TOM TITUS -- Theater

Local community theater partisans who’ve been plying their craft for

some three decades undoubtedly were startled Monday morning when they

picked up their Los Angeles Times and found a familiar, but long-absent,

face staring at them in living color at the bottom of Page One.

There, at the center of a storm involving, would you believe, the

Three Stooges, was artist Gary Saderup, a former Costa Mesa resident who

is catching heat from the Stooges’ heirs for using their likenesses on

T-shirts without consent from the comics’ estates.

Now, Gary Saderup always has been a gifted artist, but back in the

early ‘70s, he was one of the most dynamic actors in local community

theater. I can testify to that firsthand, since I worked on several shows

with him.

I first heard from him late in 1970 when I announced auditions for a

show I was directing in Huntington Beach at a downtown storefront

theater, which has long since faded into history. The play was William

Inge’s “A Loss of Roses” -- you might remember it as the movie “The

Stripper” with Joanne Woodward and Richard Beymer -- and it focused on a

teenager’s crush on a visiting showgirl who, as things turned out, showed

plenty.

Gary, at that time, was about 21 and getting ready to play the stern,

moralistic Reverend Davidson in Golden West College’s production of

“Rain,” which conflicted with the audition date. So he called me and

asked if he could arrange a private audition. When I heard him read in my

kitchen, I knew I’d found the right Kenny to play opposite my then-wife,

Beth, in the Inge drama.

He was terrific, and we collaborated on several other shows for the

Irvine Community Theater, acting together in “Arsenic and Old Lace” and

resuming an actor-director relationship in “Dear Friends,” where he “aged

up” successfully to play the husband of an actress about 20 years his

senior. The then-Costa Mesa resident also impressed Irvine audiences as

the younger immigrant brother in “A View From the Bridge.”

But the show that really displayed Gary’s acting range and power was

“The Desperate Hours,” which I directed in 1973 for the Irvine Community

Theater. Gary played the Bogart role as the leader of three escaped

convicts, and virtually mesmerized his audiences. We all figured Broadway

or Hollywood soon would be beckoning.

Gary, however, had other talents, and in the end his skills as an

artist overruled his acting prowess. Nearly 30 years after he tore up the

stage in “Desperate Hours,” he made the front page of the Times -- as the

subject of a news story.

A battle for the right to depict likenesses of the Three Stooges may

even wind up in the Supreme Court. If he possesses the same dynamic force

in presenting his case that he did as an actor three decades ago, he

should emerge triumphant.

* TOM TITUS writes about and reviews local theater for the Daily

Pilot. His stories appear Thursdays and Saturdays.