TOM TITUS -- Theater

When you work in the general vicinity of the entertainment business,

occasionally you encounter an actor or writer whom you particularly

admire. I, for example, had the privilege of meeting two of my favorite

writers, television legend Rod Serling and stage scripter Oliver Hailey,

before their much-too-early passing.

Unfortunately, I never personally met Jason Miller, who succumbed to a

heart attack last week, but I felt a kinship to him nevertheless. We were

born the same year, and both grew up in sports-crazy Pennsylvania cities.

In later life, we both gravitated to writing, acting and directing --

though his was on a decidedly loftier level than my community theater

efforts.

My Keystone State experiences resulted in a play called “Summer

Lightning,” which was produced once, in Westminster. Miller’s became

“That Championship Season,” which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973, the

same year he was nominated for an Oscar for his performance in “The

Exorcist.”

When you see as many plays as I do, it takes a lot to blow you away.

When I first reviewed “Championship Season” in 1975 at South Coast

Repertory, that’s precisely what happened to me -- I was stunned by its

visceral impact. This was a play I wanted to direct on the

community-theater level, and I got my chance the following year. Nearly a

decade later, I had the opportunity to play the role of the mayor in

another production of the play.

Miller’s literary intensity was matched by his dramatic power as an

actor. As Father Karras in “The Exorcist,” he was a dynamic presence. His

role actually was the lead, but because he was lesser known than Max Von

Sydow, who played the older priest, Miller received lower billing and was

nominated in the supporting category. He should have won.

Miller directed his own script for the movie version of “Championship

Season,” eliciting perhaps Robert Mitchum’s best performance as the

coach. The reuniting basketball players were an all-star team -- Bruce

Dern, Stacy Keach, Martin Sheen and Paul Sorvino -- and all rendered

terrific performances. Especially Keach, then at the height of his “Mike

Hammer” popularity, who was cast against type as a weakling junior high

principal.

With that sort of power, both as a writer and an actor, one might have

expected a career dotted with classic plays and performances. But, much

like Orson Welles after “Citizen Kane,” Miller’s later work never reached

that 1973 level.

I started wondering what had become of Jason Miller -- who is the

father of actor Jason Patric -- earlier this year when I reviewed his

one-act play, “Lou Gehrig Did Not Die of Cancer,” at Orange Coast

College. It had been nearly 30 years since “Championship Season,” and he

surely had done something significant with his prodigious talent.

Sadly, the next time I read his name, it was in the obituary column

(he died May 13). But for that one glorious year, 1973, Jason Miller

enjoyed his own championship season.

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

Pilot. His stories appear Thursdays and Saturdays.