David Barton

One of Slowhopes favorite movies is Tootsie, if for no other reason than its better-than-average depiction of the life of a middle-aged New York actor named Michael Dorsey. Although I never was a middle-aged New York actor, I hung around a few, and the essential conceit of Tootsie--that Michael would do absolutely anything to get cast in a part--revealed itself plenty of times. It's just hard to be an actor, and the subtext of "New York actor" is that you're talking about a certain type: a character actor, not a leading man. Not a looker, but someone possessing something, but not necessarily something that earns them many juicy parts in their twenties and thirties.

Character actors, like fine wine, usually take a few years to emerge into their best light.

(All of which is fine and dandy, but tell that to a schlubby, eager, sensitive young man with a little too much hair growing on his back that he may not really work until he hits his forties).

Of course, there are exceptions: Liev Schrieber is the patron saint of character actors, and has worked steadily since he graduated from Yale 15 years ago.

David Barton isn't Liev Schrieber. He was a high school teacher in Hendersonville, Tennessee, married to a minister and the father of two daughters until, in spring 2007, he decided to visit New York for spring break, for two reasons: 1. His daughter was in grad school and he could hang out with her for a week, and 2. There was an open call for a touring production of Annie, and Barton had always played Daddy Warbucks in various amateur community productions over the years. He was Daddy Warbucks before he turned 30.

So he flew to New York, and at the age of 47, became a working New York actor for the very first time.

Here's a story I wrote about him in the Herald:

http://www2.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/entertainment/story.html?id=81031f2d-0bae-497a-bcb9-e50a3ff37602