The daily Astorian., September 06, 2018, Page 11, Image 21

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018 // 11
His Coaster show — where musical
director Steve Rawlins has arranged for
drummer Donnie Osborne and bassist
Scott Ducher to accompany O’Hurley
— will be a proscenium (i.e., stage)
show.
But in other cities “A Man with
Standards” is often performed sup-
per-club style, recalling an age when
people entertained themselves with
dinner and dancing. “And it was one
word: It wasn’t just dinner, it wasn’t
just dancing, it was ‘dinner-and-danc-
ing,’” O’Hurley said.
“My parents would go out every
Saturday night; that was their date
night,” and “everywhere they went
would have a five-piece band, and
everybody would get up and dance
after dinner,” he remembered. “And
that’s all gone now. We don’t do that
anymore.”
It took “Dancing with the Stars,” he
said, to “bring back the idea of couples
dancing together.”
In 2005, on the competition’s first
season, O’Hurley won the dance-off
with Charlotte Jorgensen as his partner.
A show ready to order
O’Hurley, who lives in Beverly
Hills, has visited Cannon Beach before.
In the Pacific Northwest, he’s played
celebrity golf tournaments and toured
with “Chicago,” in which he plays
press-savvy lawyer Billy Flynn.
“During my days off, I’d hop in the
car and head out to Cannon Beach for
the fun of it,” he said.
The Coaster gig came about when
Cannon Beach resident David Frei —
who, with O’Hurley, co-hosts NBC’s
“National Dog Show” — pitched “A
Man with Standards” to the theater.
The show premiered a few years
ago at Feinstein’s at the Nikko in
San Francisco, “on Halloween night,
believe it or not — if you can imagine
a stranger place to premier a show than
on Halloween night in the strangest
city in America,” O’Hurley said with a
laugh. “And the quick answers is, yes,
everybody came dressed up.”
When Feinstein’s first asked O’Hur-
ley to create a show, he had a three-
week deadline. In a way, though, the
show came “ready to order,” O’Hurley
said. “I sat down and, you know, it kind
of put itself together.”
O’Hurley has written three books,
two of them autobiographical. “The
stories of my life are very easy to pull
out,” he said.
JEREMY DANIEL PHOTO
John O’Hurley, center, stars as Billy Flynn in the Tony Award-winning musical ‘Chicago.’
NBC’s ‘National Dog Show’ co-hosts David Frei (left), a Cannon Beach resident, and John
O’Hurley with their friend, Nathan the Bloodhound.
Music, laughter and a tear
Before he ventured into comedy
and lighthearted TV fare — which
includes hosting “Family Feud” and
voicing King Neptune on “Sponge-
Bob SquarePants” — O’Hurley was a
dramatic actor on soap operas. “A Man
with Standards” reveals both sides of
his craft.
“I promise it’s an evening of music
and laughter and only one tear,” he said.
“The show is poignant in many respects,
and I do see people wiping their eyes
when I’m doing the show, which means
that they’re listening, and the depth of
what I’m communicating is registering
to them.”
A show that rides entirely on one’s
own performance feels pretty different
from an ensemble piece: Once the action
begins, it really doesn’t stop for the
actor.
“When you finish 90 minutes, you’re
tired. You’re tired. It’s a very exhaust-
ing show to do,” O’Hurley said. “But I
really enjoy it.
“It resonates so nicely, I think, with
the audiences that I’ve done it with,” he
said. “And they leave saying, ‘We came
not knowing what to expect,’ and they
leave on their feet.
“I mean, they stand on their feet at
the end,” he clarified, “as opposed to
making them crawl out.’” CW