July 12, 1975– Cheyenne Jackson is just too much. Too much of everything: tall (6’3”), powerfully built, good-looking with jet-black hair & piercing blue eyes, sings like a dream, dances, acts, principled, well-regarded in the industry, & an out & proud gay guy. Have you heard his fabulous 2008 album with Michael Feinstien, The Power Of Two, or seen his hilarious turn on 30 Rock as Danny, the irony free Canadian brought on to The Girly Show (the show within a show) to attract Middle-American viewers, or maybe his leading man roles in Broadway musicals Xanadu (2007), Finian’s Rainbow (2008) or Damn Yankees (2009)? Show biz trivia: Jackson had a only a week of rehearsals for before opening night of Xanadu, a role that had him dancing & singing on roller skates.
Over on The Facebook, I recently devoted a post to the sublime actor Gena Rowlands on her birthday & noted that her most recent film, 6 Dance Lessons In 6 Weeks (2015) was playing On Demand. I finally caught it & the movie is rather stagy, but Rowlands & her co-star Jackson, playing a gay ballroom dance instructor were delightful & had real chemistry. I caught him on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live! with my boo Andy Cohen & I was disarmed by his natural charm & charisma. How funny that he came clean as a devoted Bravo watcher & a big fan of all The Real Housewives Shows?
Jackson & I might be fated to meet, as it seems that he has been chasing me across the cosmos. He grew up in a Christian Conservative family, in a small town just outside of my hometown of Spokane & later moved to that city when he graduated high school. Jackson:
“Growing up gay in that town was very hard, but my parents were awesome.”
My first professional job, at 17 years old, was acting in summer stock in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho. I was thrilled with this job. I was making $75 a week, plus room & board. I thought I was so rich! I was making a living as an actor! Decades later, Jackson’s first professional show, at age 18, was as an actor in the same summer theater in Coeur d’Alene, where he was making $280 a week. Jackson: “I thought I was so rich!”
In the 1980s & 1990s, I worked steadily as an actor in Seattle including featured roles at Seattle Civic Light Opera & The Village Theatre. In the late 1990s, Jackson worked at Seattle Civic Light Opera & The Village Theatre, playing leads in Grease, Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, & West Side Story, just as I was leaving Seattle to move to Portland. In the spring of 2002, he starred in Seattle’s Fifth Avenue Theatre’s production of The Most Happy Fella & a revival of Hair, just as I was starting over in my new city. I once had hair & I can only rest assured that Jackson & I were never up for the same role.
Jackson had just one contact when he moved to NYC, actor Marc Kudisch, who he was once understudied in Seattle. Kudisch set Jackson up with an agent who signed him on the spot. Within a few weeks, Jackson was cast in his first Broadway show after going to only a single audition. He was just shy of his 27th birthday.
In more crazy parallels in our lives, I moved to NYC with only a single contact, I had one audition for a Broadway show, I once had a 27th birthday, & I once had an agent. I feel that with so much in common it’s a phenomenon & Jackson & I must be fated to meet.
Jackson on being an openly gay actor:
“The more it happens, the easier it is for others, although I do understand why some actors choose not to come out. I have several famous friends who are still in the closet.”
On working with Alec Baldwin on NBC’s 30 Rock:
“I’ve learned to be totally comfortable around Alec Baldwin, but he used to scare the crap out of me. He’s so alpha male. He’ll move you out of the way if you’re in his light, & one time I thought he was done talking & I started to say something & he put his big beefy hand on my arm to silence me.”
In films Jackson most notably portrayed 9/11 victim & gay hero Mark Bingham in the Academy Award nominated United 93 (2006) & Liberace’s jilted boyfriend in the HBO biopic Behind The Candelabra (2013) with Michael Douglas & Matt Damon.
He has an album of tasty self-penned tunes, Drive (2012) that gets a lot of play at my house. He is an active supporter LGBT rights & is the International Ambassador for amfAR (The Foundation For AIDS Research). Last autumn, Jackson married actor Jason Landau. Cheyenne Jackson turns 40 years old today. I was once 40 years old, although I don’t remember anything from that year.
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