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Tom Amandes was on the Dean Richards show on WGN Radio this morning. (Besides his Sunday morning show on the radio Dean is an entertainment reporter/critic for WGN Radio and TV.) I missed some of what was said because my grandson was busy being a 3-year-old.
They talked about the play Tom is doing for Victory Gardens Theater here in Chicago. Tom feels like he has come home because he attended the Theater School at DePaul, which is in the Lincoln Park area near the Biograph Theater, where Victory Gardens is headquartered.
Tom said his parents were from the north side of Chicago, but he was born and raised in Richmond, IL, which is walking distance to Wisconsin. He said that he and his siblings were always seen as city kids, though, and that he felt right at home when he came to the city to attend DPU. He did a lot of theater in Chicago and when he went to LA to audition for Paramount for The Untouchables the fact that he was a Chicago theater actor was a big plus. I think he said he originally tried out for a much smaller role than the Eliot Ness one he eventually got.
Dean asked what happened to Everwood. He called it a CW show and Tom corrected him that it was a WB show that the CW didn't want. Dean said he didn't understand that as he thought EW was doing well and would continue to do so for the CW. Tom pointed out that it was Dawn Ostroff's decision. (Yes, he actually mentioned the horrible woman.) He said she felt that EW "wasn't skewing young enough." The problem was that it had a multi-generational cast, which Tom thought was its strong suit and Dean agreed. But this "was seen as a negative."
Sometimes Dean interviews the same people for the WGN TV morning or noon news that he has had on his radio show. I haven't been able to find out if this is going to happen with Tom. But I know WGN is a "superstation" which many people get with their cable, so you might want to check this out.
(The answer to my bonus points question above is that John Dillinger was shot down outside the Biograph after attending a show there.)
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