Today we’d like to introduce you to Carl Weintraub.
Hi Carl, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
In my mid-twenties, I made a pilgrimage to upstate New York to study with a spiritual teacher there, and the first thing he asked me was, “What do you do?” I said I was an actor, though I’d never yet done any acting professionally. First job out of college was a probation officer at a Los Angeles juvenile detention center, and that’s pretty much the work I did all the time I was in New York, until I decided to quit beating my head against stone walls, decided to build them instead, and became a brick and stone mason. But when I told that Teacher I was an actor, what he said to me was, “Oh, so you desire to be someone other than yourself.”
For someone on a spiritual quest, that was a real knee buckler. If you said that to me now, I’d say, “Hell yeah, I want to be all kinds of people other than myself.” That’s what acting is all about. Just being me all the time will never be enough for me. Anyway, at the time, he told me to go home and really think about what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I thought about it real hard and decided what I liked doing most in the world was acting and writing. Put those two together and what I wanted to be when I grew up was a Storyteller.
I’ve never published any books or even any stories. Scares the shit out of me to think of submitting manuscripts to a publisher. I mean I can walk into an acting audition and not get the part and be fine with it because it’s not me they’re rejecting, it’s the character I’m portraying. However, anything I write… that’s me.
But I’ve had a modestly good career as an actor. Been the star of a couple of TV series, done substantial parts on quite a few stages, and, 50 years after I was asked that question back in New York, I’m still acting all the time, got good pensions from SAG, AFTRA and Equity, a nice house that’s all paid for, the perfect wife (also an actor), wonderful kids and grandkids and life is good.
When I meet young actors today, I want to tell them that all they have to do to get what I’ve got is be true to themselves and trust the journey. But I don’t know if that’s true anymore. I hope it is, but the world is so much different now than it was when I was coming up.
Still, one of the first Rules of Improvisation is, “Always say, Yes.” I started talking when I was six months old but I never heard the word “No,” till I was two. That’s a year and a half of forming primary, elemental, existential, and essential concepts without having even a notion of Denial. That has sometimes bit me from behind, but I believe, for the most part, it’s been a boon along the way. I do always say, “Yes.”
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
You know, obstacles and challenges are what the road’s all about. I’ve broken my back three times and my nose five. I’ve gone through three divorces. I had the perfect father until he went crazy when I was 14 and he started beating on me daily.
One of those broken backs brought with it a life and death epiphany that has grounded me for the rest of my life. Those wives who left me were all good women and we share some wonderful children. And when my dad went mad, I had to take care of my little brother and sisters, and that bred in me a strength and sense of responsibility that has made me the kind of person who can lead when necessary, who’s been elected president of every club he’s ever joined and has run a theatre company for forty years. You fall down. You get back up again.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Well, I’m an actor. I’ve also been a probation officer, a social worker, a mushroom farmer, and a mason. I’ve taught school, cleaned latrines, waited tables, owned a restaurant, played guitar and sang the blues in bars for money.
Currently, and for the past six years, I’m producing and hosting a bi-Monthly storytelling event out of the Victory Theatre in Burbank called BackStory. You can see all our past shows on our BackStory YouTube channel.
My ticket to heaven, though, is the Theatre for Young Audiences company I founded back in 1981 and is still plugging away. It’s called We Tell Stories, and it’s a wonderful melding of storytelling and theatre that evolves out of folk tales, myths, literature, and improvisational theater and gets kids right out of the audience to become integral characters in our stories, on stage with us, as the stories unfold. We’ve performed all over the country for over four-and-a-half-million kids, we even teach The We Tell Stories Process of Turning Stories into Plays to children and teachers alike, and hundreds of actors have had this company as a profound part of their professional journey. That’s some good work in the world.
How do you define success?
It isn’t about how many times you fell down. It’s about how many times you got back up. And after you’ve fallen down and gotten back up countless times, you begin to realize that you always will get back up. That realization is success. Never in my life have I made a plan or set a goal for myself. Ask me what my dream role would be, I’ll tell you the next one that comes along. I’d rather be surprised by life than set my sights.
The acting bug bit me in Junior High School. I had a teacher, then, who was teaching while waiting for his next job as an actor and finally did fly off to New York to be in a Soap Opera. He told me that I would have to make a decision if I really wanted to “Make it in the Business”: FAMILY or CAREER; I couldn’t have both. Family would be an “Obstacle” to “Success.” Well, I’ve had four wives and three families. Said, “Yes,” to each of those women. Maybe I would have been a big A-List movie star if I hadn’t. But then, I wouldn’t have what I do have now. And I wouldn’t trade this “do have” for any “might have been.”
Contact Info:
- Website: carlweintraub.com
