His own.
James played Mark Reese in season seven, and fans know the controversy around his character and the actor. Many know that the intention was for Dalton to be a regular throughout season seven and Kelly Taylor's love interest, but that didn't happen. His time on the show was cut short. He was let go from nine O two one zero
and there have been rumors for years as to why. Well, today he's here and we aren't going to shy away from going there and asking him the uncomfortable questions and finding out the real story.
It's nine O one e Legen with Jenny Garth and Tory Spelling.
Hey, guys, how are you hi?
Dalton?
How's it going?
Hi? Where are you?
I'm sitting in my kitchen. What city though, oh, Burbank.
So we wanted to do this interview, and we were thinking about going back and doing a boot of Kelly and Mark and just doing a whole show another nine or Tana, What do you think that's been off?
Yeah, I'd be down. You're asking me.
It's been how many years? Twenty five years though?
Oh my, twenty seven seven years?
Oh my gosh, it's.
Been a long time. I went and watched. I went back and watched that episode this morning that you guys sent me, and I was like, oh my gosh, I'll look at how long ago that was. It was. I just can't believe it at this point.
No, well, it feels like yesterday because you look exactly the same.
I know.
Well, thank you, so you guys. I've I've had my ups and downs. You know. I put on some weight for a while and then I was like, this isn't me. I don't like it. So I took that off and I quit drinking. Was the thing. Drink packed on some weight and I was like, in my life, so I cut it out completely.
So you're much healthier now than Yeah.
Good, I Yeah I am.
Because People Magazine you were you were one of the sexiest, sexiest people two thousand correct.
Wow, I.
Heard that, but I don't know.
It's not true.
I don't know. I honestly have no idea. Nobody ever told me, and no one ever told you.
I think you were one of the sexiest people. And People Magazine you probably know, like, that's a that's.
A good that's what you told me. It must be real. Yeah.
Well, I saw that online at some point and I was like, I never heard that, So I think I think that somebody messed up and made a mistake, and that's not.
Just take it and run.
Yeah, we just started watching back the episodes. I think last week was the first episode that you aired on, and you just appeared out of nowhere, as if we had known you for a long time, like your character just came in like he'd been there forever, which was such a weird way to introduce a character.
I thought, Yeah, I mean, do you remember that. I do remember that, and but it's happened to me before. But yeah, it was you know, you just kind of go with it, right, I mean, you get thrown into situations and acting where they do that all the time. So but it did seem that way, kind of like I'm hanging out with Jason and the TV station and it's like we're old buddies and but I just ran with it, did my job. So it was a lot of fun.
Were you offered this part or you auditioned?
I was offered by your father. I had done a couple of pilots for him previously that didn't get picked up. One of them he really really wanted to get picked up. It was called which one. It's called Crossdown Traffic, where I played a it's like a twenty one jumps jump okay file type show. But he tried and tried, and that we went past the pickup date and he kept me on hold, gave me a little money, which was cool to hold me, but it didn't end up getting
picked up. And then I did another one for him called The wolf Pack right after that one the next year, and that was another family detective tile style show with like Piper Lori and Dennis Weaver and Greg Evigan some other people, and that didn't get picked up. And then Aaron came to me and he said, would you like to do nine O two one oh? And I said, sure, why not? You know that was a little scary though.
I have to be honest with you guys, because there was a little bit of an intimidation factor going into that show, because you guys were an iconic show for one, and you guys were like a family already, and I was used to starting from ground up. You know, you get your book the pilot, then you get picked up, everybody does the show, then you become like a family. So I was my first day of shooting to be honest, that first scene that I did in the TV station
with Jason, I was a little bit nervous. And I never got nervous when I was shooting, but that one particular time I did, and as soon as the scene was over, I was fine after that.
So I just remember when you were in My Father the Hero and I was so smitten with you.
I was like, oh my gosh, that is the cutest boy.
I remember telling my dad. I was like, oh my god, he's amazing. Was that your first film?
That was my second film? I was in Encino man.
I had a oh great, you were so dreamy and My Father the Hero. Okay, sorry, I digress. Let's go back to Mark reeson niners who want I'm sorry, Yeah.
Yes, Well, I feel like what I'd love to just address something that for me is like the elephant in the room, because let's just have a really open, honest conversation, because there are things out there that talk about why your character didn't continue forward on the show. We've heard a couple of different takes on how that went down.
One of them was the chemistry factor between our characters, right, how did I'm just curious, like, for you, what that was like that whole experience where did you think you were going to be on for more episodes and then it ended sooner than you thought.
Yeah, I did, and I was I remember when I forget the producer's name now, but I remember when he brought me in and was to have a meeting with him and told me that they were letting me go. I was pretty bummed about it, to be honest, But you know, hey, life is hard for all of us. We we were all young. You know. For one, I'm I don't have any ill feelings at all. And you know, it was a great job. It was a great opportunity and I made some great money. But yeah, I was
bummed when the when the show got canceled. And you know, I know you and I we I thought we worked together well. But you know, like I said, we were young. I was going through a hard time. I was, you know, had I was a new father at the time. I don't know if you guys remember that.
How old were you when you had a child.
I was young. I was twenty five when my son was born, So I don't know why I started so young. I don't regret it. I love my kid. He's a great kid. I have four by the way.
Wow.
But back to what you were saying, I don't have any ill feelings, so it's you know, we I thought we did a good job together. I thought we did some good work.
I'm really glad to hear you say that, because I've been seeing the character and then remembering and then hearing from different people how that all happened.
I feel like.
I was young too, and I feel like maybe when you're young like that, you don't really look at things objectively from different perspectives, and perhaps me thinking well this, I don't feel like the chemistry between these characters is working out. I didn't really look at how that impacted you or your future, and I just I'm glad to hear you say that you don't harbor feelings about it, because I would hate that.
I don't. You know, the journey that I took in my career was there was a lot of learning. You know, it's a big learning experience for me. You know, you're thrown into a situation is at twenty one that let's putting this way, When I was twenty, I'm living in Sacramento, I'm working at a tractor yard. Before I moved to Los Angeles and I had a manager that wanted me, and I was making one hundred and seventy five bucks a week. But I loved the job. It was so
much fun. I got to drive all these big tractors and stuff. And then the next year, I'm on a TV series with Robert Urick. He's playing my father, I'm his son. We're the two stars of the show, and I'm making eighteen thousand dollars a week. And I was like, how the heck did this happen? And I remember I was depressed for the first two months of shooting, and I was like, why are you depressed? You got the world at your feet, You're I mean, you've succeeded at something.
And then and I'm depressed, and it kind of set me on. You know, there's no class that you can go take in college that prepares you for being thrown onto a TV show and everybody all of a sudden, you know, you go places and they know who you are. There's nothing that prepares you for that. Coupled with the fact that I grew up with a family that didn't have any money, so nobody talked about how to save it or invest it or you know, to set yourself
up for the future. So I kind of squandered, you know, the money that I made for eleven years. I was just kind of an idiot in a certain way. But you know, but you know, you live in your learn and I look at it. I look at my life as a series of lessons and the even you know, being on the show, the interaction that I mostly had
with you, Jinny. You know, I learned from it, and you know, you become a better person, you know, you learn things about yourself, and you know, I was in a place where I was trying to find myself still. You know, it's it's hard being you know, I'm sure you guys relate one hundred percent more than I do. You guys reached a level of SSS, that of success that I didn't, and I kind of sabotaged my career
in a way, you know, because I wasn't. I had a lot of issue and I put myself through therapy and I went to group therapies with my wife at the time were since divorced and with somebody else now. But you know, it's just a you know, we learned, we move on and we become better but I I so appreciate you bringing that up. I really do. I think that's really cool. I'm impressed.
Well, I mean.
It's I don't think I ever Yeah, like I said before, you don't really think at that young age the impact and us being in that kind of bubble that we were growing up in with, you know, this weird power that was appointed to us as the stars of the show, and then you look back all these thirty some years later and you're like, wow, what happened? Like how did that happen? And why would you know? Why would it be? Yeah, it just why would have happened? But I'm interested to like,
do do you know exactly what did you learn? You said you learned things from that experience, Like what is it that you learned? Do you know?
Well? I, like I said, I had a lot of issues and I was I remember when I that first two months of shooting and I was, you know, depressed. I was like, I got to do some work on myself. I want I had this cloud over me, you know, and I was like, I don't want this cloud. I should be happy, you know, And there was just a
lot of fear. You know, you grow up and you know where these little computers and we get programmed and then you you know, you think everything's fine, and then you get out in the real world and you realize that you, you know, aren't quite what you thought you were. And sorry, I'm trying not to get emotional, geez. And I I scrutinized myself. I put myself under a microscope, and I wanted to be better. I wanted to clean out my mind. I actually wrote a book about it
that I'm actually i'm editing it. I'm finished. I wrote the book, but I'm editing. I'm trying to get that done. It's like a spirituality slash psychology self help style book. So basically what I learned on my journey and working on myself and trying to become, you know, a better version of myself. I one day thought, you know what, I'm going to write a book and maybe this can
help somebody. You know. It's just kind of a little systematic way of working on cleaning out your mind, because if your mind's unclean, you're going to do dumb things like I did. I said dumb things and did dumb things. And you know, I don't really have regrets because of what I've learned about myself and I just feel better as a person and I feel happier and as a whole.
Well, that's great to hear. Also what you said too about like you just gotten this big show, this big break, and you are making money for the first time, and you've still felt you felt depressed. Was that the first time that you had felt that kind of feeling, like the depression?
Oh, I remember when I was fourteen, maybe I was fifteen, Oh yeah, I was fifteen. Actually, my sophomore first part of my sophomore year in high school, I went through a major depression. And it's as weird as it sounds that the depression was that I could see. Sounds really weird, but I I one day realized that I could see like this world in front of me, and it really spun me into this weird thing. And it was for four months. I was really depressed and just felt like
an observer of life, so to speak. But then I met this girl and we had a you know, a relationship for a while, and she kind of snapped me out of it. But you know, I always had like some deep rooted emotional things going on. I don't know, you know what they where they came from. I mean why I came from a kind of a My parents had kind of a tumultuous relationship. I guess you could say my mom and my dad when I was young.
My father was a major alcoholic and they divorced when I was for Thank god, you know, God blessed my dad's soul. He passed away, but he just never could get it together. It's probably it's probably better that he wasn't there, But you know, I think some of those deep rooted issues brought up this stuff later in life. And you know, I know that he was kind of a lunatic, and but you know, so be it. That's the way it went. But you know, we all have
our lessons to learn in life. We got to have drama to learn, right.
So grateful now that there's so much communication about mental health and our children. It's a different generation. They can talk about it and we speak freely. I feel like our generation we didn't really know if people are suffering from depression and are talking to their parents, and it wasn't a conversation as much as it is now, and
people went undiagnosed and they could get help. They can get help now, and did you feel like it during that time you couldn't talk about it or you said a girl you were in a relationship, right, and I snapped you out of it.
But no like therapy or medication.
No, nothing like that. I mean that we didn't have I mean we wet therapy then, but they didn't have medication.
But right, it was different. Yeah.
I was the type of person though that I'm not afraid to feel. So I decided that I can deal with this. I need to process it and go through it. I had to tell my mom about it, but she just she couldn't understand, I guess, and she had a lot going on in her life. So it was kind of kind of was on my own. But I figured it out. And you know, that one was really deep.
The cloud that I had hanging over my head in my career was It wasn't nearly as bad, but you know, I used to I would get depressed a lot, and I went through some When I went through therapy, my therapist did what's called couch work. It's a breathing exercise that you do that brings up supposedly brings up repressed childhood memories. And after I did couch work for a year. I don't get depressed anymore. Ever, I have bad days,
you know, I wake up in a bad mood. You know, I have a weird dream sometimes and you wake up. But the cool thing is I can spot it now, Like I'm like, all right, you're you're kind of feeling a little spie today, so you know, just watch yourself. So, but now that's say, I just went through it on my own. But the girl stamped me out of it. She gave me something to look forward to. But it was a weird time.
How old are your kids?
My son is twenty nine, he's getting married next month on April fifth, going out to Milwauk for Yeah, thank you. And then my daughter's twenty seven, she's already married. And then I have two step daughters that are twenty five and twenty three. So everybody was two years apart. Yeah, they're all good kids.
Okay, So you left our show unexpectedly and then went on to be on with Passions.
Your next project, Passions was my next probably yes, And then for whatever really reason, I got released from that and I was just like gosh, and I think that's kind of when I self sabotaged myself. I was kind of like, you know what, I'm going to step out for a while and focus on my family and my kids,
and that didn't go as planned. Then my ex wife we decided to get a divorce in two thousand and five, which was best for both of us, I think because we got together so young that you know, when you're young, you don't think is this really the right person for me? At least I didn't. You know, it's just like my lover and I'm going to marry her. Yeah, you know, you learn, you learn more, so I came out of them.
That was a difficult time for me going through the divorce because you know, even though you know that it's over, you know, you spend fifteen years of your life with somebody, you know that's it's you're going to miss. You're going to miss them to some degree, you know when you're going through that grieving process, and that was difficult.
All three of us had been through that, so we can all definite but definitely relate.
It's better the second time for me, for sure.
It was better for the third time for Jen and I need a third time soon.
Chance.
Yeah, that's funny.
Do you ever get a chance to talk to it to Aaron Spelling about your contract being cut short?
No, I didn't.
How did you find out? I'm so curious. Was it your agent's calling you or the producers or no.
It was the producer, the guy that worked in the studio that we shot. I think it was Paul. Yeah, And he brought me in and sat me down and told me. And I was like, I was like, what did I do wrong? That's the thing I asked him, and he said, well, we just decided to go a different way, So you know, I was like, all right, that's that's fine. You know, what are you going to do?
Yeah?
It sucks. We've all been there. I've been fired from a job before, but not funny story. I was hired to do a pilot for a sitcom. Was really big deal and I was so excited. My dad died like two weeks before. Oh no, I was already contracted to do this job and it was a comedy and I tried to shoot the pilot the best I could. I tried to be funny and light, but it just my body wasn't having it. You know. There was that cloud over me at that time, and that I got fired from that job, and it's never fun.
I'll take rejection.
As actors, I think we're kind of used to it, like not getting the job, getting the audition right, but have a job and then you lose it. You're like, it's you do kind of take it really personally when matter of fact is it's probably not a personal issue. It's not about you at all. It's about the character or the storyline, or the chemistry or all the things that go into it. But it's hard to not like take that as a personal blow.
Yeah, it's just it can be disappointing for sure. You know, it's like you're constantly you know, until you get on a show like you guys, it goes for you know, as long as it would you guys do ten years. Yeah, yeah, a long time until you get on something like that. You know, like I'm basically looking for a job every six months, you know, so that gets tough. And then you know, one year you kick butt and you make hundreds of thousands of dollars and then the next year
you make sixty. You know, it's like that that that.
Part was hard, right, and no one quite understands that world. They don't that it's so up and down.
Yeah, they don't know. It's it's hard for people to understand that. They just think that, oh, you're on a TV show, you're rich. It's like, well, you know, not always.
Yeah, And they also probably assume that you don't struggle with depression, like why would you be depressed? Like why would you not feel like on top of the world.
Yeah, but we're all.
You know, going through things no matter what our jobs are.
Yeah, I think absolutely. And that's a really good point. I was thinking about that the other day, you know, when I when I heard when I decided to do this with you guys, it was kind of going over my head, like just thinking, well, what am I going to talk about? And you know, what could some of the questions be? And it's I was actually thinking about that that people, you know, actors are just people. You know, we're not perfect people. We have issues, you know, we
all have things we're wrestling with. And life is the same for us other than the fact that we're you know, a successful person on a television show or in movies or whatever. You know, So we are just people and it's what it all boils down to. And we all have our we have our own little personal problems too. You know, I think that people think that we're just perfect people and and our lives are so grand all the time. You know, we go through the same things that everybody else does.
I'm curious when you were thinking this through, Like what what were you what what would make you decided not to talk to us today.
I'm kind of in my own little world in a way, Like I have things that I like to do, and I've never been one that needed to be like famous, you know, like, oh, you know, check me out. That's not me, I don't. I heard a someone make a remark once. They were like, this is back in the day when I was working a lot. They were somebody had mentioned I read in an article. They said, this guy is hard to get information on because we don't see him anywhere. Like I didn't hang out in Hollywood.
I was like, cool, I got more money, I can go fishing in Utah. You know. I would get in my Bronco and drive to Utah and fish for a week or two, or you know, like I'd go up to Sacramento to see my family and hang out and play golf. I've got an obsession with golf. I've played a lot of golf, and I play at a scratch level. I'm pretty good, but good as I want to be. But yeah, it's it's something that I just love and I put a lot of time and effort into that.
So but yeah, they I don't need that kind of attention, you know what I mean. But I think it's cool when somebody You know what I got to tell you, guys. A funny story. My neighbor across the street is we just see each other in passing a lot. Like I've lived in this house that I'm in for about fifteen years. I used to see him out in front when we park our cars. Hey, how you doing. What's up Sean?
What's up Dalton? Blah blah blah. Well, about eight months ago, I get out of my car and he comes running up and he goes, Dalton. He goes, I didn't know you were Mark Reese on nine oh two one zero and I go yeah. He goes, I love that show. He goes, I've every single episode. I'm rewatching him now. He goes, I I'm watching it and I go, oh my god, that's Dalton. And he's like the most unassuming like fan, like he's this big manly guy. I just I thought it was pretty funny study.
That it took him fifteen years to realize totally.
Well, you know, I'm a lot older now.
I mean, he looks the same exactly.
Yeah. You know, I've got a vision in my mind of what I look like, you know what I tell and it's like already maybe you know, twenty seven somewhere in there, and then yeah, yeah, and then my wife will go, hey, let's do a selfie and she'll take it and I'm like, let me see, and I'm like, that's what I look like.
Yeah, he wrote a book.
That's that's a huge accomplishment.
You know what I It is a huge accomplishment. I just went through and reread the whole thing the other day, and I'm getting set up to finish. I edited it, edited about half of it, and I'm sitting down getting ready to sit down and edit the other half. I have a bunch of notes and stuff, and I read the whole book through. It's about one hundred it's a small book. I call it the Little Book of Consciousness.
It's about one hundred and fifty three pages. And I sat down and read it and I was like, wow, I can't believe that I wrote this, Like it's it's pretty cool. Like I never I never considered myself a writer, you know, I think we.
All have that in us. But it sounds like you've been through, you know, a lot in your life of like just dealing with emotions and circumstances and where you are versus where you want to be, and where you want to be versus where you are. You know, this all stuff that everybody can relate to. So kudos to you for putting it down on paper.
Well, thank you. Yeah, it was. It's a pretty cool accomplishment. I just I want to get it done. I haven't decided if I'm going to try and go the traditional route of publishing or if I want to self publish it. The only thing that bothers me is I've heard that sometimes if they take your book and they do a certain run, if that doesn't do as well as they thought, then they stop and it's not really yours. Or I don't know all the particulars, but I kind of might
just self publish it. And if I mean, even if I gave it away for free, you know, it's if it can help somebody, you know, one one person I mean that's kind of cool. That's uh. I mean, ultimately that's what matters, you know, and that's the reason I wrote it.
Yeah, one person that resonates with one person and makes them feel less.
Alone or yeah, absolutely, yeah, Well send.
Us a copy when you get it ready.
I will, I will do that.
Well, we're so happy to be able to connect in I'm really happy we were able to talk.
About that, and I was you too.
I wanted to talk to you.
But I was also slash nervous about it and just wondering, like where you had landed with all of that after all these years, and if it brought you know, talking about it brought back stuff. But I'm sorry for you know, my part in whatever happened. You know, if that had a negative effect on you in any.
Way, that's awesome, Thank you, and I I'm sorry as well for my part. That's uh, I'm pretty shocked about that you're talking to me about that. I think that's really cool of you. God is smiling at you.
Oh good.
I think that's cool.
It's really really nice to connect with you again.
You're always so nice back then, So thank you for doing this interview.
You got it and you were always so nice to Tori.
Thank you all right.
Good luck with your book.
All right, thank you. I'll get you guys a copy when it's done. Please, thank you, you're welcome. Thank you. Okay,