Dynasty's debonair dad: "I'm just an old shoe at home!"
By Susan Price
John Forsythe and his family reveal the traits he shares with Blake Carrington.
In some ways, Blake Carrington, dynamic patriarch of the Dynasty clan, seems like the perfect father. Forget for a moment the ruthlessness, the domination, the ex-wife who hangs around the mansion making life miserable. Nobody's perfect. Think instead of Blake's strength and tenderness, his protectiveness, his deep caring, his total commitment to his family— very attractive qualities.
As portrayed by the maturely attractive John Forsythe, whose identity as a good-guy parent was cemented in the '50s when he played TV's Bachelor Fa-frier, Blake has evolved from the villainous J.R. type of Dynasty's first season five years ago to the quite human character he is today. How much of Blake Carrington is John Forsythe?
There are no clues to the differences between the two at first meeting. John Forsythe arrives for breakfast at a Sunset Boulevard restaurant wearing a typical Carrington ensemble: an elegant wool sports jacket in subtle earth tones over a pale tan cashmere sweater, crisp shirt and tan slacks. Tucked under his arm is the New York Times—with the crossword puzzle filled out in ink, no mean intellectual accomplishment.
"It's a feat that baffles my daughter. Actually, I cross over the letters a lot," he admits with a smile. Forsythe projects the self-assurance and casual ease of a man , who really could be a powerful captain of industry like Blake. But it doesn't take long to see that he is somehow softer, warmer, funnier—more paternal.
"It's the height of idiocy to believe you are who you play," says Forsythe, recalling the story of actor Raymond Massey, who, while portraying Abraham Lincoln, began to think he was Lincoln. "He became so involved that he'd leave the theater and go directly to Sardi's bar and pontificate at great length as if he were the Great Emancipator. Finally, one guy cracked, 'That s.o.b. isn't going to be happy until he gets assassinated!' "
Continues Forsythe: "There's a great deal of difference between Blake Carrington and me. First of all, he's a fantastic businessman, and I'm not. Second, I have a much easier attitude than he does about women, homosexuality and politics. I supported the ERA, see homosexuality as an alternative life-style and am a liberal independent. Also, one of his weaknesses is that he likes to control his family, and I think you can't follow kids around and dictate what they do. After they reach the age of thirteen, you have invested all the values you think are important, and you turn them loose."
Later, I ask the people who should know best—Forsythe's son, Dall, 43, by a brief, early first marriage,and daughters Brooke, 32, and Page, 35, products of his 42-year union with former actress Julie Warren—and I get a similar answer about the Carrington/Forsythe split.
Says Brooke, who competes with her father on those crossword puzzles and has left her job as an agent to become his personal assistant: "My father is nothing like Blake Carrington except in his relationship with his children. He's old-fashioned and humble and has a wonderful sense of humor. He kids about having champagne coming out of his dressing-room faucet and sleeping in black tie, as the Carringtons seem to."
Dall, First Deputy Budget Director for the State of New York and the father of three himself, notes, "There are a lot of things that appeared in the character after the first year that are my father's traits. For example, Blake seems to be very tolerant of his children and keeps them all gathered around him, and I think my father is a lot like that. Dad is a gentle and generous man." Adds Page, a nurse, "There's even a similarity in the terms of endearment he uses on the show, like 'dar-lin' or 'luv'—it kind of gives me goosebumps when he says it to his Dynasty daughters."
A high percentage of female viewers have no trouble agreeing that Blake and Forsythe share a sexual magnetism. The notion makes Forsythe laugh. "Sixty-eight! What an age to be a sex symbol," he says, chuckling. "I think of a sex symbol as one of those sleek, shiny fellas like John Travolta. I'm just an old shoe." Then he tells how he "threatened" his granddaughter, a recent Vassar grad, with banishment if she became a mother in the near future. "I told her that it's hard enough to be a sex symbol at sixty-eight with grandchildren, but with great-grandchildren it would be impossible for me!"
Wife Julie is a notably good sport about her husband's new sex-symbol status and about having to share him with adoring females—including co-star Linda Evans. During a recent spate of lavish parties to promote Carrington, the scent for men who would like to have a share of what Blake Carrington has, reality and illusion became blurred when guests were issued invitations from "Mr. and Mrs. Blake Carrington."
"On those occasions, Linda's boyfriends and I practically go steady," says Julie with a laugh. "We're usually elbowed out of the limelight, but Linda keeps pulling me into the picture, saying, 'This is the real Mrs. Carrington.' "
"The real Mrs. Carrington" has given some thought to the similarities between her husband and his screen persona. "John has very little actor's ego," says Julie. "He considers himself a good actor, but he has never made the mistake of thinking he is the character he plays.
"But John is very much like Blake in some ways. He has style, class, innate elegance; he's articulate and well read. He's very compassionate, loving and involved with his children, despite his workload over the years. He's very supportive and has the most positive reactions to things. He's not a tyrant, but he expects the best. And also John is a very emotional man, but he is a private person who doesn't show his deep feelings."
What kind of father does Forsythe think he is? Recalling the Bachelor Father years, he says with a grin, "I'm not so sure that, when the public was writing to me, my own daughters weren't writing fan letters to Robert Young! But," he reflects, "I think I've been a good provider, and I've dispensed love as much as I can bring myself to give. But I'm not the gushiest, most affectionate father or husband, and that poses problems." Daughter Page paints a different picture, however. "When we were little and our parents were watching TV, neither of us could walk by without his grabbing us and tickling us. And then there was the time a couple of years ago when my two-year-old daughter was up all night with a high fever. Dad woke up and came and sat with her. He sang to her and soothed her until she calmed down. He was the only one who could do it."
Forsythe speaks with pride and pleasure of his children. "Page is the poet—I treasure the poems she writes for me on special occasions," he says. "Brooke is a dynamite assistant. She's so organized and wonderfully bossy, which is what I need. Dall is brilliant in business. He dispenses thirty-eight billion dollars a year. How do you like that?"
All of the Forsythe children mention how the value of education was stressed by their father and how he would leave books around for them to read. "There were some stormy scenes over bad grades," remembers Julie. Though grounding and loss of TV privileges were used as motivations, material rewards were not. Says Forsythe, "Rewards should be an inner thing— when somebody a child respects and loves compliments them, it's valuable without adding ten dollars." The materialism so prevalent in Hollywood circles (and on Dynasty) was absent from the Forsythe household, even though they lived in exclusive Bel Air. Recalls Brooke, "There's no way my mother, sister or I have ever received a sable, a Rolls or a diamond necklace for pouting or having a tummy ache, like the women on Dynasty. I feel very blessed that neither of my parents ever spoiled us with the riches of stardom." Adds Page, "Dad is not one for expensive gifts. I don't think they mean anything to him. He likes a poem written for him or even a beautiful cut rose someone grew. He's a man of simple tastes."
He is also, his children say, a man with lofty goals. Notes Page, "Dad has very high ideals, but some of them are unrealistic. Nobody can be that perfect. Yet to this day he says, 'As long as you're doing what makes you happy, that's all I want for you.' "
Forsythe's own father, a Wall Street executive, wasn't thrilled at the idea of his son's becoming an actor; he'd have preferred John (born John Lincoln Freund) to become a businessman, too. In spite of these misgivings, Forsythe has said, "One of the great things he did for me was to support me, whatever I might decide. He allowed me to be a self-sufficient human being."
Young John had won a baseball scholarship to the University of North Carolina, but he left to become an announcer for the Brooklyn Dodgers and then an acting student. He supported himself modeling for the Sears catalogue until he won roles in radio soap operas and on Broadway. When the World War II began, Hollywood beckoned—but so did the Army Air Corps; Forsythe enlisted. He was appearing in an Air Corps show when he married Julie, who gave up acting to become a full-time mother. John went on to starring roles on Broadway and to the movies—he co-starred with Shirley MacLaine in her first film, Hitchcock's The Trouble With Harry. He became a familiar face on television, with five successful seasons of Bachelor Father, then The John Forsythe Show, To Rome With Love and The World of Survival, a wildlife adventure series. Then he became a successful voice—the unseen Charlie on Charlie's Angels. Throughout this long-running career family came first.
Over coffee Forsythe sums up. "I think I've done well, but I have a lurking suspicion I could have been a better father, a better husband, a better friend, a better actor or that I could have done more for myself." Julie reinterprets. "John is extremely hard on himself and feels he would like to contribute something to this world more important to him than what he has contributed. And that has rubbed off on the kids. They do feel they have to do their best."
Muses Forsythe, "Perhaps that's what made me a success as an actor. I hate standing out there naked in front of ninety million people not doing my best. I probably feel that way about my children, my friends, my marriage, everything—and that comes from the deepest part of me."
Some might say that's about as perfect as a real-life husband and father can be.