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Few people are on the dance floor at The Conga Room, a trendy Los Angeles nightclub owned by Jennifer Lopez, Jimmy Smits and others. Most folks mill about, clutching drinks and trying to speak above the blaring salsa music. Hector Elizondo and his wife, Carolee Campbell, start dancing in a corner. His Carnegie Hall ballet training and rhythm as a conga drummer are evident. They move with the grace of a couple long intimate with each other's moves. Yet he's dancing as if this were their first time.
"We (have) barely met," Elizondo says later. How long have they been married? "Just 30 years."
Best known for his role as Dr. Phillip Watters, the tightly wound administrator on CBS' Chicago Hope, Elizondo is a Renaissance man when it comes to the arts. In addition to dancing and playing conga, he can play guitar and sing jazz.
He won a Tony Award for his performance in the Broadway show Steambath 31 years ago. He has also been in 38 feature films, including Pretty Woman, and 23 TV movies. During his six years on Chicago Hope, he's been nominated for four Emmy Awards and won one for best supporting actor. If Elizondo has a complaint about the show, he voices it.
"The (story line) about my son and his death should have been mentioned more," Elizondo says, recalling the suicide of his character's son. "When there's moral ambiguity, that's what interests me. "I like it here," he says during an interview conducted on the set of Chicago Hope, by the balcony where he and co-star Adam Arkin smoke cigars.
Wearing well-worn jeans and cowboy boots, Elizondo exudes the confidence that comes with experience. "I'm the elder statesman. They leave me alone. I tell a few (younger actors): "Don't behave like that. It's not nice.' "
Spoken like a true dad. He reared his son, Rodd, now 43 and a San Francisco preschool teacher, as a single parent before it was common. "No books, no groups," he says. "That's why I'm not impressed by too much." Before the good roles came in, Elizondo had his share of crummy jobs. "The lowest of the low was licking stamps with other actors in a dank, dark basement of a publishing house to mail travel books," Elizondo says. "I was a bodyguard for about 20 seconds; this was dangerous! I drove a cab for a week. I taught dance. I did substitute teaching in a drama class. I worked in a packing department."
These jobs and his childhood taught him about hard work. "I'm from the time when you walk out of the room, you turn off the lights." Born 63 years ago to a Basque father and a Puerto Rican mother, Elizondo grew up on West 107th Street in Manhattan, a neighborhood in the shadow of Columbia University. His career calling was evident when, as a student at P.S. 54, his class put on a radio show. He sang "St. Louis Woman" to an audience that included old bluesman W.C. Handy. Handy told Elizondo that he had "swing"; like rhythm, that's something you either have or you don't. Handy got him an audition.
Soon, Elizondo debuted on a local TV show and did a little radio work before realizing work was cutting into his after-school playing. His dad agreed. Besides, when he received his first check for performing - in the amount of $20 - his father worried that he wouldn't understand the value of a dollar because everyone else had to work hard for that much money. Eventually, of course, Elizondo returned to performing, albeit in a roundabout way. He was playing drums for a dance group, and the choreographer had an idea for an adagio. She told him to take off his shoes and block the number for her. "This was the '50s; men didn't take off their shoes," he says.
He wound up on scholarship at Ballet Arts in Carnegie Hall, a serious dance studio. He trained for a year, and just as he was auditioning for the world tour of West Side Story, he injured his knee. The pain was only one of the drawbacks of dancing that Elizondo had discovered; it didn't bring the easy female companionship he had hoped for, and it didn't pay well. So he decided to become a cop or a teacher and continued to play music.
One of his musician buddies suggested he take acting classes, and he did. Before long, he landed roles in four Broadway hits. Friends have long helped him, and Elizondo places tremendous value on loyalty.
Twenty years ago, he met Garry Marshall, who asked him to be in a movie and ever since has considered Elizondo his good-luck charm. Elizondo acts in Marshall's films regardless of the roles. "Yeah, he tells me when, and I show up," Elizondo says, "I love that that exists today."
