Theaterweek	Bigger than Life by Anthony Chase

Starring in Hairspray, which runs in Buffalo this week only: J.P. Dougherty, Keala Settle and Jim J. Bullock.

(photo: Chris Bennion)

Hairspray is a larger-than-life show about Tracy Turnblad, a big girl who fulfills her dream to dance on a 1960s television show. Jim J. Bullock, whose own larger-than-life personality has driven his entire career, will play Tracy’s father, Wilbur, when the show rocks and rolls into Shea’s Buffalo Theatre.

“I guess I do have a strong personality that strongly precedes me,” says Bullock, speaking by telephone from his hotel in Columbus, Ohio.

“I do not think of myself as a chameleon of an actor who can take on different roles and disappear into the character and have people forget who I am. I want to bring something to the role. I want to have fun with it and be me—while still being what I should be in the role.”

Bullock first came to national attention as Monroe Ficus on television’s “Too Close for Comfort” from 1980 until 1987. His name became a household word, however, with his remarkable appearances on “Hollywood Squares” (the late 1980s version), on which he astounded America with his spontaneous wit and irrepressible good humor. Many would consider his “Hollywood Squares” appearances to be the most perfect expression of the unbridled Jim J. Bullock personality.

“‘Hollywood Squares’ is one of the fondest memories of my career,” agrees Bullock. “They really gave me such freedom on that show, and it was a perfect format for me. Since it was a personality driven show, you really needed people in those squares who are going to fill them with something more than their celebrity. You can look at the original ‘Hollywood Squares’ with Paul Lynde and Wally Cox and all those people—every square had its own flavor, and it was like going to a buffet!”

Part of the joy of seeing Bullock in the 1980s was the way he flirted with being gay for a mainstream audience.

“Even though the late 1980s was a time before ‘Gay’ had exploded onto our televisions and into our country, ‘Hollywood Squares’ gave me the opportunity to put myself really ‘out there,’ without saying ‘I’m a big ‘mo!’”

Of course, we knew.

Ironically, as one of the few people who was “Out there,” before you could say you were a “big ‘mo,” Bullock would be criticized by some activists for being too closeted. He reveals that the “freedom” he enjoyed on the show did have its limits.

“The executive producer would pull me aside and say, ‘You know Jim, you’re crossing that line,’ and I’d say, ‘You mean the gay line?’ and he’d say, ‘Yeah!’

“Well, I hated to tell him, but I couldn’t help it! And he’d say, I’m only telling you this because this might come back to hurt you. The producer was a gay man himself, but coming from a generation where ‘it’ was not talked about.”

The exposure did not hurt Bullock. He did become the butt of homophobic jokes in Sam Kinison’s famously tasteless routine, but this was symptomatic of the larger phenomenon. Jim J. Bullock had become famous for being Jim J. Bullock.

Other television appearances followed on such shows as “Alf,” “Seinfeld,” and “Roseanne.” Remarkably, there was even an attempt at “The Jim J. and Tammy Faye Show.” (“They got cold feet” Bullock recalls. “They wouldn’t let Tammy Faye Baker be Christian and they wouldn’t let me be gay. They killed the show.”)

Before joining the cast of Hairspray on Broadway and now the national touring production, Bullock had made a number of successful stage appearances, including regional or Off-Broadway productions of End of the World Party, When Pigs Fly (L.A. Drama Desk Award), The Rocky Horror Show, Southern Baptist Sissies, The Older Man, and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. He currently appears as Mr. Monroe on Nickelodeon (“Ned’s Declassified…”).

Has he felt inhibited in the theater?

“Not at all! In fact, when I was first in rehearsal for Hairspray, they kept saying, ‘Jim, you need to let go!’ I realized that I had not, for a long time, played a straight character. The director said, ‘Jim, we want Jim J. Bullock. Don’t hold back!’ I haven’t.”

You can see the unbridled Jim J. Bullock, live and in person, in Hairspray at Shea’s next week, Tuesday through Sunday, November 15–20.