Actor tells Town Hall South audience the secrets of his success
UPPER ST. CLAIR – When Alton Fitzgerald White was a student decades ago at a performing arts school in his native Cincinnati, the teacher went around the room telling students what roles awaited them when they made it to Broadway.
When the instructor came to White, he was told that, well, the parts that awaited him were as slaves or in “Showboat.”
It was a deflating moment for White, who is Black. However, as White pointed out in a talk at Upper St. Clair High School Tuesday morning, the teacher’s prediction was way off – out of all the students in the class, he was the only one who made it to Broadway.
And it wasn’t as a slave or in “Showboat.”
“I have such gratitude for being a working actor,” White said. He added, “There will be many times in your life you will feel like you are the only person to believe in you, and that will have to be enough.”
That White would end up pursuing a life on stage and screen would not have seemed all that likely when White was growing up. The youngest of seven children, the only boy in the family and the son of an alcoholic, White was studious – “a teacher’s pet” in is words – and painfully shy. However, he discovered that he had a gift for singing, and that put him on the path to the Great White Way. He’s had leading roles in “Miss Saigon,” “Smokey Joe’s Cafe,” “Ragtime” and “The Color Purple.” Perhaps most notably, he enjoyed a 13-year stint in “The Lion King,” playing King Mufasa exactly 4,308 times.
“Nobody in my family knew I wanted to sing,” White said. “I was terrified.”
As well as steady work on stage, White has appeared in television series like “Mind Hunter,” “Madam Secretary” and “Law and Order,” has recorded an album, “Disney My Way,” and has written a motivational book, “My Pride: Mastering Life’s Daily Performance.”
In his talk at Upper St. Clair High School, White talked about lessons he has learned over his career, and how individuals who are not facing a theater packed full of people every night can apply those lessons to their own lives and careers. He pointed to such virtues as perseverance, forgiveness, humility and personal and professional integrity.
White also discussed a moment when he was thrust into the national spotlight, but not for his work as an actor or singer – in July 1999, he was wrongfully arrested by the New York Police Department in the vestibule of his apartment building following a call that drug dealing was happening there. A federal civil rights lawsuit was later filed against the NYPD over the incident, and White wrote about it for the magazine, The Nation.
“I’m grateful that I was able to educate people about racial profiling,” he explained.
And though acting and singing have long been his primary pursuits, White has cultivated other interests, such as cooking.
“It’s great to have a passion, but it’s great to have more than one passion,” he said.
White’s talk was the final lecture in the 2022-23 Town Hall South speaker series. The 2023-24 season will begin Tuesday, Oct. 3, with an appearance by actor and author Henry Winkler. Other speakers set for the next season are photojournalist Lynsey Addario; writer Ruth Reichl; NASA lead principal engineer Kobie Boykins; and historian Douglas Brinkley.
Information on Town Hall South is available at www.townhallsouth.org.