Maxwell Caulfield

Maxwell Caulfield

For Scottish-born Maxwell Caulfield, finally appearing onstage in the West End is more than a homecoming; it’s the realisation of a lifelong dream. The 47-year-old actor experienced what should have been an early big break when he was cast, aged 23, in the lead role of Grease 2 opposite a then unknown Michelle Pfeiffer. But that movie’s commercial failure forced him to re-group, professionally speaking—“I literally couldn’t get arrested for a year,” he says now. He has since become best known for his appearances in the 1980s television series Dynasty and The Colbys. More recently he did a stint on local television in the hospital soap Casualty, starring as Dr. Jim Brodie. But coming to the West End isn’t too much of a departure for him—he is already a stage regular in New York, where he now makes his home with another British-born performer, his wife of 27 years, Juliet Mills. Theatre.com chatted with Caulfield about his theatrical homecoming as Chicago's Billy Flynn on the London stage.

You were born in the U.K. Is it good to be back?
It certainly is. In fact, I have the immense satisfaction of coming down Earlham Street on the way to the theatre here every day and going right past a bookie where I used to have a job chalking up the dog prices—so I say to myself, “all right, kid, you’ve made some progress!” It’s great to be here. You have to agree that London really is the theatre capital of the world. You come here and you realise that New York can’t hold a candle to London.

When did you leave for the U.S?
When I was 18.

You got there ahead of the Brit actors who've made it big in Hollywood since—just as Hollywood actors have been coming to the West End recently. Now it seems to be your turn at last.
I’ve been reading somewhat enviously for the last several years about how you’ve been importing American film and TV actors to the West End to an extraordinary degree, where they’ve been headlining all kinds of shows. But going the other way, as I did, I’m also constantly amazed at how many Brits are in the waiting room when you go to auditions in New York or L.A. A lot of them, I think, are there on a wing and a prayer, hoping that they’ll get hired and then the producer will go lobby for a visa for them, because they’re so indispensable! In my case, I had a vague claim to legitimacy when I went, because my stepfather was an American so I was able to do a direct relative petition. But in the small world department, for my first job on Broadway—in 1979, soon after I arrived in the U.S.—the late Mike Ockrent had cast me in his U.S. production of his great London hit Once a Catholic. I was cast in the role of one of the Teddy Boys in the show, but my green card hadn’t been worked out yet, so when they did one of those pre-Broadway tours they hardly do anymore, they said that if I came back to town with it, they’d let me understudy the two boys in the show. And it turns out that Nigel West—who is the resident director for Chicago here and does such an amazing job of keeping the show on form—works with Susan Stroman a lot, who was married to Mike.

Once a Catholic ran for just five nights. After that, you went on tour in The Elephant Man and something far better happened—you met Juliet Mills. Yours is one of the most enduring show business marriages.
We’re both very blessed and quite aware of the fact. And I would honestly like to think that I am merely paving the way for Juliet’s triumphant return to the West End and hopefully in something together. She was quite the leading lady-in-the-making in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s here. She’d done She Stoops to Conquer and Lady Windermere’s Fan and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the RSC before she left for Hollywood and made the big commercial move and frankly got suckered into the Lotus land lifestyle. She’s an absolute luminous beauty so no wonder Hollywood glommed onto her and kept giving her work, so it’s understandable she stayed. But what they do in Hollywood is take you at the height of your attractiveness—when you’re in your 20s, when your complexion is glowing, your eyes are as bright as buttons and your hair is at its thickest and your lips are at their reddest and all of that loveliness—and they use you. You get to go on the silver screen or the box, but for women it starts to get tough when you’re in your 30s, and by the time you’re in your 40s, get ready for the knackers’ yard!

Maxwell Caulfield and Michelle Pfeiffer in Grease 2

You had your own bitter taste of the fame game following the failure of Grease 2.
The film died a horrible death. It opened the same day as E.T., and the three-picture deal I had at Paramount just evaporated. The circus left town. It was rough—it took quite a time to get over it. I spent a lot of time not working in L.A., I gotta tell you.

You were doing theatre in L.A. at the time Grease 2 opened. Was it a bit of a lifeline or something they didn’t understand over there?
I was doing a wonderful little production of Journey’s End, right next to Paramount, in Charlie Chaplin’s old rehearsal studios on El Centro, called the Cast Theatre. It was a super little production, and I wanted everyone to know I was serious about my profession and not just going to do bubblegum musicals or lightweight pictures or knock-offs. So I jumped into this production while I was reading scripts to see what my next film for Paramount would be, and was playing the wonderful role of Stanhope—it’s a gift of a part—but not one Paramount executive came to see it, even though it was literally across the lot. That was a bad omen. I remember I had to leave the opening night screening at the Cinerama Dome to go perform in Journey’s End, and then I showed up at the party in a bowling alley in Hollywood afterwards with my scar and the dirt still in my hair. Hollywood didn’t give a rat’s ass about the theatre, though!