By Jim Gehmen | Engagement Insider
An offensive tackle, you spent four seasons with the Los Angeles Rams [1960-63] before being traded to Dallas. Four seasons later, your final game with the Cowboys was for the 1967 NFL Championship in Green Bay, which is known as the “Ice Bowl.”
“I was playing backup tackle, and so I knew my job would be on the kickoffs and punt returns. And I thought, ‘I’m not going to bundle myself down with a lot of extra weight. I won’t wear my thermal underwear.’ And so I got out there and it was just as if somebody was pinching me. I just couldn’t wait to get back into the locker room after our warm-ups, and throw on the thermal underwear.
“It was just, well, it was the ‘Ice Bowl.’ It was just freezing. I remember seeing a photographer on the sideline trying to put a new roll of film in his 35mm camera, and it was so cold that the film snapped and broke in two as he tried to wind it on the spool.”
Following one season with New Orleans, you became a part-time actor, something you had also done while with the Rams. How did you become interested in acting?
“I was living with another Ram, Urban Henry, and he heard that there was going to a party at [actor/singer] Ricky Nelson’s house, and wanted to know if I wanted to go. His mom and dad were there, and they were just wonderful people. Just like you saw on the Ozzie and Harriet program in the old black and white TV days.
“A few days later I got a call wanting to know if I would do a stunt on the Ozzie and Harriet show. And so I went and they had a deal where Wally, a big, ol’ companion of Rick’s, was to get in a hassle with me and throw me over his back in a fight scene. Of course, you didn’t see that I was landing on a mattress.
“So I did that, and when I got my check, I think it was for $50. And they said I could either take the check or use $45 of it and join Screen Actors Guild. I thought that maybe something would come up in the future, so I joined. After that I started taking acting lessons.
“Every once in a while, I’d get a football player part (like in the movie) North Dallas Forty, and so the first couple parts weren’t big stretches. I wasn’t ever inspired or got the acting bug or anything like that. It’s like my daughter tells me, I’m sort of like Forrest Gump. I just fell into places and it seemed to work out without planning. In fact, I was in the movie Forrest Gump, and I had such a small part, my neighbor saw the movie and he didn’t even see me in it.”
Besides movies, you were on several television shows and sort of returned to football with a reoccurring role in the series Coach, playing Dauber’s dad, Walter Dybinski. What was the story behind getting that part?
“I got called and they said, ‘You’ll be auditioning for the TV series, Coach.’ And I said, ‘That’s great. I’ve been out of football a few years, but I could still probably pretend I’m a football player.’ And they said, ‘No, no, no.’ And I said, ‘Okay, I can understand that. I can be a coach.’ And they said, ‘No, you’re the father of the coach.’ And I laughed, ‘Oh, it’s come down to that, huh? Okay.’ And so I went and things really worked out well. They were a real good group of people to work with.”
Now retired from football, acting and teaching high school English for 25 years, what are you doing these days?
“I’m just sort of hanging around the house. A good part of my life is that two of my (three) daughters live nearby and they have their children, and I get to see them. So it really works out well. As far as everything else, everything else is fine. It couldn’t be better.”