Class Note 1981
Issue
July-August 2021
Covid isolation has been great for consuming stories on our screens. Thanks to another extraordinary online presentation from our 8-One Network, classmates enjoyed hearing from some of the ’81 wealth of award-winning writing, producing, editing, and acting talent behind some of those stories. Does any other class have so much talent? Doubt it. If you missed it, music and film producer Vaughn Halyard and TV writer and producer Stephen Godchaux interviewed screenwriter and director Dan Gilroy; his twin brother film editor John Gilroy; documentary film producer, writer, and director Pamela Mason Wagner; actor and writer Sharon Washington; and director Mark Hansson. Producer Chris Meledandri was interviewed separately. We missed out on hearing from producer Nancy Green Oey and actors Mark Frawley and Mark Lotito.
How did so many ’81s become such big show business names? To hear them tell it, it was not their fault. Mark wanted to be a biochemist. Sharon had her sights on a post in a French-speaking country with the U.S. State Department. How did her parents react when she told them she was going to be an actor? “Not terrifically,” she said. John was headed for law school. When their dad (Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Frank Gilroy ’50) asked if he really wanted to and John said no, Frank suggested maybe he should pay for it himself. Stephen did go to law school, but said he failed at being a lawyer so wrote a play about his mother. But how many of us knew what we really wanted to do at graduation? Some of us are still struggling to figure it out. Pam said, “People always think that a movie is about what you see on screen, but for me the movie is about the process that it took to get you there, and I feel so incredibly lucky to have had this interesting journey.” Forty years out from graduation, I hope many of us feel the same way about our journeys.
In addition to honest accounts of years of bartending, and inside anecdotes starring Stevie Wonder and George Clooney, the panel kindly offered advice to ’81 offspring who are considering show business: You’re unemployed frequently. It’s filled with rejection—lots more failures than successes. Doing it for the possibility of fame or riches is a bad idea. If anyone can talk you out of it, then they should. However, a liberal arts background such as the one we received in Hanover—exposure to a broad array of disciplines and learning how to research, analyze, and communicate—is ideal for an artist. On the production side of the arts, you have to understand business, as films, videos, music, books, and art in the end are all consumer products. Wishing you a happy summer of consumption.
—Ann Jacobus Kordahl, 2434 Leavenworth St., San Francisco, CA 94133; ajkordahl@gmail.com; Emil Miskovsky, P.O. Box 2162, North Conway, NH 03860; emilmiskovsky@gmail.com
How did so many ’81s become such big show business names? To hear them tell it, it was not their fault. Mark wanted to be a biochemist. Sharon had her sights on a post in a French-speaking country with the U.S. State Department. How did her parents react when she told them she was going to be an actor? “Not terrifically,” she said. John was headed for law school. When their dad (Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Frank Gilroy ’50) asked if he really wanted to and John said no, Frank suggested maybe he should pay for it himself. Stephen did go to law school, but said he failed at being a lawyer so wrote a play about his mother. But how many of us knew what we really wanted to do at graduation? Some of us are still struggling to figure it out. Pam said, “People always think that a movie is about what you see on screen, but for me the movie is about the process that it took to get you there, and I feel so incredibly lucky to have had this interesting journey.” Forty years out from graduation, I hope many of us feel the same way about our journeys.
In addition to honest accounts of years of bartending, and inside anecdotes starring Stevie Wonder and George Clooney, the panel kindly offered advice to ’81 offspring who are considering show business: You’re unemployed frequently. It’s filled with rejection—lots more failures than successes. Doing it for the possibility of fame or riches is a bad idea. If anyone can talk you out of it, then they should. However, a liberal arts background such as the one we received in Hanover—exposure to a broad array of disciplines and learning how to research, analyze, and communicate—is ideal for an artist. On the production side of the arts, you have to understand business, as films, videos, music, books, and art in the end are all consumer products. Wishing you a happy summer of consumption.
—Ann Jacobus Kordahl, 2434 Leavenworth St., San Francisco, CA 94133; ajkordahl@gmail.com; Emil Miskovsky, P.O. Box 2162, North Conway, NH 03860; emilmiskovsky@gmail.com