If you don’t know Ken Howard was a successful actor and need to find out the details, Google it. I’m not writing about that here. I’m writing a few random recollections of remembrance.
Ken Howard had a presence. We all know that. But did you know he almost flunked out freshman year? So much for presence. Failing calculus, Ken was told Myron Rokoszak could tutor him, and Myron did, and did it well. That got Ken back for sophomore year. Ken gained a humbling from that – not the almost failing math part, but rather discovering that a “townie” could save the Big Guy’s ass. He loved telling that story on himself.
I was looking through old folders, unopened for 40 years, to find memorabilia for our 50th Reunion. What had I decided to keep from way back then? All the old typed scripts Ken and I wrote for Mock Chapel, Prom, and Friday Night Pep Rallies. To call them sophomoric would be high praise, but Ken loved doing those campus bits.
Ken was in many plays at Amherst; even incurring the wrath of Coach Rick Wilson when he took the basketball season off one year to act at Kirby. In Manhasset High Ken starred in musicals because he could sing. At Amherst he sang with the Zumbyes. Somebody told him to try out for plays, but Ken was hesitant, thinking himself more a singer than an actor. But he did try out. He and I were in “Long Day’s Journey Into Night”. Ken played Jamie. I played his brother and remember being on stage and looking at Ken’s performance in wonder – which I shouldn’t have been doing at the time. But he was really good.
I directed Ken in “Painting Day”, an original play by Jim Shearwood ’64. Ken was very funny. It was basically a two-hander, and Ken was ‘Ollie’ to John Alcock’s ‘Stanley’. In recent years Ken played a lot of serious parts so wasn’t known for his comedic ability. He actually had to tape an audition piece to land the part on “30 Rock”. The producers had no idea Ken could play comedy at all, let alone so well.
Ken went on to Yale Drama School. He used his acting prowess in creative ways at Yale. Every Saturday night he would go play poker with the law school students. That kept Ken in walking-around money throughout Yale. Though our alumni online directory says he received his MFA from Yale, Ken got his MFA in 1999 from KentState where he briefly taught. Ken actually left Yale one year shy of his degree, when he ventured to an audition in New York City on a lark and got a part in David Merrick’s “Promises, Promises”. He incurred the wrath of Yale’s Dean Robert Brustein [another Amherst grad] who later forgave him for leaving and invited him to teach at Harvard. Ken taught Harvard law students how to present themselves in oral argument, thus atoning somewhat for his fleecing of the law students at Yale.
A friend reminds me that when he saw Ken star in the Williamstown Theatre Festival’s production of “How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying”, the coatrack in the men's room scene did not descend all the way from the fly gallery as intended, and all the men had to toss their jackets on the floor. Enter Howard who stood on tiptoe and neatly hung his coat on the hook.
Ken’s height also came in handy at ring-toss games. Once at the San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy, Ken went up to a ring toss that had a sign that said “No Leaning”. Ken leaned way in, arms at his sides. “Is this leaning?” he asked. “Yes,” the man replied. Ken straightened back up a bit. “Is this leaning?” “Yes.” Ken straightened up some more. “Is THIS leaning?” “No.” At which point, now leaning over just slightly, Ken stretched his arm out and dropped the ring neatly on the peg. He gave the Teddy Bear to me.
My actress daughter Eliza and I flew out to LA to see him this past December. She and he had a mutual admiration society going. I spent the night, he and I looking at old movies and talking and joking. He was very upbeat in his total acceptance of what was around the corner for him, and we had a great time. Linda, his wife, has been the best thing that could have happened to him in the past twenty-five years. That and the pride of accomplishment Ken felt for being instrumental in bringing the acting unions SAG and AFTRA together – a huge achievement. The industry valued him in many ways. I do, too.
God speed, Ken Howard. God speed.
Jon Huberth '66