

Dan Recchia: Where we left off at - I didn't do an article because you asked me not to print a lot of the stuff you were saying. You didn't know if you were coming back or not.

PR Representative: [laughs]

Dan Recchia: And I wouldn't print any of that. I didn't want to get you in trouble or anything.

Both PR Representative and Gerard Christopher laugh.

Gerard Christopher: I've learned since last year.

Dan Recchia: I was curious leading off what was going to happen. I'm glad you came back.

Pr Representative: Because of the show....

Dan Recchia: The show wouldn't be the same without you. But without getting into the details, are you happy with coming back?

Gerard Christopher: Oh yeah. I really am. The show is a lot better than it was last year. There is a lot more vision creatively. And people are just working hard. They are slaving away to just make it a lot better. And I don't know if you have seen the show Sunday -

Dan Recchia: I sure did.

Gerard Christopher: What did you think?

Dan Recchia: I loved it. And I watched it which was last Sunday. Which is an unfortunate time-slot.

Gerard Christopher: Yeah. In New York it's not great.

Dan Recchia: Five O'Clock on Sunday is horrible.

Gerard Christopher: In Los Angeles we got a great time, because that's a big market to; we got Thursday nights there which is wonderful.

Dan Recchia: What time?

Gerard Christopher: Seven, seven-thirty.

PR Representative: Yeah, I think it's seven-thirty.

Gerard Christopher: Even seven-thirty is good.

Dan Recchia: Even last year in New York it was on opposite Star Trek, which is like the #2 popular show. I'll watch the show at whatever time. If I'm not home, you know, I'll tape it. I watched it last Sunday. I loved it. I loved every minute of it. Now the show looks different. I mean it looks more dramatic. Tell me about the difference just in - why does it look more dramatic now? Why does it look darker? It has a certain look about it now.

Gerard Christopher: That was a creative choice. We thought that that would be a very interesting way to photograph the show and make it look a lot more exciting. And I think it does. A lot of things that I was complaining about last year was that they were putting me in this very bright outfit that I have to wear standing outside in the Florida sun and it just doesn't give the appearance that I want to give. I would much prefer that my character comes out of the dark space and you see him lit behind. It's just more - to me it's a lot more powerful.

Dan Recchia: Yeah sure.

Gerard Christopher: It's a lot more powerful. And that's what we are going for. Something more dramatic. Something a lot more interesting and I think that we are approaching what we want.

Dan Recchia: Now the impression I got - first, are they putting the movie - well several questions. One, you told me the Salkinds were leaving. Their names are still on the show.

Gerard Christopher: Well there is some --

Dan Recchia: It still says Alexander and Ilya Salkind.

Gerard Christopher: I'll be really honest. I don't really know exactly what their involvement is. I know they are not involved in the day to day operation of the show. They're not. I know there is some involvement, but I don't know what it is. I don't ever talk to them. So as far as I'm concerned I'm doing the show everyday and I don't have to talk to them, so....

Dan Recchia: But last year was he always here, like on the set all the time.

Gerard Christopher: No. Not really. He was uh...he was off the set most of the time. He was most of the time in his office, and he used to get messages back and forth through his office.

Dan Recchia: Alright so, I got the impression - now you told me when we spoke last time that they are going to make it more like Superman this year. And the first impression I got of this thing watching it last Sunday was it looks like Clark Kent and Lois Lane at the Daily Planet. It's not an office, but it's an office.

Gerard Christopher: It is an office.

Dan Recchia: It's an office setting.

Gerard Christopher: It is an office.

Dan Recchia: It's what, the Buearu of --

Gerard Christopher: It's a permanent set, the Buearu of Extranormal Matters.

Dan Recchia: It's the Buearu of Extranormal Matters which they could use on 42nd Street as a set, there's a lot of extranormal matters there.

Gerard Christopher: [laughs]

Dan Recchia: Is that right next to the Buearu of Extra-Marital Affairs?

Gerard Christopher: Yeah, probably [laughs].

PR Representative: [laughs]

Dan Recchia: The Bearu of abnormal valuables?

Gerard Christopher: Some of them are probably like - some of them are probably filed in the same office.

Dan Recchia: Is this supposed to be a government thing?

Gerard Christopher: Yes.

Dan Recchia: The government has no money for things like this.

Gerard Christopher: Yeah really.

Dan Recchia: It's very - but what was the reason. Who came up with that, first of all?

Gerard Christopher: That was one of the writers. Or a combination of some of the writers. I guess somebody had the initial thought and they built it up to that. I really wasn't involved with that at the time because I was in the throws of what I was going through during hiatus.

Dan Recchia: Right.

Gerard Christopher: And although they asked me to get invovled it didn't work out for other reasons with me finding out whether or not I was coming back to work. But I think it was a good choice because it's a place where Clark Kent can go, and he can be in the mist of all of this stuff. He finds out about all this crazy stuff happening. And he's in a position where he can intervene and act on things that he wants to.

Dan Recchia: Well first I wondered if it was the government, because if it's a private organization --

Gerard Christopher: No, it's a government organization.

Dan Recchia: If it's private I was saying "who's paying for this"....

Gerard Christopher: [laughs]

Dan Recchia: I can just see the boss, you know, the Perry White figure going "I want that UFO investigated now!"

Gerard Christopher: Well no, that's why it's a government thing [laughs] where it's this guy, Dennis Jackson, is kind of a buearacratic guy who is budget conscious and he wants most of these things filed because he thinks that most of them are...well BS.

Dan Recchia: So, how does this change the storylines?

Gerard Christopher: It's just it's more adult. He's dealing with much more real things now. He's much more of an adult, he wants to know why he's here, where he's from, where he got his powers. He's trying to find out. And he's pretty single-mindly focused on finding out that. And that's what prevents him from getting involved with a woman. That's what prevents him from doing bad things. That's what prevents him from getting off the track. That's why he stays a good guy because when he's tempted to do something bad, well like anybody would, if he's frustrated with going after the same criminals everyday rather than just -- well you know Lex Luthor tries to kill him almost every time they meet.

Dan Recchia: Well yeah but --

Gerard Christopher: If you met somebody who tried to kill you almost everytime you interacted with him and you had the power to kill him, you don't even have to, well you could just look at him and kill him, would you do it? Realistically?

Dan Recchia: Realistically, no, I wouldn't do it.

Gerard Christopher: I might. I might.

Dan Recchia: Wow...just looking at him.

PR Representative: [laughs]

Gerard Christopher: And that's something that comes --

Dan Recchia: But it's still a -- I mean I watch the show. I'm not a kid. I mean, I'm 39 years old. I love this kind of material, ok. I have friends my age. I have friends my age who love this kind of stuff also. But it is primarily a show aimed for younger people.

Gerard Christopher: It's fantasy. It's innocent.

Dan Recchia: The thing is, are they going to be doing more of, the villains and things, are they going to be doing any more of the DC comics things like Bizarro and Metallo.

Gerard Christopher: Bizarro, yes. Metallo, no.

Dan Recchia: And Myzptlk?

Gerard Christopher: No, the things that are over-the-top are gone. Things are going to be much more contemporary. I'm writing the show this year.

Dan Recchia: Oh you mentioned that, you talked about wanting to do that.

Gerard Christopher: I'm writing it now. It's about real issues in the world. Picture the world in a situation that's grave. In the world but as if we had Superboy. Would he intervene?

Dan Recchia: That's fine. That's how the series began, by the way. When it began, the first ones that John Haymes Newton did, they were very reality based. The first 13 were bought.

Gerard Christopher: Unfortunately, there were also budgetary constraints. You can only take things so fa, you knowr.

Dan Recchia: Right. Right.

Gerard Christopher: We can't go on location to God knows where in the world and do the show. So you have to think creatively thik that and incorporate that. But the one that I'm going to make is that Superboy gets involved in real issues. Real war and peace and life and death situations that will, you know, globally impact the world. I mean, the whole world is involved. And that's what I think is more real.

Dan Recchia: Right.

Gerard Christopher: When I look at myself or think of myself as having these powers, would I be good? Would I be bad? Would I be tempted to be bad? I'd probably be tempted to be bad a lot. Would I date women? Would I date one woman, would I be married or would I date a hundred women? What would I do? Would I be good, bad or would I want money? Would I sell my services, how would I be?

Dan Recchia: Right, right. Well what would be interesting also is I think the reaction of other people to Superboy.

Gerard Christopher: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Dan Recchia: Would they try to use him? Would try to put him on TV? Would they -- they got a lot of milelage with that out of New York with the Spiderman comics by trying to make him semi-realistic by tying to do that.

Gerard Christopher: Hmm...hmmm.



Two days later Dan Recchia interviews Stacy Haiduk and she speaks about a script she received called "Roads Not Taken". Dan had interviewed John Haymes Newton, but it got deleted accidently by his former Editor. However, he spoke of how Newton bought him pancakes for breakfast during the interview.

THIS IS NOT THE FULL INTERVIEW...MORE TO COME AS SOON AS IT'S TRANSCRIBED - COMING SOON!

Interview with Gerard Christopher by Dan Recchia of Teen Magazines Inc. in New York (May 10th, 1990).

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIBED BY Rennie Cowan.



This is an unpublished interview that has never been read or heard until now - at Superboy Theater! This was a phone interview conducted by Dan Recchia for Teen Magazines Inc. in New York, May of 1990, before shooting began on the 3rd season of Superboy. Please do not reprint this without permission - it was given to me on audio cassette by Dan and I do have the original audio interviews on cassette tape. Unfortunately, Dan died back in 2002 but he entrusted it to me. The interview was conducted during a time when Gerard Christopher was concerned about being replaced by another actor due to Viacom's budget. Enjoy!



Dan Rechhia: Should I call you Jerry or Gerard, or what? Which is better?

Gerard Christopher: Whichever.

Dan Recchia: Whichever?

Gerard Christopher: Gerard.

Dan Recchia: Whichever is better for you, Jerry?

Gerard Christopher: It’s easier I guess (laughs).

Dan Rechhia: Alright, Jerry. So how are you doing right now? How’s the weather out there. It’s pouring rain in New York right now. It’s horrible and disgusting out here.

Gerard Christopher: Oh it’s, not bad.

Dan Recchia: I want to thank you for doing the interview. I really appreciate it. I’m really heavily into the show.

Gerard Christopher: Great.

Dan Recchia: I’m a big Superman fan. I like anything with that character anyway, regardless of whatever it is.

Gerard Christopher: That’s great.

Dan Recchia: Yeah I watch it on tape, I watch it regularly and I want to tell you up front that you are just doing a fantastic job. I can tell that you are really into the character. It’s a fun show.

Gerard Christopher: I hope so.

Dan Recchia: I also interviewed John Haymes Newton. You remember him?

Gerard Christopher: (laughs) Yes…I’ve never seen his shows but of course I know who he is.

Dan Recchia: No way, get out of here, really?! I have all his episodes on tape, and he was…well I’ll get a little bit into him later but I mean he was a nice guy and everything but I don’t think there was any comparison to be honest. They will never get rid of you, as far as the character and everything. Watching his shows now, I mean I have them all on tape –

Gerard Christopher: What do you mean they’ll never get rid of me?

Dan Recchia: Well, I don’t know exactly what happened with him and the story that I read, at least this is what was in print. I don’t know the whole dirt and everything but that he asked for a lot of money; he had a big head and they fired him basically. And there was something about a lot of bad driving tickets that he had.

Gerard Christopher: He had a very bad reputation.

Dan Recchia: Is that what it was? I mean he seemed like such a nice –

Gerard Christopher: For all it’s worth, he asked for money and it’s interesting that this phone call comes at a bad time – what magazine are you with?

Dan Recchia: This is a magazine called Zing. I’m actually the Art Director, I’m not the Editor. The Editor couldn’t care less about Superboy, she’s not into that stuff. She’s into more Teen stars. But I’m the Art Director. I do this and Zing, Teen Throbs, and I do a lot of Rock magazines here. And I’m really the one who wanted to do this interview. I pushed for it.

Gerard Christopher: Well that’s great. I’m very happy. I just hope that I’ll be on air again next season. I mean, I hope so.

Dan Recchia: Well, why? Have they picked it up?

Gerard Christopher: Well it’s interesting that you say they’ll never get rid of me. They don’t want to, but they are so incredibly and notoriously and meticulously cheap and abusive to actors that are working with Viacom.

Dan Recchia: That’s interesting.

Gerard Christopher: I’m in the middle and I’m just kind of starting the role.

Dan Recchia: You don’t know if you want to do it again?

Gerard Christopher: Yes.

Dan Recchia: Wow, that’s interesting. Well –

Gerard Christopher: I mean I would love to do the character again. I love the show. But the people I would have to be working with are interesting.

Dan Recchia: I want to move this along because I know you have limited time. I want to get in as many questions as possible.

Gerard Christopher: You should.

Dan Recchia: I have questions here but let me disregard what I wrote down and just pick up on this a little bit.

Gerard Christopher: Can you do me a favor? Do me a favor? I’d appreciate it if you didn’t print this stuff.

Dan Recchia: Not at all. I won’t print it.

Gerard Christopher: But I’ll tell you what. I have your phone number and if anything happens, I’ll call you. And you can add it to your magazine, if you want to print it.

Dan Recchia: You see you have to understand. This is a magazine for 14 year old girls, ok. It’s a very simple teen magazine.

Gerard Christopher: Well I’ll tell you, the people watching my show are right there.

Dan Recchia: I guess so. That’s unfortunate, you know, I wanted to ask you at some point about the George Reeve syndrome. It was this poor man back in the 1950’s that did a really good job. I mean I was heavily into that show.

Gerard Christopher: I’m very much into it, in fact I had a big discussion about him last night at dinner.

Dan Recchia: Well you know what he went through. Times are different now. This is not the 1950’s anymore. Maybe you can go from playing Superboy one day to starring in a Brian De Palma film tomorrow.

Gerard Christopher: I will say that for all it’s worth the story about his life and what happened to him, it’s hard to say….

Dan Recchia: Distorted?

Gerard Christopher: I’m looking for exactly the right words, but there is a lot of dispute about what actually happened. People claim that he was despondent and killed himself.

Dan Recchia: I’m not even talking about that. I’m not talking about the suicide.

Gerard Christopher: Some say he was murdered and all that.

Dan Recchia: I’m disregarding all of that. What I’m talking about is the thing when you start doing it – I mean you are in a perfect position to understand this. Because you are doing it; you’re wearing that costume every week.

Gerard Christopher: Yeah.

Dan Recchia: That suit which has been born by so many actors. It’s like playing Sherlock Holmes. You’re playing something that goes back to the 1940’s. Like Kirk Alan and all the other people who played in that costume, a lot of them, all these different people who have played that costume. But I’m sure even for him in 1951 to get out there and do something new, and he did it every week and he did it very well. Six years later, here he is in this costume, still, and he was basically a good actor and I’m sure he wanted to do a lot of things. But times are different, even for Christopher Reeve. It’s not easy to get out of that in people’s minds and say “hey, I can do other things than this”. And I can see how you would say, even aside from the money I don’t want to be Superboy my entire life. Michael Keaton, I’m sure he has a lot of questions about playing Batman again, even though the money was good, the publicity was good and everything, you don’t want to be this comic book cartoon thing.

Gerard Christopher: I don’t think that’s a real concern anymore.

Dan Recchia: No?

Gerard Christopher: Not really.

Dan Recchia: Ok, so I just want to ask you one thing. Is it Viacom, or the Salkinds?

Gerard Christopher: The Salkinds are out. Viacom are now the sole Producers of the show.

Dan Recchia: Oh wow, does it have to do with the movie because I heard they were doing another Superman soon.

Gerard Christopher: Well, I would prefer that you talk to the Salkinds about that. But I just believe they were very active in doing films and they wanted to concentrate their energies there.

Dan Recchia: Wow. Ok, let me kind of move away from this because I really want to find out more about you. I don’t know a thing about you other than what I watch on television. Where did you grow up and go to school and everything?

Gerard Christopher: I grew up in the Bronx. I went to Parochial High School.

Dan Recchia: That’s not the South Bronx I hope.

Gerard Christopher: Yeah, Parochial is in South Bronx. And it was an interesting background; I got street wise very early. I moved out of my parent’s home very young; when I was about 17 years old. I still ponder and think about whether or not it was the best thing to do. But if I hadn’t done that, who knows, I probably wouldn’t be doing what I am doing now. I ended up going to college at night and on the weekends. I modeled during the day. I was a model.

Dan Recchia: And this was all in New York?

Gerard Christopher: Yeah. I got to travel and I lived in New York most of the time. Then in 1984 I went to California, got an Agent and started acting. I did a TV Pilot and a movie and couple other TV things. It’s interesting because I started to back away from show business before I got this job because I got a real job in commercial real estate. Because I thought there was a career there and the acting business is so cereal time, you don’t know if it’s real, coming or going. You just don’t know.

Dan Recchia: Do you think – I mean you mention real estate – is acting always something you’ve taken seriously or is it something you know you can do and you know you can get jobs.

Gerard Christopher: No it’s something I always very serious about but it was something I just didn’t want to dabble in it. It’s something I either wanted to make my life or I don’t. Because I feel passionate about it in that regard; I didn’t want to do it to the determent of my entire life though, if you know what I mean. I didn’t want to call myself an actor and then, coming up on – well I’m going to be 31 tomorrow.

Dan Recchia: Oh wow, Happy Birthday.

Gerard Christopher: Thank you. And as you move on in life, I mean you’re a man. I suppose you are even older than I am.

Dan Recchia: I’m 38.

Gerard Christopher: You maybe know what the story is, at a certain point and time you want to move on with your life, and people have a different agenda. You may want to get married and have kids one day. You have to kind of move on and make a secure life for yourself.

Dan Recchia: You could do very well. You could do better as an actor than I can do here -- Art Directing a dumb magazine.

Gerard Christopher: Well it depends, and not necessarily when you are working for Viacom.

Dan Recchia: Oh, interesting. Well I guess if it’s not the Salkinds anymore and it’s just them maybe – you know -- I don’t know, I mean you’re on the inside of all of this. If it stinks then get out, that’s always been my attitude and I don’t care where it is. Anywhere; there’s a company in this building here, Starlog magazine, they suck. I worked there for a week and walked out. It’s not the end of the world. I’m still in the same building.

Gerard Christopher: They’re really trying to beat me over the head with it right now, and trying to put me in place. I did everything that I could have possibly done for the show last year. I was the typical case of what an actor should do when he’s working for somebody to keep them happy. And I did it. And now this is the way they reward me with a phone call I got today which was more or less setting the boundaries for where they think my contract is going this year and it’s very depressing and it doesn’t make me feel good.

Dan Recchia: So maybe John Haymes Newton wasn’t wrong.

Gerard Christopher: Well I have to press with saying I don’t know the guy but from what I heard he made a lot of mistakes. And not just one or two, but a lot of them - but that in combination with asking for more money was probably not a wise thing to do. I set myself apart in that I made it a point that, and basically I had a good lesson to learn from his bad experience, in that I should do everything very correctly and right. And that’s what I did.

Dan Recchia: Well from judging the show, you knocked yourself out.

Gerard Christopher: And I really did.

Dan Recchia: I mean just going up on those wires all the time is enough.

Gerard Christopher: Going up on the wires, even laying on the hot pavement where we shoot the shows in Florida. When it’s like 97 degrees out. The pavement must be 200 degrees. I have to play a scene where I got knocked out or knocked down and I would have to lay down and have my face literally on the pavement. You know, they can’t pay me enough for that.

Dan Recchia: You’re right, you’re right.

Gerard Christopher: And you know to wear that costume; it is physically the toughest thing I have ever done in my life.

Dan Recchia: Well, it’s good to say you’ve done it. If you don’t want to do it anymore, you just don’t do it.

Gerard Christopher: I would love to do it. I would love to continue doing it. I have no problem with it, or with the threat of being stereo-typed or type-cast. That doesn’t bother me. Because I think I can overcome that. I don’t think it’s a problem.

Dan Recchia: Anybody can overcome that.

Gerard Christopher: My problem with the situation is that working on a TV show should be one of the high points of an actor’s life. You’re an employee, and the employer is making it the most miserable times of your life, I don’t think it averages out.

Dan Recchia: I agree. Absolutely.

Gerard Christopher: But I’m here to tell you, I like yourself grew up with Superman, George Reeves. I lived it. I breathed it. I used to run around the house with a towel around my neck.

Dan Recchia: [laughs] That’s great.

Gerard Christopher: I used to jump off my dresser and my bed.

Dan Recchia: You know it’s funny, because the first time I saw a picture of you it was just your face. It was in the New York Daily News where it said actor Gerard Christopher is taking over the role. And you know, when I saw your picture I don’t know why I had this reaction but my first reaction was “this guy looks like he isn’t into this kind of stuff…and he doesn’t look like he is into comics and the super-characters and everything.” But I guess I’m wrong. But I guess you’re like me; you like it. Are you familiar with the Fleischer cartoons?

Gerard Christopher: I have seen every one of them. I have a copy of every Fleischer cartoon.

Dan Recchia: Do you have that old Superboy pilot?

Gerard Christopher: I have the old Superboy pilot; mine is a very bad copy. I know the actor in that as a matter of fact.

Dan Recchia: John Rockwell, wow.

Gerard Christopher: Yeah.

Dan Recchia: I have that tape and I taped the Superboy season 2 opening two-parter on the same tape.

Gerard Christopher: I have all of my shows. I have all of the movies.

Dan Recchia: That’s great.

Gerard Christopher: I have six published episodes of the George Reeve’s show, maybe more; six or maybe eight of them. I have all of the Kirk Alan shows.

Dan Recchia: Well, that’s terrific. I’m happy to hear that.

Gerard Christopher: I have all the cartoons. I have the cartoons from the sixties as well as the cartoons from the forties.

Dan Recchia: Well let me just tell you, as a fan and as somebody who really watches this stuff, I think you are doing it as well as anyone who ever has.

Gerard Christopher: I appreciate that. I appreciate that.

Dan Recchia: And I genuinely mean that.

Gerard Christopher: Well, I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you call Viacom and let them know.

Dan Recchia: [laughs] Well they don’t have to, it’s there. I mean, you have done 26 shows or whatever. It’s there on screen. And if they are stupid enough not to see it, then the hell with them.

Gerard Christopher: Well they have a very simple attitude –

Dan Recchia: Gerard, it’s just a TV show that’s all it is.

Gerard Christopher: It’s more than a TV show because acting is my life. It’s my career.

Dan Recchia: Ok, but there’s other things than Superboy.

Gerard Christopher: I agree. I agree.

Dan Recchia: I mean I tell people here that I am interviewing Superboy and –

Gerard Christopher: But you know what I’m saying, it’s something you like to do. It was something that I believed in, because this is a spring-board for things that I consider to be personally important to me. Like I’m getting involved with doing charities; I’m getting involved with children. I wrote a letter to President Bush, I’m trying to become a spokesperson against drugs.

Dan Recchia: Wow that’s great.

Gerard Christopher: … and for education and all these things which are things that are on my personal agenda to do.

Dan Recchia: Well, tell me something there. Because there is something I wanted to ask you along with where you grew up, and where you went to school, what your interests were other than…well watching you; you are playing a particular character. You are playing this guy who pushes…well I don’t know how many times a show you keep pushing those eye glasses up with your finger, I noticed that all the time as Clark Kent. It’s like a particular thing you do, but I mean tell me something about you, the person that doesn’t come across on television because you are playing a specific character. There’s going to be aspects of your personality that just don’t come through.

Gerard Christopher: I probably do have a little bit of a temper like Superboy [laughs] and I’m not happy about that. You know I’m a lot more human than he is. He’s not human, he’s alien. He has a much better grip on his life, and his feelings and things like that.

Dan Recchia: Not the way George Reeve’s played him. Man, he got angry.

Gerard Christopher: Well, that’s the way they wanted him to do it which is something I would like to see more often. To make him a little bit more real. And as a matter of fact, that’s the real direction the show is going to take this year. This season is going to turn more into Superman than Superboy.

Dan Recchia: Wow, that’s interesting.

Gerard Christopher: In fact, in all but name it is going to be Superman.

Dan Recchia: That’s great. Tell me, who do you admire as far as actors and movies? Do you have any favorite films?

Gerard Christopher: I have a couple. A favorite film is tough because there are so many great films I have seen throughout my life. Favorite actors, I like Sean Connery. I like Robert De Niro. I like Richard Gere for some other quality that he had; he has this arrogance about him that I kind of like. I like Meryl Streep. And I guess she is my favorite female actress.

Dan Recchia: Do you have any videos. Like things that you’ve bought. We all have our own collections.

Gerard Christopher: It’s hard for me to say what are my favorite shows -- I really like a lot of action/adventure stuff. I like political thrillers. You know, I like suspense. I’m kind of not too much into horror films and things like that.

Dan Recchia: How about reading? Are you a reader?

Gerard Christopher: Oh yeah.

Dan Recchia: Like what? Non-fiction? Fiction? Are there any author’s you like?

Gerard Christopher: I’ll tell you, most of what I read is non-fiction. At first I was kind of a veteran reader. I always carried something to read. I always liked to be learning something. As a kid, I think I read every volume of my Encyclopedia at home, when I was age like 8. I really was a crazy reader and I like to learn. I think I have a pretty active imagination. I think to a large degree that I wasn’t a mad-dog for other people’s fiction. I kind of created my own fiction.

Dan Recchia: I think I know what you mean by that.

Gerard Christopher: And right now I’m writing screenplays and a bunch of teleplays for the show. And I’m doing them on my own.

Dan Recchia: You are? That’s great. That’s just like -- I was just wondering, that’s the thing Reeves wanted to do toward the end of the show, is to start directing shows and I don’t know about writing.

Gerard Christopher: Well he did, he directed episodes.

Dan Recchia: He directed like the last three.

Gerard Christopher: This season, if I’m back, I would like to direct; I got screenplays. I’ve already written some.

Dan Recchia: Well, what about music. What kind of music do you like?

Gerard Christopher: My favorite is kind of an odd-ball. My favorite is classical. I really like Jazz. I like popular stuff, like R&B. But my favorite is classical.

Dan Recchia: When you say classical, like what?

Gerard Christopher: Like Beethoven and Mozart. Tchaikovsky and things like that.

Dan Recchia: Do you play anything at all?

Gerard Christopher: I really don’t. Unfortunately, most of my family is really musically inclined and I probably am if I ever applied myself to it. I have a piano and I’ve taken a few lessons, but I’ve never taken the time, or took the time, to really get into it. One day I will. I’m going to be there at my piano one day.

Dan Recchia: As someone who is interested in acting, do you like – because my favorite music is film scores. I love movie soundtracks. Do you like soundtracks at all?

Gerard Christopher: Oh yeah. I think there were some of them that were really great. I think music can really help the show quite a bit. When you think of “Chariots of Fire” I think the music for that really stood out in my mind.

Dan Recchia: By the way, I’m just curious because you must have seen some of this. Who is this guy that does all the music on the show, Kevin Kiner? Is he like a one-man-band? Is he all synthesizers?

Gerard Christopher: Yeah. He’s a one-man guy. And I believe he does it all out of his own little studio that he must have in his house. And he’s a talented guy.

Dan Recchia: So let me just ask you a few more questions. I guess about the show itself. I want to ask you about the flying, actually, which is like the most spectacular thing. What was it like going up – it’s like everyone’s fantasy, especially mine, going up –

Gerard Christopher: It really was mine too.

Dan Recchia: Going up on those wires –

Gerard Christopher: I imagine you have to. Everybody’s had a dream of –

Dan Recchia: Well, let me tell you just two fast things which you will get a kick out of. When I was a kid I was stupid enough to run around with a little costume, and even behind the bushes.

Gerard Christopher: Oh you to?

Dan Recchia: Of course. Not too many people will admit to that.

Gerard Christopher: Oh why, why? Why not?

Dan Recchia: Well, believe me. I don’t know about the people you run around with, but generally people are not into, well, people I know are not into things like Superman. Even when I tell people here that I am interviewing you they kind of roll their eyes “Superboy”. Even the Editor of this magazine isn’t terribly interested. There is a select group of people that it’s going to get to.

Gerard Christopher: Can I suggest one thing?

Dan Recchia: Yeah, sure.

Gerard Christopher: For whatever their person attitudes are is one thing, but when they – when the publishers who work at a magazine like that and it caters to a demographic, you said young girls that are 14 and they are ignoring a character that is so much directed, and pointed almost directly at that age group, I think it’s pretty foolish.

Dan Recchia: And you’re right. I agree with you.

Gerard Christopher: Pretty, pretty foolish because that is the demographics for our show.

Dan Recchia: Well Jerry, look, that’s why you see New Kids on the Block in every magazine. And you don’t see a lot of other things. But any way, let me get away from it. The other thing I wanted to tell you, you probably don’t know this but many years ago, and this is bizarre but it’s funny -- many, many years ago in the Superman comic books they ran a letter from some kid. It was during the early sixties who claimed that he had been disfigured in some accident and he wanted the plastic surgeons to make him look like Superboy. And he actually – this is absolutely true because a friend reminded me of this not too long ago. And he wanted DC comics to send him different angles, drawings so that the surgeons [laughs] could make him look – I don’t know if this is true or not and I somehow doubt it. But watching you on the screen, because I mean you look so much like the classic Superboy I had this image of this kid. You know, here he is. He did it.

Gerard Christopher: [laughs] They’re telling me here that I have to get going because I have a 2:30 PM, but do you have any questions I can answer very quickly?

Dan Recchia: Oh ok. Quickly – let me just scan these questions here. I’m going to ask you about your co-workers, Lana and IIan Mitchell-Smith who my Editor knew – he worked in a video store in New York City a couple years ago and she was like very friendly with him. Do you like your co-workers? Stacy and –

Gerard Christopher: They’re great. They’re great.

Dan Recchia: And I have to ask you about the guest stars. You’ve had some amazing guest stars on that show. People like, oh I don’t know, Gilbert Godfrey. I couldn’t believe it! George Lazenby?! Of all people.

Gerard Christopher: He was James Bond.

Dan Recchia: Do you get to talk to these people?

Gerard Christopher: Of course, George Lazenby and I became very close as a matter of fact. And that part of it has been a lot of fun. The relationships that I have forged; the people I have met. It makes me feel good to know that nice people –

Dan Recchia: This guy Sherman Howard, who I remember as Howard Sherman from “Day of the Dead”….

Gerard Christopher: Exactly.

Dan Rechhia: Why did he switch – why did he reverse his name, do you know?

Gerard Christopher: Um, he talked about, well I prefer you talk to him about that, but he got into the sound of the name and what helps an actor, and you know, as far as a sound of a name goes and he just thought his name would work better if he switched it.

Dan Recchia: Well listen, Jerry, I’m going to let you go. I want to really thank you for doing this.

Gerard Christopher: Hey, my pleasure.

Dan Recchia: I wish you a lot of luck. To me, you’ve done a good job. I don’t necessarily care if you come back because the shows are good. It’s your life. You do what you want to do. If you want to come back next year, I mean whatever. I’m sure they’ll have other people in mind. I don’t know if they will be as good as you were, but they’ll get somebody else. I do have to ask you quickly, did you go up for the role the first time they cast for it?

Gerard Christopher: No. I never heard about it.

Dan Recchia: Oh, so it wasn’t that they picked the other guy over you. The second time they just – ok well that’s another story. Ok, Gerard, I’m going to let you go, alright?

Gerard Christopher: Alright. Thanks a lot.

Dan Recchia: You take care. Bye bye.

Gerard Christopher: Bye Bye.

As we all know they renewed the series and picked it up for another year, the third season. And here’s the good part – Dan decided to do another interview with Gerard right after the premiere of the 3rd, fall season of “The Adventures of Superboy” and on a Sunday afternoon in New York. So COMING SOON to Superboy Theater!

Gerard Christopher interview - Spectrum Magazine issue #32, July 1999.

GERARD CHRISTOPHER INTERVEW



SUPERBOY - YEARS BEFORE SMALLVILLE!

Over a decade before "Smallville" arrived on the WB, Ilya Salkind-executive producer of the Christopher Reeve Superman feature films - brought Superboy to the small screen. The syndicated show, called Superboy (and later The Adventures of Superboy) premiered in October 1988 and starred John Haymes Newton (Clark Kent), Stacy Haiduk (Lana Lang), and Scott Wells (Lex Luthor. The second season began the cast changes, most notably Gerard Christopher as Clark, and Sherman Howard as the new Lex. (Haiduk remained as Lana). Eventually, Christopher also served as producer and occasional screenwriter.

In Superboy, Clark and Lana were older than their Smallville counterparts. They had already graduated from high school and were attending Shuster University (an obvious reference to Superman co-creator Joe Shuster). By the third season, Clark and Lana had graduated from Shuster and were working at the Bureau of Extranormal Matters, which investigated strange phenomena. Lest the reader groan at this tired cliche, remember that this aired three years before the premiere of The X-Files (and all of its numerous subsequent imitators).

The series is fondly remembered especially by fans of the comic s because it generally remained true to the spirit of those comics. And while the constraints of working within a syndication budget (plus half-hour length of the show) are obvious, the episodes rarely failed to deliver solid entertainment, and Christopher and Haiduk were particularly good in their roles. (See Spectrum for coverage of Haiduk in Brimstone, a series that also featured John Glover - Smallville's Loinel Luthor!).

Johnny Loyd caught up with Christopher during an appearance in Dallas just over three years (!) ago. We've been wanting to publish this interview ever since, but for one reason or another it either didn't work well with the other articles in a given issue, or it did but we didn't have time to prepare it for publication. This issue's coverage of Smallville makes the Christopher interview a perfect complementary feature, so we were determined to get it finished.

Our thanks to Gerard Christopher for talking with us (a long time ago)!. The interview was conducted in July 1999 by Johnny Loyd and transcribed and edited (in November 2002) by Craig Miller. For more information about Christopher, including the Superboy series, check out his Website at http://www.gerardchristopher.com/ . The site also sells photos, Superboy videos, and even autographed copies of the Superboy comic with Christopher and Haiduk on the cover (pictured here on the next page).



Loyd: How did you get started acting?

Gerard Christopher: I was originally a model in New York, and I started doing commercials - I've done seventytwo commercials. From that I got interested in television and features, and I started studying acting. I moved out to California, got an agent, and the whole thing started happening. I did my first TV pilot about a month after I got my agent. It was called Welcome to Paradise. It was shot in New Zealand. It was a CBS pilot that went on the air as a TV movie.

JL: You took over the role of Superboy from John Haymes Newton, who played the part during the first season. What was that like?

GC: It was hard. Stacy [Haiduk] had been datig him, so that meant her boyfriend wasn't there. And she also got along very well with the head stuntman, who I didn't get along with. I think he was upset they'd fired John.

The ratings of the show were very bad, which was just icing on the cake. It was number thirty-eight in syndication. The first thing they told me when they hired me was that if I didn't bring the ratings up, I was fired! Eventually the ratings went up to number ten, and the rest is history. We were on for three years.

JL: What was it like working with Stacy?

GC: Stacy's a really good actress, a really natural actress. She's very nice. I have some funny stories to tell you, but I really can't tell them for print! We had a good working relationship.

JL: Sherman Howard played Lex Luthor and wrote many of the episodes, especially ones with Luthor in them. Did he have any problems taking over from the actor who played Luthor in the first season?

GC: Oh no, not at all. Everybody just liked him so much; he was so good. He's a very talented actor. He added so much to the show and made it so much easier for me to do my work.

JL: Is it true that you couldn't say the name "Superman" in the show?

GC: Yeah. Ilya Salkind, the producer of the show, didn't have the rights to Superman; they only gave him the rights to Superboy.

JL: After Superboy was over, and Lois and Clark was starting up, did you audition for the role?

GC: I did. I'll tell you a funny story. I read once for the casting director. She brought me back to read for the producers and all the people at Warner Brothers. So I was in the room with the executive producers, the casting director, the whole shebang. I read; they loved me. The producer jumped up at the end, got hysterical, and said, "We've found him! This is our guy! Who are you?" He picked up my picture from the table, flipped it over and looked at my resume, saw that I had done The Adventures of Superboy, and he threw my picture on the table and said, "You've done this already!" And I went from the guy who was going to get the job to being out of a job in fifteen seconds because he didn't like that I had done it before. I think the guy was really a jerk, and I think it was a dumb move, considering that by the end of Superboy, I became Superman. It was called "Rites of Passage."

JL: A lot of people have wondered whether Lana Lang really did know that Clark was Superboy.

GC: She's not supposed to know, but she's trying to find out. She has her suspicions.

JL: If you had gotten the Lois and Clark role, after a couple of seasons they could have brought in Lana as the ex-girlfriend and set up a scenario where she knew but Lois Lane didn't.

GC: That would have been great!

JL: Do people recognize you in public all the time?

GC: When I dress in blue it happens more often! [Laughter] Though my hair's shorter now. A lot of people recognize me, but they can't remember from where. Most people recognize me from Superboy, but I've done other things, including some soap operas.

JL: And you were in an episode of Silk Stalkings. I think you got killed in that one.

GC: I did. And they almost killed me shooting it, because they ran me over with a production vehicle! As they were shooting it I was running away from Rob Estes. They had a camera at the front and the back of the truck. The truck was behind me, and the person driving wasn't really paying attention. He sped up and ran me over! It was pretty nasty. Other than that, it was a great experience.

JL: During the writing of Superboy, was much research done on the history of the characters in the comics?

GC: Constantly. Constantly. That's what most people say about our show - it was very true to the comics. The reason for that is because DC Comics was intimately involved in the production of the show, and they made sure that all of our shows had their approval, and that they were cohesive in terms of the storylines that had already been set forth in the comic books.

JL: It was ironic, though, that the show came out about the same time that DC was re-writting their history to say that there had never been a Superboy.

GC: DC tends to do whatever they can at that moment to get people reading.

JL: Though the Superboy show was based more on the Superman movies, right?

GC: It's gotta'be, because it is his story. If you look at the beginning of the first Superman movie, when Clark is young, that's my story. It's the same character; it's the same person, just younger.

JL: For example, in the movies and in your show, Clark's parents died, whereas in the comics nowadays, as in Lois and Clark, they're still alive. Was there any talk of bringing Krypto, Superboy's dog, into the show?

GC: Yes, there was. We thought it would be a lot of fun, but working with an animal would cause a lot of problems and slow down production. I would have loved it. Nobody's ever asked me that. That's a really good question.

JL: Have you done any directing?

GC: I got a directing contract from Viacom during the last season of the show. It wasn't to direct my show, because they thought that was a little too much for me to do. It was to direct a show in Canada, but it didn't work out - it's kind of complicated. But I did get to write Superboy episodes the last two seasons, and I did get to produce the show the last season, which was fun.

JL: What misconceptions do people have about the show?

GC: A lot of people who haven't seen it don't know that it was a really good show. I'm not saying this because I was in it - it was an excellent show because of all the peole that were involved. It was a great team effort - really good writers, the people that built the sets and built the props - everything was really good. It was such a good, good show for the money. When you think that Lois and Clark was made for about four to five times what our shows was made for, I don't see the difference. I don't think our show got the credit it was due. I don't think most people realized how popular it was - number ten in syndication - because it wasn't a big network show. It was generally on smaller stations throughout the country. I think they may have dropped the ball in terms of promoting the show. Stations kept moving us around. And when our ratings were very high, at number ten, stations started moving us to Saturdays, thinking it was just a kids show, which was a major mistake. I don't know who did their demographics, but I'll tell you where my fan mail was coming from - something like seventy percent was from people over forty.

JL: I think the flying sequences on Superboy were even better than what ended up in Lois and Clark.

GC: You would have thought that they would get things better and better over time, but they wanted to go their own way and start from scratch instead of building on what we had done. I don't think they hired the same people that we used. We had the same people that flew Christopher Reeve in the Superman movies. The show flew these guys in from England.

JL: Do you have a favorite episode of Superboy?

GC: That's hard to say. "Roads Not Taken" [a two-parter] were two of the best. One of my personal favorites was "Body Swap" because I got to be a bad guy. If people would like to know more, they can go to my Website at http://www.gerardchristopher.com/ . I have an interview posted there in the "Superboy" Section.

JL: Thanks for talking with us.

Kidsday Interview with Stacy Haiduk - September 21st, 1991.

THE DAILY HERALD

Stacy Haiduk interview - Spotlight on Stacy Haiduk (1990).

Behind The Camera (small magazine column). A spotlight on Stacy Haiduk. 1990.

SPOTLIGHT ON STACY HAIDUK

Stacy says: "I'm a Tomboy".

She's been almost the only constant on a decently rated TV series now in its third season. Stacy Haiduk, who plays the ravishing Lana Lang on 'Superboy' (now called 'The Adventures of Superboy'), has remained through two Clark Kent/Superboys, four co-stars, and two Lex Luthors. Indeed , it seems Miss Haiduk may lead a charmed actress' life. Enjoy these excerpts from several interviews with Stacy:

On her audition for the role of Lana Lang: "I auditioned for Lynn Stalmaster. Ilya Salkind and Bob Simmonds and one of the writers were there. I didn't know who Ilya or Alexander Salkind were! I think that made it easier to go into the audition."

On a disappointing call-back audition: "I thought they were just using me to test for Superboy and that they had found another Lana Lang. I remember going home and crying after the testing. When they told me I had the part, I found out it was the way they wanted Lana, but they had to look for a Superboy who was tall enough!"

On her unusual hobby of...boxing?: "I thought it would interesting, because I'm a tomboy. I do all these guy's sport type of things. I enjoy the exhilarating feeling you get with punching people!"

On previous 'modelling' and past credits: I don't like to talk about it much. I did it for the money. I did some catalogue work, but I never really cared for modelling. It's boring."

On her striking white/blue eyes: "I've gotten asked if they're contacts. Eveery audition I've been to I've been asked that. The blue really stands out on film. They are the highlight of my body or my face. I would never give them up for anything!"

On a typical day of shooting: "We start out at 4:30 or 5:30 in the morning with hair and make-up. There's a lot of sitting around because they've got to set up the cameras and the scene. It goes from sometimes 5:30 in the morning to 8:00 or 9:00 at night."

On Lana Lang's changing character: "How many times can Lana get kidnapped or thrown off a helicopter or pushed off a train? Now I think Lana is much stronger, and very smart. She knows what she wants and when she goes after something, she goes after it."

On an early episode directed by Superman film veteran Jackie Cooper. "I do not care for Jackie Cooper. Whether saying this is going to get to me in the long run...he was one of those directors that would tell you what to do. I don't like it when a director doesn't work with you, but works at you. I remember one time we were doing a take and he yelled at me because I wasn't doing a line the 'right' way. It's very nerve-wracking when you've got a director who yells on the set all of the time."

On a falling scene done with wires and a backdrop: "I was up on these wires twirling around for 45 minutes, going around and around...I got sick. I got down and I didn't know which way was up or which was was down. I just wanted to sleep. I remember we had to do two more takes after that on those wires and I was just whoah!"

On fan letters: "I get some weird ones. One I got recently was from somebody who was imprisoned for life in Texas. I guess it whould be kind of scary, but it really made my day to hear from somebody in prison who was watching the show and writing. One letter was so hilarious. It just kept going on and on with 'you're voluptuous, you're beautiful, your eyes are gorgeous.' That was the whole thing. Every adjective you could imagine in a two-page letter."

On sexuality in future roles: "I have a body, and it's sometimes very hard not to get typecast into using my body. I get a lot of role offers which say 'This has nudity and it is a lead part.' It's kind of nerve-wracking. I don't want to be known as doing sex films. I want to be known as an actress."

On whether or not Clark Kent could keep his secret from Lana: "With a pair of glasses? Are you kidding me? I put on a pair, is somebody not going to call me Stacy? I think in time, she's really going to figure out who he is."

Stacy is, by the way, dreading the release of 'Luthor the Geek', a direct-to-video slasher film which featured her at 18, in a nude shower sequence (referred to above). She is not, however, dreading the release of her first feature film, 'Steel & Lace', coming soon. This new horror film is from Charles Fries Entertainment (which brought us the live-action Spider-man TV show). It is a Bride of frankenstein remake, starring Stacy as an investigator into a series of vengeful murders, committed by a re-animated female cyborg. Advance word is good.

Meanwhile, Superboy has added two new regular cast members: Robert Levin plays C. Dennis Jackson, the head of the Bureau for Extranormal Matters, while Peter Fernandez plays Matt Ritter, one of the men who works there. Both are assisting Clark Kent and Lana Lang, two interns at the Bureau. Upcoming guest-stars include rock star Greg Allman as a villiain, the wrestler Lex Luger, and a mysterious tall leather-clad blonde who plays Neila, an embittered Amazon. The show's 13 new episodes are filmed more at night, and showcase more adult themes. (hmmm, do we detect a trend?)

Stacy Haiduk interview - Spectacular Magazine, 1991

Interview with Stacy haiduk, by Daniel Dickholtz. Spectacular Magazine, 1991.

Looking out a 29th-floor, window of the Manhattan building where Viacom, distributors of the 'Superboy' TV series, is headquarted, Stacy Haiduk pauses. While her character Lana Lang might prefer stylish outfits and having her hair brushed out, Haiduk seems more comfortable with blue jeans, a loose, patterned jacket and her tresses pulled back into a pnytail. As she glances down and over the New York skyline, it's apparent that she's relieved, in a whimsical way, not to have to see the Teen of Steel flying by.

"The oddest thing [about working on the show]?" she wonders at one point. "Gosh. Having to say, 'Superboy,' and being in love with a guy named Superboy! I mean, come on. That's a little odd, all right? I still haven't gotten used to saying his mame. They'll go, 'Ok, Stacy, it's your close-up now and we want you to run into the scene, Superboy's flying off, and 'Superboy!' Say it, OK? Ready. And action!' And here I come, running up. Suddenly, I'll just break out laughing! It's not like saying, 'Dean' or 'Jack', you know. I mean, you try saying 'Superboy'! It really is hard."

Weathering the turbulent changes the series has undergone during the last three years has provedmuch easier for the young actress. When the show began, John Haymes Newton (COMICS SCENE #6) wore the caped Kryptonian's red, blue and yellow costume; for the last two seasons, Gerard Christopher (COMIC SCENE SPECTACULAR #2) has worn it whenver he races to her rescue. As the Teen of Steel's arch-rival lex Luthor, Scott Wells' bored, upper-class chicanery soon gave way to Sherman Howards' more manical machinations. Clark kent's first year roomate, T.J. White (Jim Calvert), was followed by the deal-making Andy McCallister (IIan Mitchel-Smith), before Clark decided he was better off living alone. And where Clark and Lana once committed as much of their time as possible to their studies at Shuster University (located in sunny Siegeville), they now have internships at the Bureau or Extranormal Matters in shadowy Capitol City. All of this leaves Haiduk as the single on-screen element to survive into what will soon be the show's fourth season. "'The old veteran,' I call myself," she remarks.

Yet when she's asked how she has managed to stay on where seeminly nothing else has, Haiduk admits, "I don't know. I think just the different circumstances. People change and they get a little greedy. My whole thing was just learning a discipline on the show and it has helped me out a lot. But, that's a hard one to really answer. I really enjoy the show. I believe whatever you start, you finish. And maybe people like me!"

SMALL TOWN GIRL

For decades in the comics, Lana lang spent her high school days in Smallville trying to uncover Clark's other identity as a fervently as Lois Lane later would. More recently, though, John Byrne revised the character' histories to have Lana learn of Clark's superhuman abilities early on, but remain a close friend of his into adulthood. The version Haiduk has brought to the small screen is "'a mess'. No, she's a person who's very curious about life and wants to venture out into as many things as posible. A part of her would love to be with Superboy, but I think another part of her has this thing with Clark. Everybody says they have this brotherly love. Well, I definitely think it has more to do with [the fact] that they're the same person, so there's something she really likes about him, but she's blind to it all. She's young. She's in a man's world, so she's trying to be as business-like as she can, but still has that ecitement and curiosity that any young person would have."

"We're seeing that she has grown up," the actress states. "At least, I've seen her grow up from way back when to now. It's a learning process for any young person who's growing up. She's going through times that are exciting, but I also feel that she's in an adult world where she has to be a little more sophisticated and not like she was before--just kind of out there, whatever happens, happens."

To tie in with the TV series, DC has been publishing a comic book (Superboy The Comic Book) that closely follows the show's continuity, one which Haiduk sheepishly confesses to never having looked at. But then, she never sought out any of the older Superboy comics to help prepare her for the series either.

"I wasn't a comic book person when I was younger," she reveals. "I did watch the Superman movies, and I remember Annette O'Toole playing Lana, but I believe you have to create your own character. you want to be original; you don't want to be like everybody else."

Consequently, Haiduk can find nothing to connect her Lana Lang with the one O'Toole portrayed. "They're totally different, plus she was dealing with a Superman and not a Superboy, so I thik there's more for my character now than hers'." And so, despite a comment executive producer Ilya Salkind once made that this TV series could fit into the films' continuity, Haiduk deosn't see her version of Lana ever returning to Smallville to become a divorcee and a mother. "My Lana would probably run off to Europe," she laughs, "and be some who-knows-what--an archaeologist like her father, maybe a designer. That's the fun part about it because you never know what it could be. You could go in any direction."

Still, there's one direction that Haiduk has already taken that she would rather no one else follow her down--backwards, into the character's past.

"It's my own personal stuff," explains the actress. "To me, she knows something nobody else does. When I'm doing a scene with Superboy, I could be thinking of the raunchiest thing in the world," she laughs, "but it doesn't come off that way. I created how her parents were, everything about her--but it's nice just to keep something private to myself. I like that, a little secrecy."

Haiduk, however, is much more forth-coming when it comes to her own background, although she must admit that growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan was "bor-ing. I danced a lot. I mean, I was dancing since I was four years old. I hated school; I was probably the lowest grade-point-average person in the world, but I just loved to dance and that was my thing. That was what kept me going and gave me the ambition to come out here, to want to do something. [Otherwise] I would have stayed in Grand Rapids and had kids and a husband. Oh God! Can you imagine?" she chuckles.

Watching a Marilyn Monroe movie on TV with a childhood friend inpired her to go into acting, but it was her first love that finally brought her before the cameras for several music videos.

"Yeah. Dancing. Being a slurp person," laughs the actress. "And then, what happened? I became this good little girl next door. I did about six of the those music videos. That was my money when I was starting out. Then, I did some commercials, a few little TV spots and soaps; just a lot of things here and there, and then, I got this Good break!"

CAPITAL CITY WOMAN

During Haiduk's tenure on the series. Lana has found herself over and over again in the clutches of one blackguard or another (a fact which continues to kettle the actress). Yet more often than not, her peril is swiftly ended by a Teen of Steel in the form of Gerard Christopher.

"Gerard's fun. He's a cool guy," she notes. "It was hard at the beginning, because everything was brand-new [to him]. But I do enjoy working with him. We have a good relationship on screen that works."

This relationship, however, is one that she recognizes works quite differently from what she shared with the first season's Siegelville sentinel, John Haymes Newton.

"Gerry is very sensitive, which I see when it comes from his acting and from working with him. John, I think, was much harder. I'm not saying cocky or that type of thing, but he didn't let his sensitive side come out too much. That's kind of the difference between the two. Apart from that, they're great."

Considering the unsavory, sinister and often sadistic sorts that Lana and Superboy usually face, it seems unthinkable that Haiduk should actually admit to looking forward to one criminal's frequent reruns. And yet, of all the villians they must battle, "Lex Luthor's my favorite," the starlet says, "Sherman's just great. He's a wonderful villain and a wonderful actor, and I could just sit there and watch him for hours."

Although Haiduk may enjoy each new opportunity to see Luthor plot against Superboy, Lana generally cringes at being placed in the center of their feud, especially when the mad genuis' every leer hints at his, own designs for her.

"The Lana/Lex Luthor relationship, God, I still haven't figured that one out! I don't think she likes him at all. He kidnaps her all the time just to get to Superboy. I don't think there's any involvement. I wonder. Maybe, maybe what if Lana kidnaps him?" she laughs. "Who knows?"

As a professed "hopeles romantic," Haiduk would prefer to see "scripts more concerned with the regular characters and not so much the special guest stars here and there." Nevertheless, she doesn't regret meeting the array of actors called upon to either aid or confound Lana and Superboy.

For example, in one first-season episode in which Lana is captured by a deranged chain-eating old man in a junkyard who believes he's protecting her from Nazis, Haiduk went face-to-face with Abe Vigoda.

"Abe! Oh, man, he was a trip!" she recalls. "I remember doing my first scene with him. I was 19, I think. We were doing a scene across the table and we're sitting really close, and he kept shoving bread in his mouth. He kept forgetting his lines, which I felt really bad about, and I'm like, 'OK. This is cool.' So they kept on reading his lines bu then, suddenly, he starts spitting bread out at my face, and I just started to crack! I was so upset. All I could think of was my close-up with four big bread spots coming at me," she laughs. "I really like him, though. He was very sweet."

As the fifth-dimensional imp Mr. Mxyzptlk, veteran character actor Michael J. Pollard baffled the students of Shuster University on more than one occasion. "He's a wacko!" Haiduk laughs knowingly. "Oh, what can I say about Michael? He's a great guy, but he's out there. There are millions of stories I could tell, but I couldn't do it. We'll be here talking about them all the time and we'll get in trouble!"

No longer a Miami Vice cop, Philip Michael Thomas rode into Siegelville on a motorcycle as a witch hunter not above excersing his own occult prowess. "Oh, yes. He was a good actor to work with," the starlet notes. "'Always think of it as a dance' he said. I remember on my close-up, he said 'Just look into my eyes. Now dance with me.' he was a neat guy."

"We've had some really great people on the show. You know, you look back and go, I've met so man people! But being from Michigan, I would never think I was going to meet half these people, and now I meet them and I'm like, 'Oh wow!' It's great."

On the other hand, being a celebrity herself she has discovered can be somewhat unnerving. "I actually had somebody who came to my hotel last night and this morning, called me up and said, 'We didn't get your autograph from Regis & Kelly'. Usually, I don't look like I do on the show. There are a few people who know the face, sometimes just in a grocery store, and then, I look like a mess. That's when they notice who I am, when i have my glasses on and my hair's in my baseball cap. I have no problem with them. I'm probably more insecure around the fans than they are. I get very nervous; they intimidate me!"

"You know, it's like when they ask you for your autograph. My autograph's no better than theirs'!" she chuckles. "I'm writing my name on a piece of paper. i don't know. If I really want to meet someone I would like to just meet them. I never got anybody's autograph, because it's just that. A piece of paper is a piece of paper, it's material. But the moment--just savoring that moment, shaking their hand--that's always nice."

AMERICAN ACTRESS

With the beginning of production on Superboy's fourth season several weeks away, Haiduk has yet to see any of the new scripts. Still, she has her own ideas on how they should read.

"If I had control of the writing staff, I guess I would like to see Lana save Superboy. Maybe there's something where he's dying and she comes to his rescue. Or I would really like the relationship between Superboy and her and Clark to develop into something. You know, start from the beginning and going into the end of the last show. It would be the romance of it, just between the three of them. God, that's so weird--the three of them.' There are only two of them. I'm sitting here, saying there are three! I think I've lost my mind!" she chuckles.

"It's like Moonlighting. You want to keep that spark going on between the two of them. So I wouldn't mind having Lana actually fall for Clark. I find Clark very charming. I really do. I like him more than I do Superboy--me, personally--but, you know, Lana has this awe for Superboy."

There is, however, only so far into the future the actress cares to look. Technically, at the end of their fourth year, Lana and Clark should receive their diplomas from Shuster University. Clark should then head to Metropolis for a job with the Daily Planet, and Superboy would have to start acting his age and consider changing his name. But if the show continues to be popular, the startlet is well aware of what could eventually happen, her business being what it is.

"Can you see us on television with our little canes and grey hair in rocking chairs?" Stacy Haiduk laughs, even as a chill runs up her spine. "Ohh, noooo!"

Interview with John Haymes Newton - San Francisco Examiner (1989).

San Francisco Examiner. Friday, August 18th, 1989. Interview by Matthew Blaising, Jana Quitoni, Jacquelyn Busone and Jeffrey Valez.

'SUPERBOY' STAR REVEALS HOW HE FLIES

NEWTON SAYS HE'S NOT THE VIOLENT TYPE



We interviewed 23-year-old John Haymes Newton, star of the syndicated TV show "Superboy" at the Parker Meridian Hotel in Manhattan recently. He was born and raised in North Carolina, and is the youngest of five kids.

Q: Where is 'Superboy' filmed?

A: At the new MGM Disney studios in Florida. We were the first TV show to be shot there.

Q: How were you selected for the part of 'Superboy'?

A: I was in North Carolina visiting my family and I went over to Wilmington, about three hours from my house to audition for a film there. The casting director screen tested me for 'Superboy' the next day. It was fate.

Q: Do you have any pets?

A: I have a couple of pet pythons. One is 4 feet long and another is 3 feet long.

Q: Does anyone every challenge you to a fight because of the role you play?

A: No. Not yet. I'm not a violent person so I don't get involved in fights. I used to do security work for companies that do films and television commercials and I had some confrontations then. The best way to handle them is just to talk your way out, because there are no winners in a fight.

Q: Do you want to continue your acting career and go into movies?

A: Yes. That's why I am in New York. I'm here auditioning for some parts. But, right now I want to make sure this series is a success.

Q: Are you in school?

A: No, but I study acting all the time. I don't think you can do both--go to school and act. I think that most id actors usually aren't involved in school as much as they should be. They have a tutor but they don't study as much as they should.

Q: Do you want to be an actor the rest of your life?

A: No. I want to be an actor as long as I continue to grow.

Q: Do you have hobbies?

A: Yes. I like computers a lot. I like to ride motorcycles. Now I am interested in comic books and I meditate twice a day. I do Karate. I've been doing it for four years.



Q: Do you like fishing?

A: I love fishing. I like to go deep sea fishing a lot.

Q: Do you ever think you will grow up to be Superman on the show?

A: No. Maybe a young Superman in a film. There's a strong possibility of that happening.

Q: How do they make you look like you're flying?

A: A couple of ways. We have a large crane with small wires that I wear on a harness. We do it in front of a blue screen and matte that has a background of cars of buildings.

Q: Does it take a long time to get into makeup?

A: Usually about 25 minutes.

Q: What commercials have you done?

A: I did Levi's 501 jeans, Norwegian Cruise Line and a national print campaign for Coca Cola.

Q: Do you think you are making enough money?

A: Next season I will be making enough money. This season I feel I am worth a little more money than what they are paying me.

Q: Do you do your own stunts?

A: Most of them. I do my own flying and fighting.

Q: What type of car do you like?

A: I like the 1957 Thunderbird.

Q: Do you have to work out for the show? Are you on a special diet?

A: I work out and I have my own diet. I don't ear red meat. I eat a lot of vegetables and complex carbohydrates like pasta. I eat a lot of tofu, no deep fried foods.

Q: Do you ever watch the old 'Superman' TV show or movies?

A: I read the comics.

Q: Do you ever get nervous?

A: Of course. If you are not nervous than you know something is wrong. All actors get nervous whether they admit it or not.

Q: Why did you become an actor?

A: It's a need you have. You don't get into the business to become rich or because you think it is glamourous. Most people don't make enough to live on.

Q: Have you eveer starred in any other shows?

A: I have had leads in a couple of plays here in New York.

Q: Where were you born?

A: In Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Q: What is it like knowing that a lot of people like you?

A: I think some people like the character, but it doesn't mean they like me. It's two different things.

Q: What is it like being Superboy?

A: It's a responsibility, but it's also fun and a lot of hard work.

Q: How long does it take to film one show?

A: About six to seven days.

To contact John (NOTE: This contact information may not be correct today), write to Gersh Agency, c/o John Newton, 130 West 42nd St., New York, N.Y., 10036