Avenging Angel

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A conversation with “Avenging Angel” co-star Wings Hauser

          Wings Hauser (“Col. Cusack”) has played lots of good guys and lots of bad guys over the four decades he’s been making movies and television shows.  In The Hallmark Channel’s “Avenging Angel,” there’s no question on which the coin has landed:  Cusack is just plain evil.  Though Wings may beg to differ.  “Why, he’s a wonderful man.  He has a problem or two, but don’t we all?”

          The wealthy landowner Cusack has the nasty habit of selling settlers a piece of his property, and then conveniently “forgetting” to provide a receipt of purchase.  He returns to collect his “stolen” property by claiming the settlers are mere squatters, sending his henchmen – made up of a crooked sheriff and miscellaneous thugs – to remove the families, usually at gunpoint – or worse.  And, with 40 years of acting finesse behind him, Hauser plays the aristocratic demon to a “T.”

Cusack has quite an arrangement in this little town, doesn’t he?

He does.  He comes from the East and has some education, so he pretty much looks down on everybody else.  His whole thing is to instill people with fear so that they’ll do his dirty work.  Throughout history, we’ve seen that if you get people afraid enough, they’ll go to war for you, and that’s what he does.  There’s one scene – it’s a 3 ½ page monologue – where I incite the townspeople to go out there and kill all these squatters – I buy ‘em all booze first.  So he’s a pretty interesting character to play.

What motivates him?

One, he doesn’t want anybody taking his land away – he considers that these people have just sat on his land, and he thinks it’s wrong.  But mainly, I think he just enjoys it in a sadistic manner, you know, controlling people.  He’s an incredible manipulator; he loves to act as a puppeteer.  That’s where he gets off.  And people like him are fun to play.  I started off playing guys like this.  In my first big movie (“Vice Squad”), I was just a vicious pimp.

Have you always been a big fan of westerns?

Oh, yeah.  I grew up in the 50s, watching Hopalong Cassidy at the movies.  I love Michael Cimono’s “Heaven’s Gate,” Howard Hawks’ “Red River” with John Wayne, and Ford’s “The Searchers.”  Anything Ford.

So this is a fantasy come true.  I mean, there’s just nothing like sittin’ on a horse.  I mean, my agent calls and says, “We have an offer – it’s a western.”  I say, “Do I get a horse?”  And she goes, “Yes.”  “Do I wear a gun and a hat?”  Are you kidding?  That’s every guy’s dream! (laughs)  Plus, our director, David Cass, he is a western.  You look at his face, I mean, he’s lived that dream.

When I was young, we lived up in a place called Lake Sherwood, in the mountains outside of L.A.  And my neighbors were Eve Arden, Roy Rogers and Alan Ladd.  Alan Ladd was just the nicest guy in the world.  And so were Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.

You come from a Hollywood family, don’t you?

That’s right.  I was actually born in Hollywood, at the old Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, which is now the Church of Scientology building.  My dad, Dwight Hauser, was a writer, first in radio for ABC for “The Whistler” and others.  He and William Conrad were best of friends.  He actually lived with George Reeves (“Superman”), Dana Andrews and Robert Preston, all together at George’s house.  It was an amazing time in the 1930s.

In the 50s, he ran up against McCarthy’s “red scare.”  He wasn’t blacklisted, but he was sure put through the coals.  It’s funny – there’s an actress on “Avenging Angel,” Willow Geer, who’s the granddaughter of actor Will Geer (“The Waltons”), who was blacklisted.

My dad went on to make some films for Walt Disney in the 50s – he won an Academy Award for Walt – but also built the Conejo Players Theatre in 1958 up in Thousand Oaks.  I was in my first play there, “The Rainmaker.”  Bing Russell, Kurt’s dad, played the title role.  I was talking about wanting to be an oceanographer, and he picked up his whiskey sour and threw it in my face and said, “You’re an actor, for gosh sakes!”  And that was that.

Your first TV series was “Twelve O’Clock High,” on which your dad was an executive in charge.  But you didn’t really pursue acting, did you?

I actually was a musician.  I recorded my first album “Vision of Sunshine,” in 1969, under the name Wings Livinwryte.  I came back to L.A. in 1972 with my baby daughter – I was the first single dad – with $30, a box of Pampers and a suitcase, and that was it.  I was really scraping.  I finally started taking some acting classes and went, “My God, I’m home.”  I started climbing walls to get into studio lots and pounding on casting directors’ doors.  One of them told me, “There’s nothing here for you – leave!”  There was a director there – Chris Richardson from “Twelve O’Clock High,” who didn’t recognize me, said, “Oh, you’d be perfect for Ethan,” and cast me right on the spot.  That was for “Cannon,” with William Conrad, who didn’t even know I was there.

You’ve worked with so many great TV and film actors throughout your career – on every great series of the 70s through this decade.  I’m sure you’ve got a lot of great memories.

Yes, I’ve been very fortunate to work with some great people, that’s for sure.  I remember doing “Movin’ On” with Claude Akins in the 70s.  We were in Mobile, Alabama, and we were playing a rock and roll band.  We were sitting in Claude’s trailer, and a guy came in and invited Claude to play golf at their golf course.  We had two black actors in the band, so Claude asked him, “You allow black people to play?”  The guy answered, “No, sir, it’s segregated.”  And Claude just said, “Well, you take your golf course and shove it!” (laughs)  It was a great moment of integrity.  It was beautiful.

Weren’t you in another great film shot in the South, “A Soldier’s Story?”

That’s right.  I played Lt. Byrd, who was in charge of the black soldiers in the film.  There was one scene where we pull up and find the great Adolph Caesar drunk, and my character really gets in his face, and he becomes the bigot that he is. The director, Norman Jewison, asked me, “Can you kick you?  You know, just tape him here?”  I said, “No problem  I used to kick field goals,” when I was a football player (that’s where I got my nickname, Wings – I was a wingback).  So he was on all fours, and I kicked him – and I broke one of his ribs!  It was horrible.

Tell us about working with Angela Lansbury on “Murder, She Wrote.”

Oh, she’s the sweetest lady of all time.  Any actor who worked for her worked for probably three times what everybody else paid.  She insisted on it.  And she was tough, too.  Her son directed a lot of the episodes, and she had a time after which it was shutoff time for Angela Lansbury.  Her son was directing, and he needed one more shot – he was pleading with her, and she just said, “Good night, Anthony.  See you tomorrow.”

You and your wife, Cali, are working on a new project, correct?  How did you two meet?

I was directing a film called “Skins” in 1994 with Linda Blair, and Cali was in that.  She’s a very talented actress.  Then I was working on a script for our new film, “South of Eden,” and I needed a typist, and she cam e aboard.  She added a few things, and I ended up asking her to co-write it with me.  So we found love over the typewriter.

We’re doing that film and another – Zane Gray’s favorite novel – under our company, LiliHause.  “South of Eden” is a look at country/western music, of these people who almost had a hit song once, and it’s just down and out.  It’s really fun.

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