Tex Allen

[About how movies are made]:Movies are all about photography, and for an actor, about getting your picture taken. Who does it and how makes a lot of difference.Movies are a bunch of still pictures run at 24 frames per second, and adding up to roughly 150,000 still photos in a standard 2 hour feature movie.What's in each of those still photos, and how they are arranged and connected, end to end, makes all the difference between a terrible flop and a great classic.Actors who do a good job make a big difference, but ultimately, it's all about input from and by many other people.Movies are a group effort, and if a movie is victorious, it's always a group effort (very, very rare, statistically, over movie history....less than 1% of all released feature movies are classics or even simply good movies). Show less «

[About actor longevity and ability to reach old age in health and propsperity, and why lives of many actors end tragically]:Actor health and ability to reach old age in prosperity are importantly connected to social networking and connections (family, friends, etc.) and also personal financial and material resources not earned through actor work or connection with the movie and televisions industries.Actors who start out as young unknowns in Hollywood and New York City in the USA and go on to a long and prosperous careers and healthy, happy old age (not many) usually have connections and resources other actors don't. The "have not" actors who start with few resources and do well are the ones who make a point of getting resources and connections at the soonest possible time. All this has very little to do with acting and artistic ability and accomplishment.It reflects Darwin's correct "Survival Of The Fittest" hypothesis of fame, and it explains why so many talented actors over history have tragic and often short lives which come to unhappy endings. Show less «

[About biographies and autobiographies which are incomplete and/or inaccurate]People (actors especially) glamorize and congratulate themselves over accomplishments in their lives. Autobiographies are often hagiographies, intended to portray or imply sainthood. Mostly, they avoid times of trouble, pain, failure, unhappiness. I really didn't have a "neat" career/ work life, even though accounts about me I've written and others writing about me made it seem better than it was.I completed my undergraduate classroom degree requirements at Antioch College Ohio at age 21 in 1965, was hurled at high speed through many dozens of mostly short term jobs. I lived at 88 street addresses (snail mail addresses) over my life, most of them after my Antioch years.I made no money worth talking about, certainly was unable to save any money, lived many places, had many bad jobs not one of which I miss or was not glad to leave. I was unable to marry and support a wife and children in stable, comfortable circumstances, and this accounts for the multiple (3) short marriages I had, and why I fathered only one child.It was a rough life.I calculated I worked at over 96 jobs during my life (more counting one day jobs, short temp jobs, etc., of which I had many).I lived at 88 places (different street addresses) over my life.I had mostly lousy jobs, was on the move constantly. Over the decades, basic life expenses (residential rents, motor vehicles, travel, etc.) got more expensive and I made less and less money. I was much more prosperous in my 20s than in my 60s. Finally I was able to retire and live in quiet, reasonable comfort when I inherited family money in 2006 at age 62. Old age has been a lot easier than times during my adulthood before old age. Show less «

{About Retiring From Movie Actor Work At Age 70 In 2014}:.....I'm glad to be retired from movie acting. Movie actor work was very hard work, and included many, many 18 hour days, often lots of physical dangers of various flavors. Movie sets were often unsafe, especially outdoor, on-location non-movie studio sets (e.g. high speed car chases, explosions, flying debris, dangerous sunburn, frostbite, etc.). During my career I was injured often, and witnessed and heard about gruesome accidents and injuries other actors suffered. Actors are almost never compensated for injuries they suffer on movie sets, the SAG-AFTRA union unusually doesn't help much or at all, and movie employers pass the buck, put the blame on others, and wring their hands. The life of a non-movie star working actor is always hard, has been that way throughout movie history since early Silent Movie days. Movie makers like to film dangerous scenes because the public likes to watch such such scenes. Presenting scenes dangerous makes for exciting movies. It's profitable and will never end (and neither will danger for actors) as long as movies are created, and sold to the bloodthirsty public. Show less «

[Why I was married three times, always for short periods]My parents were my role models, and they were married 62 years. I thought, when I was very young, it was natural to get married and stay married. I had no idea what it was like to be married, or how I would react to problems caused by marriage.When I got married (3 times over a period of 31 years), I learned that wifely sexual enthusiasm, cooperation, and availability at the start of marriage does not continue. The price of wifely favors increases over time, and the frequency of those favors diminishes.I came of age in the 1960's when the Sexual Revolution of that decade was just beginning.During the year 1964, I turned age 20 and stopped being a teen-ager! (I had always been immature teen-ager!).I had a good time with the girls in my 20's.From 1964 to 1974!The Sexual Revolution was on..... birth control pills were everywhere ..... girls were ripe and luscious, and most had no last names!All (well.... most) of the girls I met (my age, in their 20's) wanted to audition for the job of Mrs. David Roger Allen because I seemed to so many of them like the boy most likely (which I was!).I was a very promising fellow.It seemed to me girls I met desired to be pensioned off for life, and wanted me to pay mega-money for their expensive children (private schools, summer camps, private colleges, expensive weddings, etc. etc.).I got married three times (in 1968, 1976 and 1999), noticed honeymoons always seem to end after one month ......These marriages reminded me of the Woody Allen joke about Jewish girls (applies to non-Jewish girls, too, I think!): Woody joked that Jewish girls don't believe in sex after marriage! I was also reminded about the famous Wedding Cake joke: Girls stop planning to provide sexual stimulation and relief for their man when they get their first taste of wedding cake.Men are very gullible, and women are very opportunistic when it comes to the actual realities of marriage, its politics, and its so-called benefits. This has probably been true since the beginning of history.St. Paul advises people (in the New Testament) not to get married. The Roman Catholic Church sometime around 1000 A.D., began a no more marriages for priests policy. I can see why. Show less «

[About the value of formal higher education for actors]I am a formally educated actor who earned two university degrees. That is unusual.I was awarded a B.A. from Antioch College Ohio USA and a Master's Degree from the University Of Maryland USA), and that made me different than most other actors I worked with over the years.Actors have to be a lot of things - attractive, talented, comfortable with difficult personalities and situations, capable of enormous quantities of physical work, long hours, etc. etc. - but people don't expect them to be highly educated. I was different than most actors.I went to school full time for 20 years, studied at 4 universities, earned two degrees, one with honors.After school, I got actor work portraying educated people, and I knew about them because I was and am one of them.I think it makes a difference to have actual experience with the worlds and personality types one is expected to portray. I was often cast as a businessman, politician, suburban middle aged husband, supervisor, military officer, CIA or Secret Service supervisory and management officer .... as characters who wore tuxedos and good quality business suits w/matching shirts/ties/belts. It was always important for me to have the social and verbal manner of the educated types whose life preparation prepared them for these roles.Smart people aren't the same as the majority of people, and educated smart people aren't the same as uneducated smart people.Education requires more than simply being smart.It means having discipline also. Show less «

[on Acting As A Vocation Rather Than As A Profession, And Why I Was More Of A Vocational Actor Than A Professional Actor]I never made much money for actor work I did during my working life, and thus I would state I have been much more of a vocational actor than a professional one.Professional actors who are widely honored and well paid are at the top of world of actors.These successful professionals are a minority group in spite of how widely publicized they are. They are not typical in the wider world of actors, most of whom are badly paid and compensated.I was a serious actor from a very young age, way before I ever became a paid actor.Most acting I did over my life was not paid, or not paid much.For me, acting was a lifetime vocation at which I achieved great personal success and accomplishment, even though I made very little money from acting, and was seldom able to pay for basic material life expenses from money I got acting.Professional actor work is all about, or at least mostly about money, and vocational actor work is not.If making money and spending money are the most important things in life, as propaganda by self-interested commercial forces (which dominate world media and world governments) urge us all to believe and accept, vocational work badly paid is not important and does not deserve attention or honor.I never believed this, and made my way through life (I'm almost 80 in 2016 as I write this) without earning much money or getting rewards money provides.Vocations badly or inadequately paid (actor work is only one such vocation ..... most vocations in the fine arts and literary arts also share this) are important to people called to such vocations, and people like me pursue them anyway, in spite of money and material problems which result.All the talk heard often among actors about being professional is talk about money getting, not usually or importantly about truth, beauty, or high moral and aesthetic standards valued highly by vocational actors and other vocational artists.The marketplace, and those who control it, sets the standards for professional actors, and sets limits important to consider.It is possible to be a committed and accomplished vocational actor without being a successful professional actor (success in the commercial world of professionals being measured by money getting).Vocational actors have great influence, and always have been over history. They are important and worthwhile, and worthy of honor which very often never comes to them.Their importance cannot be overemphasized, nor can that importance be downplayed when and where big or even moderate money and property fail to arrive in their lives based on actor work they have done. Show less «

[ On wrongful accusations about me that I suffer from Bi-Polar or Manic-Depressive mental health disorder, all untrue. Here's why:]]Over the decades (since the 1970's, about 40 years) I have wrongly been labeled bi-polar or manic-depressive by people who have wrongly accepted a misdiagnosis about me made in the 1970's. Here are details about that:I am NOT bi-polar or manic depressive, and never was.I got the bi-polar label in the mid-70's after my marriage (to my second wife, the former Kathy Welsch (born 1950 St. Paul Minnesota - ), mother of my son Timothy Nicholas Allen, born 1977) be people interested in defaming me .... many gathered around to do this when it seemed I deserted my wife and child (which I didn't ..... my wife deserted me in 1976 due to the advice and cheer-leading of her family, which didn't like me .... I didn't want to work for her father's business, and had said so ...... so..............)The bi-polar label is well loved by anyone who wants to claim a short term condition is actually life-long and can and will return frequently and unexpectedly. Nightmare thing, nightmare label, used for defamation .... used in the 70's and later (based on the single WRONG and INACCURATE 70's diagnosis.)I've been stricken with Major Depression Disorder, which means a BIG depression which lasts usually about 6 months and is caused situationally ..... by a problem in one's life.Last year (2016) I worried, got depressed about RETIRING, and moving to an OLD AGE govt. paid for building for poor (and undesirable) oldsters. Ugly prospect, and I (intelligently) got depressed about that. I'm recovered.I was not Manic before the depression set in. Eccentric behavior is NOT mania.I have been guilty of getting Major Depression Disorder several times over the years. Was NEVER bi-polar or manic-depressive.Many individualistic people who are eccentric at times get labeled Manic among other insults and defamatory descriptions. People (most) don't like eccentrics and/or individualists. Old story.Eccentrics and individualists get attacked and defamed! Hence, the wrongly assigned bi-polar/ manic-depressive label to people like me (sometimes eccentric and unusual). Show less «