Acting Up
Local Man Making His Dream Come True in California
Jan. 4, 1999
By Nancy Newman
Maybe it started when he was 12 and he and a friend made a series of short movies called The Wonder Twins.
Maybe the urge strengthened as the self-professed "sitcom fiend" honed his skills in comedic timing in front of the TV, soaking in the Norman-Lear humor of the '70s.
Maybe it took hold when he was in high school and as part of a class project wrote and shot his version of a slasher movie -- using an abandoned house, several screaming teen-agers and "lots and lots of ketchup."
And maybe that passion for theatre was locked in securely with all those plays he did at Lewis Cass High School.
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Whatever started it, Leon Acord has held on and followed his dream -- a dream that comes to life when he is on a stage.
Moving to Indianapolis the day after graduating from Cass, Leon got his feet wet in productions for Footlite Theatre there and Ole Olsen Memorial Theatre in Peru. It's good training, he says. "I've done a lot of stuff in San Francisco that was no more 'professional' than things I did in community theatre," he says, "even though it might pay a little."
For the first time since moving to San Francisco 13 years ago, Leon will actually claim profit earned from acting on his taxes this year. And that, he says, is a good sign that he's making inroads in that elusive profession.
After moving back home from Indy and attending Indiana University for a while, Leon and a friend headed for San Francisco and careers, they hoped, in the the movies. They had no jobs, no contacts, no place to stay. "I had saved $1,200," Leon says. "It wasn't enough."
His friend gave up and came back to Indiana in a couple of months. Leon stayed, found a temporary job and a cheap apartment, and began the rounds of auditions. He didn't like it. "Auditions unnerved me," he says, laughing.
So he decided to become a filmmaker, "basically to keep from auditioing." He made three films. One, a drama called OUT, about a terrorized agoraphobe, he is especially proud of. But he realized that acting was really what he wanted to do. "So I told myself to grow up, get over it, and start auditioning."
He's supported himself with office work while honing his craft. And his face is getting known. "It's a slow process. There's a lot of learning involved. You do a play, get an agent, start auditioning, get a play ..."
Most actors who finally make it have worked a long time, he says. "The thinking tends to be you're either on the cover of People magazine, or you're starving and unemployed. It can happen, but it's hard work."
He's been in several independent features and shorts, including Some Prefer Cake,a comedy that was distributed theatrically through Great Britain and in the U.S. on video.
He's also written and performed a one-man show, Last Sundy in June, which he's performed in San Francisco.
But what he really, really wants to do is a television sitcom. All those shows he watched growing up have stuck with him. "I love comedy," he says. "I much prefer comedy to drama."
Leon's next project is co-producing and starring in an original play, Carved in Stone, to be presented in San Francisco.
After that, he's decided to move to Los Angeles, to look for that sitcom that's out there somewhere, just searching for a blond, funny guy from Indiana who can act, sing if he has to, and yes, even wield a mean bottle of kethcup.
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