Victoria Morgan and Jim J. Bullock in "Hairspray"
“If I were to be saddled to this show – like Yul Brynner and King and I – then I would be really happy. I love this show. I love what it stands for. I love this role. I never get tired of the music. I would be a heroin addict if I had to do Oklahoma forever.”
The loud, happy, flamboyant drawl of Jim J. Bullock blasts through the phone as he describes his delight to be playing Edna Turnblad in Musical Theatre West’s big revival of Hairspray in Long Beach.
Jim J. Bullock
Bullock, who spent the 1980s in the sitcom Too Close For Comfort, followed by a stint in the center of The Hollywood Squares, has a long history with the musical based on John Waters’ 1988 hit film. In 2003 he learned that Harvey Fierstein, who won the Tony for his turn as Edna, was leaving the show. Bullock asked to audition, but the producers had no interest in the zany television star. He persisted, and “my manager finally broke them down. I auditioned for Edna in LA. They liked what I did and flew me to New York. When I saw Harvey do the show, I was overwhelmed. I almost wish I hadn’t seen it. It was the night before my audition, and the show is so awesome and Harvey was so awesome in it that it seemed insurmountable — just this perfect thing. I was sitting there with my insecurities. Broadway is something I had given up on. I got too old and didn’t want to work that hard any more. Then this opportunity came up.”
Bullock did not land the role of Edna, but he was cast as the multiple-character “Male Authority Figure.” He stayed on Broadway for nine months, then was cast as Edna’s husband Wilbur first in the national tour, and then on Broadway.
“I told my agent,” he ecalls, “that if a regional theater ever has time for a real rehearsal period, I’d love to go for Edna again. Now that I am fat and old it happened! An opportunity for audition at the Arvada Center in Denver came up and last February I went in and got it.”
Landing Edna was the beginning of an exciting new chapter in an already widely varied career. For Bullock it is a dream come true. “Edna is one of the roles I don’t run across very often. I knew I would do it well… I wasn’t right for Edna when they were replacing Harvey. I am now – I have earned the stripes. This is just something I can put my heart into.”
Bullock reluctantly but sincerely embraces the aging process that has made him right for the role. “Aging goes by decade. We’re good for a decade, then boom! Ouch. Then you sort of stay the same for another decade. You look good for 60, then Boom! Ouch, 61. I look good for 57 years old, but I am 57!”
Jim J. Bullock in "Hairspray"
Perhaps his outlandish acting style has mellowed with age. He has no interest in playing Edna as a caricature. “I just want to play a human being,” he explains, “I am trying not to be me. I am just being a mother really trying to do good for her daughter. The writers always said they never wanted her to be a drag queen. I have never thought of her that way.” Maybe Bullock feels he is getting a bit too serious or sentimental so he bursts into familiar laughter, shrieking, “I never think about the fact that I have a huuuuuuuuuge penis between my legs!”
That raucous sense of humor and refusal to self-censor has energized Bullock’s career and helped him in his public endorsements of LGBT causes. But all that is far from the young Jimmy Bullock who dreamed of being an evangelical singer. “I was going to Oklahoma Baptist University on a voice scholarship. I wanted to become Richard Roberts [Oral Roberts' son and successor], until later I realized I really wanted to be Patti Roberts [Richard's first wife]!” One can almost hear the rim shot on the phone line, but even through the laughter, there is a sense of seriousness.
He recalls that his first musical theater experience was during his senior year in high school. “I got bit by the acting bug when I did Bye Bye Birdie. I did the curtain call and I got bit right on the ass! I remember taking my curtain call and felt this gong going off inside my soul. I felt this is why I am here! But no, I was going to serve God with my singing. Then at OBU I was cast in Godspell and realized I could marry all of it together — the singing, the humor and the faith.”
There came a battle for Bullock’s soul between performing and ministering, and history knows which career choice won. He dropped out of college after two years and leaped into Hollywood. He slowly came to terms with being gay but even today wrestles with his spiritual side. “Before coming out I was fighting a real battle in my head with my faith.” Where is he now in that battle? A quick guffaw is followed by, “God’s wrong and I’m right!”
Victoria Morgan
Then he turns serious again, “I am so grateful I am gay for so many different reasons. It set me out on a journey to find my own faith. I am a Christian, but I don’t like to call myself that because so many self-righteous Christians are creepy people. I am a follower of Christ and a believer in Jesus, but I have had to forge my own faith and find my own truth. Life is a lot more complicated when it’s not black and white, but I am really glad I don’t look at it the way I did. My eyes are open and my vision is much broader.”
Wherever he is in terms of faith, Bullock is filled with gratitude for his life and good fortune. He is very aware of how rare his kind of success in this business is. “Every day hundreds of hopefuls arrive and they all have this same dream. It’s not based on talent, it is being at the right place at the right time. But you do need to deliver if you want longevity.”
Bullock’s right place and time led him to talent agent Joanne King who immediately believed in him. He recalls, “She was crazy, crazy! I said I wanted a series and she said to do stand-up. I thought, ‘God no!’ Not only was she crazy, but I didn’t realize she was in love with me and she helped me get into stand-up. That’s where it happened. Mitzi Shore at the Comedy Store and Budd Friedman’s Improv were so instrumental.
“We’d go to the Comedy Store for hours, then go somewhere and have coffee and talk about what they did and what I would do. I am not a joke teller. I just did really stupid, silly things. I was gay, but not gay because nobody said they were gay back then. I was just being myself, and I stood out because I was so bizarre. I had this energy and craziness. I was super spontaneous and doing whatever came out — wearing go-go boots and lip-syncing to Nancy Sinatra and making out with a rabbit on stage. I hit the timing just right. It was the golden age of stand-up. I got a development deal with ABC. Out of that came Too Close for Comfort. Ted Knight [the star of the sitcom ] once said to me, ‘You don’t need that stand-up shit, kid, you’re on a hit show now.’ That’s all I needed because I never liked stand-up. But now I wish I would have not listened to him. I should have stayed with it. I would have had a routine and maybe would have grown to like it.”
Gwen Stewart and Jim J. Bullock
Now Bullock is returning to live comedy but mixing it with his singing in a cabaret act he titles “Different.” The act celebrates the art of individuality. He explains, “It’s all about being true to yourself. You have to follow your truth. There is hell to pay for it and a lot of bullying, but you have to be true. The act is a little journey. I just tell stories for songs; some funny and some poignant. Most people don’t know I sing, so that’s always a kind of nice surprise. One song I do, called ‘God’s Will’ by D.C. Anderson, is an amazing story song about a perfect American Christian family and what happens when they find out their perfect son is gay. It’s a lovely song about grace and love. It’s beautiful and very powerful.”
“Different” has had successful dates in Los Angeles and Palm Springs. He plans to revive it when Hairspray finishes in Long Beach. His next turn as Edna will be aboard Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas for an eight-month tour, and he will be presenting the cabaret act twice each week during his voyages. Then he plans to return to Los Angeles to pursue more television work, but he’ll happily look forward to sailing into his sunset years performing Edna as long as anyone will have him.
Hairspray, presented by Musical Theatre West. Opens Oct. 29. Plays Thur.-Sat., 8 pm and Sun. 2 pm. Through Nov. 13. Tickets: $17-85. Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center, 6200 Atherton St., Long Beach. 562-856-1999 x4 or visit www.musical.org.
*** All Hairspray production photos by Ken Jacques
