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Hollywood his way

Alumnus Jeff Daniels chooses blue jeans, R.V. driving, and hometown living over Tinseltown’s glitz and glam

By Barbara Sutherland Chovanec

Jeff Daniels always figured he would grow up to work in his father’s lumber company. Then he headed to CMU and thought maybe he would be an English teacher. He loved acting, but told himself that he would only stay with it until his luck inevitably ran out.

“I kept waiting to fail miserably,” he says.

That day never came.

Daniels has made more than 40 movies, written a dozen plays, and carved out a singer-songwriter career with two CDs and a nationwide performance tour.

But the appealingly modest Daniels shrugs off his stardom – maybe because he focuses on the craft of acting instead of fame. He’s a regular, hardworking guy who, if you saw him on the street, could pass for your neighbor or uncle or brother.

Daniels studied theater at CMU for three years and left after his junior year, invited by director Marshall Mason to join the Circle Repertory Company in New York City. He acted on stage for a few years and got his first m ovie part in Ragtime in 1981.

He began to get recognized after his 1983 role as philandering husband Flap Horton in Terms of Endearment.

“Suddenly people on the street knew who I was,” Daniels says. “That was a little unnerving – the fact that the cab driver could turn around and say, ‘I saw your movie – god, I hated you.’ That actually happened.”

Daniels rose to mainstream stardom with the success of Dumb and Dumber in 1994. Some of his recent films include The Squid and the Whale (2005), Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), and Infamous (2006).

Now at 52, he is busier than ever.

The Lookout hit theaters in March. This spring he acted in New York City in Blackbird, a two-person off-Broadway play. In November Daniels will be on the big screen again in Mama’s Boy.

When he has time, Daniels also tours the country performing a one-man acoustic show of bluesy folk songs, personal stories, and comedy.

When he headed to New York City in 1976, he bought a guitar and taught himself to play. He takes musical influences from Jim Croce, Steve Goodman, David Bromberg, and longtime friend Lyle Lovett.

But until recently, Daniels’ musical talent was a well-kept secret.

A couple years ago he performed a few concerts as fundraisers for The Purple Rose Theatre in Chelsea, which he founded in 1991 and where he is now executive director. The concerts were meant as special events just for Purple Rose audiences, but people started to take note, and Daniels expanded his reach.

“Having been accepted as a songwriter, that’s kind of what 2006 was about,” Daniels says. “I’m being told that I can and should continue. The second CD was better than the first, as far as the songwriting goes, and I want the third CD to be better than the second.”

Onstage, Daniels doesn’t try to be a rock star. He knows who he is – a storyteller. His always personal, often funny, sometimes poignant songs cover subjects such as his first car, his first date with his wife, his relationship with his grandfather, and the ups and downs of his beloved Detroit Tigers.

“The Dirty Harry Blues,” celebrates getting killed by Clint Eastwood in 2002’s Blood Work. (“It’s a cool thing to say that you’ve been killed by Clint,” Daniels says.)

Another audience favorite is “Recreational Vehicle” that recounts an unfortunate mixup that left his wife stranded at a truck stop in Pennsylvania during a family vacation to Cooperstown. (A reference to this song even found its way into the movie RV: Robin Williams’ character drives out of an R.V. park past a sign that reads “Don’t Forget Your Keys, Don’t Forget Your Wife.”)

Last November, Daniels performed at CMU to benefit University Theatre. An appreciative crowd delighted in Daniels’ special song for the concert, “I Owe It All to You, CMU,” during which he paired up with college buddy John Genette, ’76.

Return to Chelsea
Daniels was 30, living in New York City, married, and he still wasn’t sure if this acting thing would stick when he starred in Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo. Encouragement from Allen helped him decide.

“I had been in New York for nine years,” he says. “I had done a couple of movies and a lot of plays, but it wasn’t until Woody Allen told me I was good that I decided this is what I’m going to do. That’s when I made the decision to be an actor.”

The problem was that Jeff and Kathleen Daniels, then with one child and plans for a larger family, wanted to move back home.

“The Midwest and Michigan in particular is a great place to raise your family,” Daniels says. “Kathleen and I knew we were going to have more kids, and we didn’t want to do that in Hollywood. So the kids and the family and the raising of the kids was the priority. That’s why we moved back here.”

But moving to smalltown Chelsea was chancy. In 1986 movie actors just didn’t settle down in the Midwest.

“Redford had Sundance, and Harrison Ford might have had the ranch in Wyoming or Montana,” Daniels says. “Tommy Lee Jones I think was in San Antonio by that point. But nobody was living really anywhere, it seemed, that they couldn’t drive to L.A.

“I think now, more and more people are living elsewhere. So now I get asked, ‘How did you do it, how do you make it work?’ Because that’s the big fear – out of sight, out of mind. If you’re not in L.A. going to the parties, somehow you feel like you’re not connected – like you’re out of the loop. And you are, a bit.”

After all, Chelsea, population 4,400 and home to Chelsea Milling Co.’s Jiffy Mix brand, isn’t exactly a movie industry hotbed.

But Daniels has made it work, and he says sustaining a film career while living in Michigan is one of his greatest achievements.

Daniels also has worked hard to support his love of local theater. He opened The Purple Rose Theatre in a building that was once a used car and bus garage, which coincidentally was owned in the early 1900s by his grandfather. The 168-seat venue provides an intimate theater experience for patrons, and Daniels keeps ticket prices low enough to make the theater accessible for everyone – part of the mission of The Purple Rose Theatre.
Daniels has written some of the plays produced at The Purple Rose. And he is proud that the theater serves as a training ground, offering classes in acting and directing and an apprenticeship program for college graduates – all benefiting from the veteran actor’s expertise.

Purple Rose actors and crews also helped with the filming and production of Escanaba in da Moonlight, which Daniels first staged as a play at The Purple Rose and then turned into a movie, filmed in Escanaba.

First class, on wheels
Everything Daniels does seems to be influenced by his geniune, down-to-earth manner – far from Hollywood’s glitter.
Because he often chooses to drive to his movie sets or music gigs, he bought a custom made R.V., which he nicknamed “The Bus.”

“When we’re in The Bus and we’re traveling to wherever – a movie set or a gig or whatever – and we’re sleeping at a truck stop, there’s an eccentric kind of happiness there because nobody knows who I am.”

The movie RV was filmed in Vancouver, and Jeff and Kathleen drove The Bus from Michigan to the movie set.

“It took us four and a half days to get out there,” Daniels says. “We drove Michigan, through the Rockies, saw some friends in Missoula, Montana, and kept going.

“The transportation coordinator met us at the studio in Vancouver. They had scheduled R.V. driving lessons for the whole cast, because there was a lot of driving. I pulled in and hit the air brakes, ppsshhhh, and he just turned to the assistant director and said, ‘Cancel his driving lessons, he just drove through the Rockies.’ A lot of actors have their private jets. I’ve got a poor man’s tour bus.”

The walls of Daniels’ cozy office at The Purple Rose are decorated with playbills and movie memorabilia. There also are broken hockey sticks autographed by his sons, sports keepsakes, and seats from Tiger Stadium in the hallway just outside his door.

Alumnus Jeff Daniels

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