NEED TO KNOW
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Lorenzo Lamas talks about how he was chosen for the role in in the film "Grease".
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On his way to his first role at the age of 19, he was helped by his mother, actress Arlene Dahl, as well as the president's son, who refused to participate in the film.
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Lamas played Tom, an athlete who dates Olivia Newton-John's character, Sandy.
Lorenzo Lamas almost missed his moment of glory in in the film "Grease"« .
68-year-old Lamas spoke about how he got the role in the movie at the age of 19. in the film "Grease"« at the Hollywood Show on Saturday, May 30. During the panel, he recalled how he was cast in the role after the president's son declined.
«"My mother was a very famous star," Lamas said during the discussion, according to Remind Magazine . His mother was Arlene Dahl, a Norwegian-American actress who appeared in many MGM films. Her credits include «Crime Scene» (1949) and «Journey to the Center of the Earth» (1959) She died in 2021 at the age of 96.
In March 1977, Lamas accompanied his mother to the Academy Awards, and after the show, they attended the Governor's Ball.
Arlene Dahl (left) and Lorenzo Lamas in 2009. Photo: Ben Haider/Getty.
«"Everyone sat down at the table, the food was wonderful, and my mother and I were sitting across from Allan Carr," Lamas recalled. Carr was the film's producer. "Shirley Eder, the publicist at the time, was a friend of my mother's, and she came to our table and said, 'Arlene, you should introduce Lorenzo to Allan Carr; he's producing the musical.'"» "Grease"» for Paramount." So my mother and I got up and walked over to Allan Carr's desk.".
«"It was my first meeting with anyone in show business," Lamas recalled. He had just turned 19. "I'd just finished military school nine months earlier, and Allan Carr said, 'Oh, Miss Dahl, you're absolutely delightful,' which, of course, was true. And he recognized her immediately.".
His mother, "as mothers do," pulled him toward her. "And she said, 'Allan, meet my son Lorenzo. He's going to be a big star,'" he said. "I just wanted to die right there. I just wanted to crawl under the table and disappear.".
Two months later, Carr called Lamas for a meeting. "At the time, Steven Ford—President Ford's son, Gerald Ford—was cast for the role of Tom," he said. In the film, Tom is an athlete who briefly dates Sandy (Olivia Newton-John), who tries to make Danny (John Travolta) jealous. Ford's son, Steven, began acting in the late 1970s; he played Andy Richards in the series «The Young and the Restless» , and also appeared in episodes of TV series «Happy Days» , «Murder, She Wrote» и «"Colombo"» .
Stephen Ford on The Young and the Restless (Photo: CBS)
Lamas was smitten with Newton-John, who had already achieved success as a singer. Even though Tom's role was small, Lamas told Carr, "Sign me up!"«
Because Carr, who died in 1999 at 62, and director Randal Kleiser felt Lamas looked too much like one of the film's "greasers," they asked him to dye his hair blonde. "I would dye it rainbow for the scenes with Olivia," Lamas joked.
«Grease» , of course, became a blockbuster upon its release in the summer of 1978. The cast also included Stockard Channing, Didi Conn, Jeff Conaway, Barry Pearl, Michael Tucci, Kelly Ward, Jamie Donnelly, and Dinah Manoff. A sequel was released, «Grease 2» 1982 (now considered a cult classic), and a prequel called «Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies» .
After «Grease »Lamas signed with an agent and had a successful career in Hollywood. He played Lance Cumson on the soap opera «Falcon Crest» , starting in 1981, and later appeared in TV series «"Renegade"» , «The Bold and the Beautiful» and in «"Big Hour"» on the Nickelodeon channel.
In 1998, in honor of the film's 20th anniversary, Lamas told PEOPLE magazine that Ford suffered from stage fright and was too nervous to play Newton-John's boyfriend.
«"My career started with"« Brilliant »"," he said. "If the film is shown on cable TV, I have time to watch it in its entirety.".
Read the original article on People.