He's known best for the '80s television series "Trapper John, MD," but these days actor Gregory Harrison has a new profession to play - slick attorney Billy Flynn in the touring production of "Chicago," which opens Tuesday in Shea's Performing Arts Center.

There's a vast difference between acting on television and onstage, Harrison will be the first to admit, but at age 54, he makes sure he enjoys himself no matter what the venue.

"I'm only onstage about a third of the show, and I don't do much dancing," he said by phone during a tour stop in West Palm Beach, Fla. "I stand around in a very expensive tux, do a lot of fast talking and get to sing three wonderful songs. I have the best seat in the house to admire all the beautiful women in the show. It's not that hard. It's just really fun."

Six years after the revival's debut on Broadway and recharged by the 2002 film starring Richard Gere, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renee Zellweger, "Chicago" remains relevant entertainment. It not only has won six Tony Awards - including best musical revival - "Chicago" also played out the "criminal as star" theme long before Martha Stewart snapped on her anklet.

Based on a 1926 play by Chicago Tribune reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins, "Chicago" tells the story of murderess chorus girl Roxie Hart, who takes out a cheating husband before taking up with criminal attorney Flynn. The trial is a vehicle to stardom with another showgirl, Velma Kelly, jumping on for the ride. The story is shimmering, black and crooked - and was brought to Broadway in 1975 by composer John Kander, lyricist Fred Ebb and choreographer/director Bob Fosse. "Chicago" showcases some great musical numbers, including "Razzle Dazzle," "All That Jazz" and "When You're Good to Mama."

Harrison has played Flynn more than 600 times, describing the song, "We Both Reached for the Gun," as the most fun he has had onstage in a musical role in his career. The tune - midway through the first act - sees Hart playing dummy to Flynn's ventriloquist.
"It's a great song that's challenging and funny, and I'm doing two different voices," Harrison described. "It's like I'm a juggler with so many balls in the air. It's a real challenge that when I pull it off, it's very rewarding."

Harrison debuted on Broadway in 1997 in another Kander and Ebb collaboration, "Steel Pier." His acting credits include scores of television movies, regular spots on TV series, as well as several stints onstage - including three months as Flynn in Broadway's Ambassador Theatre.
"I'm hoping one day to get the chance to play King Arthur in Camelot," Harrison said. "I just love that musical, and I love that role. I've had my eye on that for 10 years, just waiting to be old enough and have the opportunity to do it. Well, I'm old enough now."

Harrison's other passions in life include his family and surfing. He and his wife, former "CHiPs" actress Randi Oakes, have four teenage children and live on the Oregon coast.
"My dilemma in life is that I'm half beach bum and half someone who wants to change the world," Harrison said. "They don't mesh very well. I love politically active pastimes and social work. On the other hand, I'm very self-indulgent in that sensual way of wanting to be on the beach and in the water, wanting to feel the presence of a higher power and the wind and the ocean. I get out there, and that just overwhelms me. I love it."

©   May, 2005 Buffalo News

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - It took Gregory Harrison seven years, but he finally got to "Chicago." The revival of that 1975 Kanderand Ebb musical was already the bathtub-gin toast of Broadway when Harrison saw it in 1997.

Harrison was rehearsing another Kander and Ebb show, "Steel Pier." He went to see "Chicago," he said, because Kander and Ebb told him, "You'd be perfect for Billy Flynn." That's the musical's unscrupulous "Razzle-Dazzle" attorney, who defends - and exploits - a succession of killer broads.
Harrison agreed. "This is a part I need to play one day," he told them. He wound up winning a Tony nomination for playing a dance-marathon host in "Steel Pier." But that 1933-era musical, set in Atlantic City, sank faster than the subject of its chief rival, the Tony-winning "Titanic."

Harrison has been playing tag with "Chicago" ever since. But he was never free when the Billy role was open until 2003, when he stepped into the part on Broadway for three months. He was such a hit that he was signed for the musical's national tour that plays the Hershey Theatre May 24-29. After 18 months on tour - minus two short breaks to film TV-series pilots - the former star of TV's "Trapper John M.D." and TV films such as "Centennial" still loves being in Billy Flynn's snarky skin.

"It's great being in another Kander and Ebb show," Harrison said from a "Chicago" tour stop in West Palm Beach, Fla. "When you hear one of their scores, you know it's Kander and Ebb. They were a wonderfully complementary team. John was very gentlemanly, very mild-mannered, soft-spoken and brilliant at writing music. Fred was loud, funny, raucous and emotionally charged all the time, mercurial and also very, very sweet.
"We spent two years workshopping and developing 'Steel Pier' and a long period of rehearsals and previews before opening on Broadway. I had the good fortune of sitting in a room with them for two or three days while they wrote me a new song ("A Powerful Thing") late in the process. Sitting on the fringes of that kind of genius is a privilege few ever get. "I grew very close with both of them," Harrison said. "Sadly, Fred passed a few months ago. Every minute I go out there and sing now, I think about him, how much he loved this score ('Chicago'), and how much he contributed to the Broadway musical (including "Cabaret"). Harrison, who won a Dramalogue Award for starring in the West Coast production of "Picnic," also enjoys the unconventional challenge of "Chicago."

"The simplicity of this production makes it more about character. It's not style over substance. You see the band (which dominates center stage). There are no costume changes, nothing else but the integrity of the show itself." Finding integrity in Billy Flynn wasn't easy, Harrison admitted. "You can't just play him as smarmy or evil. I have to make it all justifiable behavior - every manipulation of everybody. If I accomplish that, it makes him even more scary. The way I play it, he's a good guy with a dirty job.
"Vocally, it's a real challenge, the broken-phrase lyrics. All those musical changes within it is like juggling," Harrison said. "You have to be aware of all the balls at once. "Singing 'They Both Reached for the Gun' (in which Billy plays ventriloquist to the killer client sitting on his knee at a press conference) is the most fun I have ever had in my career."

That career miraculously survived a very dark era of cocaine addiction. "It just stopped my growth," said Harrison, who has acted, directed and produced for the stage, screen and TV for almost 30 years. Harrison is the former pinup poster boy for his own production of the Chippendales-inspired TV movie "For Ladies Only." He caught the acting bug when a film company hired his family's "Glass Bottom Boat" to make that Doris Day movie on his native Catalina Island in 1965. He was 15. He wound up doing his best acting "trying to maintain an image of health" while his life was falling apart two decades later. "For years, I tried to fix it on my own, blame others, deny it," he said.
"My marriage (to "CHiPs" actress Randi Oakes) was starting to fall apart. But the bottom came when my daughter, who was about a year and half old, wouldn't come to me. That took me to my knees."
Twelve years ago, Harrison moved his wife and four daughters out of L.A. to Oregon to put his life and career back in healthy perspective.
Theater has played a major role all along. Harrison's own Catalina Productions and its Coast Playhouse in L.A. won more than 100 L.A. theater awards from 1982 to 1993. He also starred in numerous regional theater productions, in addition to directing and producing for TV (Showtime's "The Hasty Heart" and "Picnic") and guest-starring on series ("Judging Amy").
He followed his "Steel Pier" Broadway debut with a starring role in the revival of "Follies" with Franklin & Marshall College grad Treat Williams before joining the New York company of "Chicago" and taking that Tony-winning revival on tour.

Despite working with legends such as Kander and Ebb, Harrison said, "The most important influence on my self-confidence and my hunger to express my artistic side came from a teacher in the fourth grade, Frank Zarlengo and his wife, Maureen.
"I was a gregarious child. I would laugh out loud, tell jokes and sing, but I had no illusions of doing it in front of an audience - particularly for a living. "He encouraged me to take chances. 'The only way to get big rewards is to take big risks,' he said. "Many times in my life, when I have been frightened, I have gone back to that moment in fourth grade when he convinced me to sing a cappella in an elementary-school variety show."

©   May, 22 2005