interview with Don Most The Colly D Show

Hi, this is done.

Most you remember me from Happy Days, I still get on it and you're listening to the Cali D Show.

Don Most born in Brooklyn, New York, on the eighth of August nineteen fifty three is an esteemed actor, singer, and director, but more importantly husband to Morgan and father to Madison and McKenzie. His new single, Oh Baby Baby is due to be released on the twenty sixth of March on the Plateau Record label. Hello Darn and thank you so much for joining me today on the Collie D Show.

Oh so nice to be with you, Coller, Thank you for inviting me.

Thank you so much.

Oh Baby Baby is a classic nineteen sixty five hit single by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. Written by Smokey Robinson and Pete Moore, the song is one of the miracles most covered tunes. The song is a little different from your jazz music. Why is the song so special to you?

It's a good question the process in which we picked the song. That are we meaning myself and the producer Tony Mantor. You're right, it's different. In the past, I've been concentrating more on my music that I've always loved There's been the Great Jazz Standards and Swing and Blues

I mean people still use it.

But he thought the contemporary jets sound might be a nice change, and I liked the idea of trying it. And then as we started talking, we also thought the idea of introducing some songs from the sixties and seventies might be good too, because I was a teenager.

And young adult in.

The sixties and seventies and that's the music that I also loved. So we said, yeah, it might be nice to try to integrate some of those songs. And waiting for somebody somewhere at I can't remember, over the music system they had on, I heard Smokey's version of Oh Baby, Baby, and I was like, oh man, what a great song.

I forget.

I hadn't heard it in a while, and it was perfect timing, and I said, and this might be really interesting to do. And I played it for Tony and he always loved the song, and so we.

Decided to do it and came up with a really nice you know, with one of his musicians that he works with on the arrangements and approach to it that was a little different.

And then as I got into the studio and started working with the musicians, it took on a life of its own and I'm really happy with the way it came out.

It's really nice.

It's an absolutely beautiful song, and you just sing it so well, and I think it's certainly a tuned to your voice because of the jazz.

It has a little bit of the original R and B field, but mixed in with a little bit of jazz.

So it's an interesting mix. So who knows, you know, and maybe it'll lead to me doing more of that style. I don't know, We'll see, yeah, of course.

And let's go back to the early days.

At a very young age, you wanted to be an enter taina and you saw the Jolson story. What was it about the film that captured your imagination.

That's a good question. I wish I knew the answer to that. I was nine years old when I saw the.

Movie The Jolson Story, which was a you know, biopic of great Al Jolson, who was considered the greatest entertainer in the world at the time when he was famous in the twenties and thirties.

He actually did the Original Jazz Singer, the first talking picture. He starred in that.

But when I saw the movie about his life, Like I said, it was nine and I just loved it, and it had a much bigger impact.

Than almost anything I had seen.

And it was something about, you know, the music and Jolson's talent, and even though it was played by Larry Parks, it was Jolson's singing, yes, and Parks did a great job of bringing Jolson to life. I was just really captured by the story, but mainly his talent and that music, and it led me to start researching and finding out more of that kind of music, even.

Though I was pretty young.

I started listening to a radio station in New York where I grew up. Every night it was a guy called William B. Williams, and he would.

Play all of the great standards and all those great classic singers and Sinatra and Nat King, Cole and Ella Fitzgerald and doing all the great jazz standards and balads whatever.

I got an education listening.

To him on that radio show, and I developed a huge love for that music.

Oh wonderful.

And did it influence her to become a singer and an actor at that time?

Yeah, It's funny because it influenced me in the beginning, mainly to pursue singing.

Yes, and that's what I would call my first love.

I enjoyed acting, you know when I did it and plays at school or here and there, but it was singing at that age, at the age of thirteen.

My school in Manhattan take the subway from Brooklyn into Manhattan.

And it was a school where they taught It was mainly for young teenagers and kids singing and acting and dancing.

Yes, isn't really interested in dancing, but they made me.

You know.

It was this thing that I really wanted to pursue. And then as a.

Matter of fact, I got picked from that school to be part of a troop a nightclub review comprised of seven teenagers ages fourteen to sixteen, to be in this nightclub act, and I performed in it during the summer that I was turning fifteen years old up in the hotels that were in the cats Still Mountains, famous resort area of State New York. So I spent that summer singing in the nightclubs and I loved it, you know.

So I was so excited.

But then the funny thing is, after that summer, after discussions, but I don't know, let I decided after talking to my father.

You know, he wasn't pushing me at all.

I was the one who really wanted to do it, but he was supportive. It was his suggestion that I maybe take a serious acting class, yes, and I thought, oh okay. I was starting to really get into film cinema at that point and watching some great movies, and so I liked the idea. And I got into this really good acting workshop and I loved it. And that's when I put the music aside and I just shifted my focus towards acting.

Yeah, one day the music would come back in some way. I don't know why we did this long better late than that.

Yeah, because I was researching the Busch Bels in the New York Catskills Mountains between the fifties and the seventies, and it was an amazing vacation destination. The resort closed in nineteen eighty six, but the comedians who came out of Bousch Belt was amazing. I've just been watching it a little bit earlier. Absolutely fantastic, brilliant place.

You were able to find this a line or something, you found some info on it, found.

All about the Bousch Belts.

The Concord Resort hotel closed in nineteen ninety eight, and it tells you all about Joan Rivers was there, Jerry Lewis was there.

The stars were performing up there in the fifth Jerry Lewis's mention, Yeah, probably being Martin and a lot of the big comic You're.

Right, a lot of almost all of those, the.

Ones that became famous that we know of in the sixties, seventies and eighties, they performed in the borschh Bell Yeah, and some singers too, probably.

Yeah. It has quite a legacy and history. That was the one hotel I didn't get to perform at the Court. It was the big one. There were probably thirty other ones, you know.

Yeah, I was able to perform at all of them, but I never got to play the Concord That was That was a little bit of a disappointing thing, but you know, now I'm doing it in all kinds of other places, so.

That's all right.

Yeah, your first TV screen credit came in the TV show Emergency.

Was actually Room to twenty two was right before Emergency. Yeah they were close together, but yes, Emergency was the second one. When I came out to LA when I was twenty years old, i'd been doing a lot of commercials in New York. I did about forty commercials, and a lot of them were big national commercials. But my first real TV job first too was Room to twenty two and an Emergency, and I was more interested in drama, yes,

So I was really into doing drama. Yeah, that just so happened, you know. Then when I.

Landed Happy Days in comedy, and that's when I became known for that. I was a big Jack Nicholson fan, and so I wanted to do films like he was doing.

Yeah, something similar. Because the character Ralph was not initially there because of your charisma and natural comedic timing. They reworked the part and transformed Ralph Mouth into the beloved class comedian. So you actually went for the role of Potsy. But I think what you did in the role of Ralph was fantastic and your comedy time and as they say, was amazing.

Thank you so much.

Did originally auditioned for Potsy and but they wanted Anson and Ron. Anson Williams had originally done Potzi and Ritchie and it did well two years prior. It didn't make it onto the air, but then fifties became popular with American graffiti and Greece on Broadway, so then they decided, oh, we should do this show. The network told Gary Marshall that they were concerned Ron and Anson would be too old now, and Gary said no, he had to screen test Ron and Anson even though they had already done

Do you have any fond memories of your time in Happy Days?

Oh? Yeah, it was an incredible experience.

Yeah.

You know, the greatest thing about it was the people that I got to work with, Yes, was fantastic. Yeah, not only professionally but personally. We got along like family, and we really did. And then we had wonderful people producer directors like Gary Marshall as the creator of the show and the executive producer and a mentor to us,

The directors let Cass be very creative, so you put your own individual stamp on each character, and that's when all your catchphrases came in with the fons hey, and then yours was I still got it, which is a great catchphrase in itself.

Yeah, that was in the script and I actually put it in because our director Jerry Paris used to say that he was much more.

Like Ralph than I was. I was really the guy that was.

Always trying to be funny, you know. I was a good audience for the other people who liked to do that. I was that kind of a guy. But Jerry was like that.

He loved to crack everybody up, and when he.

Did a particularly good reaction, he would sit. I still got it like that. So I decided one day I didn't tell anybody we were shooting in front of an audience, and I told Ryan, I said, be prepared, I'm going to do something that's not in the script and right about here.

So he said, okay, I'll be ready for it.

And then I did the line and everyone loved it, and then they started writing it in more and more.

And something beautiful happened.

You met your lovely wife on the set of Happy Days, and you married actress Morgan Hart in nineteen eighty two, and you have two beautiful children from that lovely Yes, yes.

Thank god I met Morgan. It turned out to be the last season that I did on Happy Days, because I wound up doing seven of the eleven seasons. After the seventh, my contract was up, and for different reasons, I decided it was time to move on.

Luckily Morgan, I was cast as in a guest role in that last season, so we hit it off right away and started dating and two years later got married and now we've been married thirty nine years.

Absolutely amazing.

I have two wonderful daughters. Yeah, thank god. That was another reason I'm so thankful for halfy days, the biggest one.

Yeah, of course.

And in nineteen seventy six you chopped the Billboard charts with.

All Roads Lead Back to You and that's a really nice track. I listened to that a little bit earlier.

Oh well, yeah, that was much more of a pop It was, you know, pop kind of thing, which I was looking to do rock kind of stuff.

But when I had the opportunity to be.

Signed to a label United Artists, they wouldn't let me do the music that I loved because in the seventies seventy six, you know, the Great American Songbook and those jazz standards were not considered commercial at all.

Of course, it was as like my parents, so Grandpa music. So I had to do something a little bit more of in the pop vein, and I figured Okay, you know, let's let's try it.

Give me an opportunity to get in the recording studio and see what happens.

And yeah, some of this stuff came out pretty good. Yeah it's not it's not my favorite.

I'm much more, you know, I have much more of an affinity if you listen to my not only Ubaby Baby, but the CD before that was three years ago, d most mostly swinging, and it's with a big band and arrangements and all the wonderful songs from that year of the twenties, thirties and forties, and it cooks, you know, And so I love that's more my wheelhouse and what I did with you know, ooh Baby Baby, because it's kind of a nice blend of jazz and R and B.

Wonderful musicians on those tracks.

Yeah, of course.

And then you went into TV and you've got some incredible film credits, Crazy Mama, The Yankees, the Great Book Howard starring John Malkovich, and you're in Glee Star Trek and you played Korren.

Yah it was doctor Kayden was I was the villain a two part star Trek Voyager.

Yeah, and Lee.

I had a nice recurring role as the father of one of the Lee characters, Emma by Jay James, and Yeah, and then a lot of Buck Howard that was fun to do with to work with John Malkovich.

I worked with Ron Howard in one.

Of his movies at TV, so that was a great joy to work with Ron again a big film. Recently, I've done some really interesting you know, it was a little difficult after Happy Days breaking away from Ralph and that kind of comedy. So it took a while to keep but I kept plugging away, and you know, opening up the door a little bit further and further. And I think because I'm older, it's getting easier because yeah, obviously I can't play a teenager in high school or college anymore.

You know, I'm getting more.

Roles offered to me different kinds of genre and content. So there's a film called Lost Heart that is out on Amazon Prime now that just came a few months ago. It's a really lovely film, that comedy drama. I play a small town pastor in it. And another film called Man's Best Friend, very powerful dramatic piece where I play a defense.

Attorney representing a wounded VET, and that's on Amazon Prime too, So I'm loving the fact that I'm starting to really get a wider variety of roles that are coming my way.

Yeah, of course TV.

And then what pivotal moment after working in the front of the camera you realize that you had a lifelong ambition to direct because he did not first, did you?

I don't think you know what it happened for me as a result of there was a period when I was getting frustrated that I wasn't getting the opportunities.

It was even hard for me to get the.

Auditions for the movies that I wanted to be up for and the kinds of roles.

So somewhere in the early.

Nineties, I think it was I had an opportunity to wrecked a play at a small theater in Los Angeles, and I said, you know, I knew i'd want to direct at.

Some point, not this soon, but let's try it. So I directed this play that a play that I was familiar with, and it turned out great. You know, I had a great response and reviews and all that. So I did more. I did several more plays and one act.

Plays, and then I knew I'd like to now take that to film because I always was into photography and into the visual and the composition, so I thought doing a film I wanted to try as well. And I found a script that I really liked and it could be done low budget without sacrificing because it was the way the structure of the film, where it took place, the locations, you could do it on a low budget. I met a producer that had experience that was really

And I got to make the Last Best Sundays in the name of It.

And I know that at premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival, and you won the Best Feature at the Tell You Ride IndieFest.

Congratulations.

Yeah, so that was great.

It was great, and people can see that it's on well, I don't know, there's a platform called.

To B to UBI here.

I don't know if you have that there, but it's showing there and it's going to be expanding to some other places. And then the next film I directed is on Amazon Crime right now called Mulah.

Yeah.

Yeah, really fun project, comedy that has some real heart to it and a little bit of drama, but it's more in a comedy. Great cast. Yeah, people could check that out on Amazon Prime. You'll recognize most of the actors in it.

Yes, they're pretty well.

Known because you won the Outstanding Achievement in Directing award and premiered at the Newport Beach Film Festival in two thousand and seven.

Yeah.

I was so proud of that, winning that award for directing at that festival.

It meant a lot to me.

We had a great reaction when it played at one of the screenings at the festival.

It had a fabulous reaction. So that was a pretty you know, it was a very meaningful weekend.

I remember getting that ward and the reaction, and this project I developed from scratch with the executive producer, from real events that had happened. We developed the story together, and then I brought in a writer and worked with him very close to write the script. So it was even more taking someone else's script and directing it. This was something that I kind of created from the very beginning.

It was meant a lot.

Yeah, And in twenty eleven, you directed your first family film, Harley's Hill, which premiered on Showtime at Stars and on care.

That was a great experience too. It was tough. That was a tough one because I was It was a fanly film, as you mentioned, and I was working.

My lead character was a girl that was twelve years old, so I only had her for so so many hours a day because it's very strict regulations on how much time they were allowed to work, so it's tough when and it was a very low budget, very low And then her the other character, her younger brother, was only eight years old, so I had him for even less time.

There were a lot of animals involved. I would say I had great animals. That's you know, that's the tough thing, and especially on a low budget.

And I have lots of animals, you know, equestrian stuff, cattle and not just dogs and cats, you know horses and cattle. And the girl had to you know, do jumping and she was supposed to be a great rider and then find out the first day of shooting she wasn't a.

Great Oh gosh.

Now, so then I had that. I think I lost twenty pounds during the shooting of.

That because it was crazy, but it came Thank god the movie came out.

It's really a sweet film. It's really nice, wonderful.

And as you were talking a little bit earlier, since twenty seventeen, you've been busy performing sings and swings in the USA, and your show debuted in Los Angeles and the Catalina's Jazz Club in Hollywood and also Vitello's Jazz Club in Studio to great acclaim I love the.

Rap pack, I love that era.

You showcase covers from Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole.

And didn't you go to see Bobby Darren live?

Yeah?

What was that like?

Oh? Unbelievable.

You know, I love Golf, Sinatra and Uno and Nat and all those great singers.

I love them. But I was a huge Bobby Barren fan. Yeah, And I got to see him at the Copla Cabana Nightclub in New York City when I was eighteen. Yeah, twice that year.

He was there twice and I saw both times, and then a third time at an outdoor concert in Central Park in New York. Bobby could do that kind of music as good as just about any of them.

He could swing with the best of them.

Yeah, a lot of people no more for his early rock and roll stuff, but that's not what he was about.

That was a means to an end.

He was really he could sing jazz and blues and swing and folk gospel, just about anything. And I saw him with that big band at the Copa. It was magic. So and I always close my shows with Mac the Knife.

Oh I love it.

People could go and see go on YouTube and put in Donnie Most full sale, you know, like a full sale ull Sail, because that was the venue that I did a concert, and so if they put Donnimo's full sale.

There's some video up there, little snippets from the show.

And I'm performing with the Orlando Jazz Orchestra, so a great big band, and you'll see me do some Mac the Knife in it as the ending.

It was cooking. It was really cooking. Keep us check that out.

I actually watched it last night and the reviews that you got at the Hoffpost said, what a singing voice who knew move over Michael Buble, And then the theater pizzaz said easeful and elegant, the cabaret scenes most nailed it to the roof, and then the Jersey Jazz said the man can sing and swing.

And I loved the album.

I've listened to it two days on the run, and you know what I got from it. The actual orchestra, the Orlando Jazz Orchestra is out of this world. The sound from that is fantastic. Your voice is perfectly matched. And I've just been listening to it for the past couple of days.

I love it.

Yeah.

You know, are you talking about the video or the CD both? Oh, I've been watching both.

Yeah, the CD two.

Yeah, Oh, great, wonderful that. I love hearing that. I'm so happy, thank you for hearing that with me. I appreciate that more than you know.

Yeah, because I've been watching all things all about you on YouTube and download. J Jerial Berma've been listening to that because I love that era to me, but you know, the quality of the production of the jazz band, it's fantastic and your voice is perfectly with it. And also listened to it to the Christmas album Swinging down the Chimney Tonight.

Well, and you know what we favorite one is Becky Moore And then we said, good baby.

That's yeah, I absolutely love it. Fantastic, brilliant, I.

Know it was a real when Willie Mario who produced that CD and played trumpet on it because he's an amazing musician and he did all the arrangements.

Yeah, and you know, I talked to him about him a lot.

We worked on him, but he wrote him. And that's his wife, Becky, who's a wonderful singer. And he said, when we were thinking about what Christmas songs to do, and he said, he brought up, how about doing Santa Baby as a duet?

Yeah, And I said, wow, I've never and he said Becky could sing, and I knew how good she was.

Yeah, So yeah, I think it's a cool idea and it came out really really it's different but really good.

Yeah, it's a fantastic album. But you're single releasing on the twenty sixth of March. Ooh Baby Baby. Can you pre order it now?

It's on iTunes and Amazona it is. People can get it. Yeah, Baby Baby album and on the label as Plateau Music.

It is. And I can't wait to, you know, get the feedback and hear the reactions from the general public, if you will. Tony and I mentor and I are talking about I'd love to do a tour in the UK. By getting this out there and maybe another single, maybe it'll help pave the.

Way to do a tour.

You're on social media and it's done most Musician, isn't it on Facebook? And you've got a website www dot Donnimos dot com. On Twitter at most underscore Don, So I've been checking you out on the last day of so so you might find something from the Collide show on there.

Good good come on Facebook under Don Most and then as you said, Twitter and Instagram done most won.

I would just like to say it's been an absolute honor and a pleasure to speak to you today.

And it's my birthday today.

Oh, happy birthday. How nice that we get to do this on your birthday.

Thank you so much.

I love hearing that.

I thank you very much and I hope to talk to you if we get to tour we'll get to mean personal absolutely wonderful.

Thank you so much. Indeed, it's been the best birthday present I've ever had.

Thank you.

Oh is a lovely speaking with you. You're really a delight to talk.

Thank you so much. Ahi.

This is Don Most.

You might remember me as Ralph from Happy Days and this is my new single originally done by Smokey.

Robinson and The Miracles. This is Oh, Baby baby.

Ah, to do own my hard w at to play good in the game, My last you what Pope Rice to p I'm crying, baby b Oh.

They may.

Mistakes. I know I've made a thing, but I'm leadbe you've made mistakes to.

I'm crying.

They may.

I'm just too good as.

Feed on my role. I can't stop trying.

I can't give over all.

Spping one day, how old you need.

Whisper?

I still live until the days he.

I'm crying.

Day with baby

Ba baby, baby, baby beathing