Happy-go-lucky as this picture looks, Clayton spent his life as a theatre actor, working in New York and in the regional theatre before Alabama Shakespeare Festival was even thought of. He had a shot at the movies, did a little television, but was more interested in living a life as an ordinary guy who just happened to be an actor by profession.
As I remember it, he was in the speech department at the University of Alabama, majoring in Radio/Television when the television part was in its infancy, when someone said he really belonged in theatre. The director of that department was Dr. Marion Galloway, one of those old dragons whose name often comes up with Alabama actors of a certain age. Clayton was a gentle soul even then and he was warned, "Dr. Galloway will eat you alive."
But he had found his calling, and he hit it off with Galloway, had some success in university theatre, then took off for Barter Theater and other venues that were beginning to spring up in the 1950s. When I was a teenager he was home from Cleveland Playhouse for a visit with his family and was persuaded to do a one-man show of monologues and poetry at the then-high-school auditorium. I must have had a driver's license, because as I recall I went alone.
I remember sitting in total rapt attention to Clayton reading, among other things, the works of Dorothy Parker. I'm not just being nostalgic when I remember his performance. He read such works as "The Waltz" and "Just a Little One" as a woman, and he was convincing and downright brilliantly funny as well. I had never seen a man playing a woman -- and it wasn't a drag show. He did this without benefit of costumes or props. He simply became a woman. He even performed the agony of "The Telephone Call," about a woman obsessed with getting that all-important call (that is not going to come) from a man who has loved and left her, and left me convinced she/he was brokenhearted as only a Parker heroine (and real women everywhere) can be. It was before we knew about "He's just not that into you," and long before the concept reached me, but the day was dawning.
When I moved back to Fairhope in 1988 I asked Clayton and his actress wife Susan to help me with a fundraiser to launch Jubilee Fish Theater, which would be an Equity professional theater for as long as I could keep it going. They did some scenes that brought down the house, and Jubilee Fish became a local institution. They returned two years later for a program of one-acts and a question and answer session with the audience. He was as charming and unassuming offstage as he was talented. He and Susan were a delight to know.
When I learned of Clayton's death I had the mixed feeling one often has. I wish I had known him better. I regret that he died of complications from ALS, which means he had a bad time it it in his last years. He died in Seattle, where he had worked at the Intiman Theater for over 40 years, keeping audiences happy while he and Susan raised a son and daughter and lived a real and full life on and off the stage. He played in virtually everything in the American repertory, from Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams and Kaufman and Hart. He said about his life that he was lucky. That he was, and Fairhope and the country was lucky to have him.
10 comments:
An excellent tribute to what sounds like a fine man.
He was a special man indeed. Unassuming, serious, whimsical, intelligent, and very talented.
May he Rest in Peace. He sounds like a wonderful and talented man.
I didn't know of him but now I do thanks to you Mary.
A couple of years ago I tracked him down when a gentleman got to play Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest. Those wonderful nights in Fairhope with Clayton dressed in black - no one dressed all in black in Fhope in those 50s days! - sat on a stool and stole our hearts with those readings. He allowed as how Lady Bracknell was one role he would never get to play so when it happened I had to find him. Got a sweet note back. He must have been ill at that time.
I sat next to Joyce Bishop and neither of us was shy about laughing, as you remember. He also paid a visit once to three sick Horne children and with just a candle read "The Raven" while we huddled at the top of the stairs.
You can say that, again, about Marion Galloway having been a dragon--an understatement, indeed!
Wish you'd identified yourself, Anon. I only knew Dr. Galloway by reputation. Would love to hear your story (or stories!).
My mother Evelyn Wells Trione was a childhood friend and classmate. When I was a child we visited his mother in Fairhope. Mrs. Corzette I remember talked about meeting Katherine Hepburn, remarking on the actress' dramatic blue eye shadow.
In a speech to the audience at Jubilee Fish, Clayton relayed the story that, when he auditioned for the role of Katharine Hepburn's twin in TWELFTH NIGHT, she said, "I don't know if he looks like me--but he's a dead ringer for my brother!" He got the part. I believe this was in Stratford Connecticut.
I was interested in Clayton because I grew up in Silverhill, about 12 miles east of Fairhope, and he had already established a stage reputation in High School. Later, as a student in Tuscaloosa, I watched him perform as Hamlet in about 1952. Impressive young man. Never really knew him. Glad to learn that his life went well.
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