Tune in to Experience Talks, our weekly “Radio Magazine for the Experienced Listener,” on Sundays at 5:00 PM PT on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles, 98.7 FM Santa Barbara, 99.5 China Lake, 93.7 N. San Diego, streaming live online, and now syndicated on up to 100 Pacifica Network stations! Experience Talks is produced by the non-profit EngAGE, Inc.
Miss the show? You can always hear it as a podcast on the Listen Page of our website! You’ll also find an archive-in-progress of all of our previous shows there for you to enjoy. New shows are usually posted within 48 hours after broadcast.
JANUARY 15, 2017 @ 5 PM PT
BURT YOUNG
with host JOHN SEMPER JR.
BURT YOUNG is a burly, talented character actor who has remained consistently busy playing “rough around the edge” types, often on the wrong side of the law.
He was born on April 30, 1940 in New York City, where he received his dramatic arts training under legendary acting coach Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.
Young first garnered notice playing tough thugs in such films as The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, Across 110th Street, Chinatown, and The Gambler. Fiery director Sam Peckinpah cast Young as the getaway driver/assassin, “Mac,” in The Killer Elite, and Young came to the attention of newcomer Sylvester Stallone, who cast him as future brother-in-law, “Paulie,” in the 1976 sleeper hit, Rocky. Young received an Oscar nomination for the role, which he has gone on to reprise in five Rocky sequels.
He won the Best Actor Festival Prize from the Atlantic City Cinefest, and was nominated for Best Actor awards by the Queens World Film Festival and the Maverick Movie Awards for his role in the short film, Tom in America (2014). He also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hoboken International Film Festival.
Young has appeared in numerous major film productions, including Once Upon a Time in America, The Pope of Greenwich Village, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Mickey Blue Eyes, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, and Win Win.
On Stage Now!
Academy Award-nominated actor Burt Young takes on the role of an aging mob boss in a new comedy written and directed by David Varriale. The world
premiere of The Last Vig will open Jan. 14 at the Zephyr Theatre on Melrose for a six-week run.
Joined onstage by Ben Adams (West End and national touring productions of Peter Pan), Clint Jung, (Ray Donovan, Prison Break, Music Within), Bruce Nozick (Weeds, All the Way, The Last Ship) and Gareth Williams (Dawson’s Creek, The Shield), Young will play the character of “Big Joe,” a Mafia wiseguy getting along in years who might just be the last of a dying breed. “I wanted to look at the changing of the guard,” explains Varriale. “For so long the mob was part of our cultural mythology. But there don’t seem to be any superstars left. Gambino, Gotti – they’re all dead. Bulger is incarcerated. Atlantic City is going bankrupt.” In The Last Vig, times are changing. Big Joe is old. But is he out? Can he stay in the game with the help of his young, hip-hop loving assistant, Bocce, and his old friend, Jimmy “The Fixer” D? Or will the juice on the $100K he owes be his last vig?
Zephyr On Melrose
7456 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90046
Ample Street Parking
(323) 653-4667 Theater Phone
Also on this show . . .
Experience Talks Producer/Host Cynthia Friedlob shares one of her In My Experience commentaries from 2009 entitled, “The Ephemeral Nature of Live Theater.”
