Weekly: A little Jimmy Olsen, huh?
Bartlett: Absolutely, that’s what it was like. Actually my father, in his circle, is extremely well known. At the press lounge at Augusta, you know where the Masters golf tournament is played, there’s a plaque in my father’s name. When I’d go out to these tournaments with him I’d meet people like Sam Snead and Ben Hogan and Babe Zaharias. Those are the people I remember. I remember when Gary Player — who’s now of course on the Senior tour — came on the tour.Weekly: Have you had any odd non-acting jobs?
Bartlett: I was a bellman/ switchboard operator for a Helmsley hotel.Weekly: So you did interact with Leona?
Bartlett: I did. We only spoke on the phone. One time it was a very difficult conversation, too. There was a lot to get done and I apparently did it effectively, because from then on her henchman were very nice to me.Weekly: Tell me about your Broadway show, Never Gonna Dance.
Bartlett: It’s a stage version of the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers film Swingtime. She works at a dancing studio at the beginning of it. And a rather famous character actor at the time Eric Blore runs the dancing studio, and I’m playing that part. But actually in the stage version they are calling him Pangborn as sort of homage to another of those character actors who was in those films as well, Franklin Pangborn, a very high-flying nervous type, and brilliantly silly and funny. He was so wonderful. So I’m going more in that direction. Michael Greif who directed Rent is directing, and Jerry Mitchell who choreographed Hairspray is doing the choreography. William Ivey Long, who just won a Tony, is doing the costumes.Weekly: So you still do OLTL during the day?
Bartlett: Yes. I was also able to do that when I did Beauty and the Beast for a year, too.
Weekly: What is it like to work with Phil Carey (Asa)?
Bartlett: I’m always asked that. People think, “Ohhh, Asa.” You know I have to say that I came on and I knew who Phil was. I mean, I’m a big movie buff. I remember his Philip Marlowe series. I remember him in films. I remember him as one of the sailors who say, “Good night, Mr. Roberts” in Mr. Roberts. I knew of him as a movie star essentially, so I have a lot of respect for that. He was out of a totally other kind of system. And I got very lucky. Some light descended on my head and I thought, “Do your work and be a gentleman and he won’t be able to resist that in time.” So Phil and I get on fine. We do. Phil’s been very good to me.
