Nathaniel Fuller '67: Back to Center Stage

When Nathaniel Fuller '67 played the Reverend James Morell during a recent run of The Guthrie Theater's production of George Bernard Shaw's Candida at the Hopkins Center, he could look from the Center Theater stage to the spot in the balcony where as a Dartmouth undergraduate he first felt the lure of the theatrical world. Fuller, a Minneapolis-based actor whose career is still on the rise, recalls the end of his freshman year when he was watching a production of Tennessee Williams's Orpheus Descending. "It was that moment everybody talks about where it suddenly seemed that something magical was happening." That moment proved to be an awakening for Fuller that led to a career as a professional actor.

"Dartmouth really galvanized my interest in theater," Fuller reflects. "I had been in high school plays but never had serious plans to make acting ray life." Although there were thespian influences on him his mother, Thelma Leigh Fuller, had long been involved in amateur theater Fuller came to Dartmouth with the idea of following in the footsteps of his father, Josiah Fuller '41, a medical doctor. But after that fateful performance of Orpheus Descending he threw himself into the theatrical scene at Dartmouth. He got roles in fraternity plays, the Frost competition plays, and then during junior year drama professor Henry Williams cast him as the lead in Engaged. "By that time I had the bug," he remembers.

Still, practical concerns led Fuller to approach his eventual career cautiously. After graduation Fuller went into the Navy's Officers Candidate School. This gave him the time he needed to think about his future. "I thought theater was a very stupid thing to go into. I didn't know if I had any talent, I had virtually no connections, didn't really know anybody in the professional end of it." Nonetheless, he decided that "I might as well take a whack at it, because if I'm not happy at it I could do something else. But I'd rather do that than get to the end of my life and say 'I wonder what it would have been like if I'd tried that.' "

After the Navy Fuller acquired a master of fine arts degree in theater at the University of Southern California. It proved difficult to enter into the professional Los Angeles acting world, so Fuller headed out to Cleveland with the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival. He next landed a job with the Drury Lane dinner theater group in Chicago. Eventually, while on a bus trip, he passed through Minneapolis. "As I always did at that time, I checked the theaters, asked around who was casting, who wasn't." The same Howard Dallin who directed The Guthrie Theater production that just brought Fuller back to Hanover hired him for a role in a musical called It Strikesa Man. He investigated the other acting opportunities in the Minneapolis area and decided to move there.

In Minneapolis, as in other cities, the explosion of media has created a huge demand for actors. "I make my living," Fuller explains, "doing industrial films, television, videos, films, commercials, and radio commercials, as most of the actors do to support themselves in the Twin Cities, and then we do theater when we get a good part or can afford to do it." Industrial films, for those unfamiliar with the term, are used for specialized purposes rather than for general broadcast and include educational, promotional, and employee training films.

Fuller's theatrical roles include Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, Rabbi Azarel in The Dybbuk, Gene in I Never Sang for my Father, Bernard in The Constant Wife, Wilfrid Robars in Witness for the Prosecution, and Pompey in Measure for Measure. His film and television credits include appearances in FoolinAround, Eye for an Eye, and The Lie. And, without knowing who it was, people have seen Fuller's handsome face and ready smile on the back of Wheaties cereal boxes, and television viewers have seen him in Ford truck commercials.

This is not the glitzy celebrity life that the covers of all those magazines at the supermarket checkout line would have us believe is the actor's lot. Like the lives of most actors, Fuller's life is far more down to earth. Yet, if success is measured in terms of deriving enjoyment out of one's work and being able to stay in the profession of one's choice, then Fuller has achieved it. Even so, Fuller still dreams of being "discovered," though the dreams are tempered with a good dose of pragmatism. As he does his current .tour with The Guthrie Theater, he carries with him the hope that "this job is going to lead to something else, is going to be a good break for me. However," he adds, "I have to confess I'm not at a point where I'm willing to give up everything for that. I have a family and a lot of other aspects of life besides acting that mean a great deal to me."

Fuller feels he. has more mountains to climb in acting. He has written a one-man show called Dr. Billy T. Buller The Surgefor Personal Power. He would like to play more dramatic roles and go on more tours. Most of all, he would like to get an original role that he could be the first to create. And he admits with a grin, "I wouldn't mind some fame and fortune!" In the meantime, he looks ahead to the many roles that become available as one progresses in life. "No matter what happens to your hair, there are other roles," Fuller says. "For theater you need your health, mental faculties to keep the lines going and perform, and you need your voice."

Nat Fuller's voice may not be instantly recognizable yet but keep listening.

Returning to the scene: actor Nathaniel Fullerappeared at the Center Theater of the HopkinsCenter, where his love of theater began.