Inside Iowa State: Iowa State University

September 13, 2002

Proud New Yorker happy to be in Iowa

Terence Goodman makes a point during an ISU theater class last week. Photo by Bob Elbert.

by Debra Gibson
He was Baywatch before Baywatch was cool.

He was Laverne DeFazio's boyfriend and the troubled brother in Ode to Billy Joe. He played a tough cop on Days of Our Lives and a doomed ship captain in the national Broadway tour of Titanic. For 30 years he has sung on Broadway, found his marks on L.A. sound stages and voiced over his share of commercials.

And now center stage is an institutionally gray office in Pearson Hall, with just a few random show posters to remind him where he has been.

ISU recently cast Terence Goodman in perhaps his most challenging role to date -- assistant theater professor. After three decades of casting agents, scripts to memorize and fleets of tour buses, the Fort Dodge native drives a car with an Iowa license plate and banks a steady paycheck each month.

And so far, he loves his audience.

"I've always believed that people from Iowa were the sweetest and the brightest in the United States," Goodman said recently from his stark Pearson digs. "But when I came back for my interview in May and spoke to some of the ISU acting classes, I realized the students here are so much more. Typically I get questions like 'Did you date Heather Locklear when you appeared on The Fall Guy?'

"But at Iowa State, students were asking very intuitive, mature questions about being an actor. They truly wanted to learn about acting and life in the theater, and they were very respectful of what I had to offer. And I'd forgotten how Iowa kids always have that sparkle in their eyes."

That enthusiasm matches his own for the performing arts, which for Goodman began when he performed puppet shows on a Fort Dodge television show as a teenager. He was awarded both drama and athletic scholarships at Arkansas State, where he roomed with track teammate Tom Hill, now ISU's vice president for student affairs. ("We both set track records at Arkansas State," Goodman recalled. "Mine were always broken by the end of the season -- Tom's are still there.")

Then it was off to New York, where he "got lucky fast" by earning roles in the original Jesus Christ Superstar and the first Damn Yankees revival on Broadway. His debut feature film role was in Ode to Billie Joe, which was second only to Star Wars in 1976 for box office gross. A nearly 20-year stint in Los Angeles led to guest roles in series ranging from Hill Street Blues to Three's Company to BJ and the Bear (for which he was beaten out by Greg Evigan for the lead). Of the three finalists, he was the guy who didn't get cast as one of the brothers in Dukes of Hazzard, and his own series, Code Red ("the precursor to Baywatch") got cut after six shows.

"We were way ahead of our time," Goodman explained with a laugh.

Academia, round I
A 1980s writers strike left the job prospects limited, so Goodman accepted a teaching assignment at Utah State and began work on a master's of fine arts degree in directing. He met -- and eventually married -- his next-door neighbor, Catherine Jackson, and after receiving their degrees in 1990, they headed back to Los Angeles and television roles for Goodman. But he soon realized "it wasn't the same for me there anymore. The business had changed, there were new casting people who didn't know me, and I found I really missed live theater."

In 1994, the Goodmans moved to New York, where Terence found steady work in theater, both regionally and with national touring productions. Over time, though, that lifestyle lost its attraction.

"The road is for young, single kids," Goodman said. "As the 'old guy,' I'd be in bed as soon as the show was over. I'd be gone for weeks at a time, and after a while, I realized I didn't want the road anymore."

He pursued off-Broadway roles and last fall, found himself being seriously considered for an upcoming Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's Assassins.

And then his wife called him on that Tuesday morning in September, and told him to turn on the television. Soon after, Goodman went up to the roof of his apartment building and watched in horror as a plane crashed into the second tower of the World Trade Center. The firefighters based at the station across from Goodman's home raced out to do their jobs. By day's end, half of those 32 men, who routinely bantered with Goodman, were dead.

"I can't put into words how Sept. 11 changed my life," Goodman said. "It was the most surreal experience, and we truly believed that the city was under siege. And there wasn't a day for at least six months that I didn't weep for those 16 guys from Station 16. But the outpouring from the rest of the country just touched me. We don't realize how much we all have in common as Americans until something like this happens. Sept. 11 was one of the worst things I've been through, but I'm still so honored that I'm a New Yorker."

Still, the aftermath of Sept. 11 reverberated through the nation for months and professional theater was not immune to the backlash. For an actor who wanted to make his living in the city rather than back on the road, times were tough. And beyond the lack of work were the soul-searching questions.

"We'd all sit around after auditions and ask 'What are we doing? How important is all this?'" Goodman recalled. "We work in a very self-absorbed field. And for the first time, I started thinking about maybe giving something back, instead of just taking.

"I'd done all the things professionally I'd set out to do. And time slips away too quickly. I think of those 3,000 people who got up on Sept. 11, ate breakfast, started making plans for the weekend. A few hours later, they were jumping out of windows."

Goodman applied primarily for teaching jobs on the East Coast, but Iowa State students "tipped the scale" in making his decision to come back home. He's especially excited about expanding the university's musical theater opportunities, and will have his ISU directorial debut next spring with Stars Over Veishea's Brigadoon. Next month, Goodman will host a longtime Broadway colleague (and Cedar Rapids native), Tim Shew, for a few days of master classes and workshops. And Goodman is hopeful that next year, the ISU campus will be able to host the world premiere of the play Joe.

In the meantime, Goodman continues to travel periodically to New York for auditions, a contingency to his accepting the Iowa State offer.

"My continuing to act in New York can only help recruit theater students here on campus," he explained.

But it's his role as Professor Goodman that has the most appeal right now.

"No way!" he replied when asked whether his was a temporary position. "I'm here 'til they catch on to me."