Tom Wopat

It's a rare performer indeed who can claim starring on a classic television action series that's become part of American pop culture, winning top-billing on Broadway marquees in award-winning hit musicals, recording solo albums featuring country chart-makers and playing the leading man in a hit situation comedy. That rare performer is Tom Wopat.

With the success of Cybill, the hit CBS sitcom starring Cybill Shepherd which premiered in January of 1995, Wopat once again reasserted his versatility and enormous popularity. As Jeff Robbins, Cybill's ruggedly handsome stuntman ex-husband #1, he proves to be one of the few traditional leading men on television today willing to play comedy. But then Wopat has always done more than one thing at a time. On his days off from his current starring role as sharpshooter Frank Butler in the Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun with Bernadette Peters, it's not unusual to find him on his way to a Nashville recording studio or to a performing arts center somewhere in the country for a concert.

As the dynamics of Cybill changed over the years, Wopat had more occasion to pursue a variety of outside opportunities. He has done a successful reoccurring guest role on Home Improvement. In 1997 Wopat teamed with pal John Schneider to do a reunion movie-of-the-week for CBS, Dukes of Hazzard Reunion. Like the series, although not a critical success, the movie won the TV ratings war for CBS in major cities across the country. Last year the two teamed up for the first time as touring partners for select concert dates in the spring and summer on The Good Ole Boys Tour. Each has had success as a solo country and Broadway musical artist.

The friendly, fun-loving and engaging Wopat first came to public attention in the late Seventies as the freewheeling Luke Duke on the comedy-adventure TV series The Dukes of Hazzard. But his background was a far cry from car crashes and corny humor.

Born on a small dairy farm in Lodi, Wisconsin, Wopat began singing and dancing in singing and dancing in school musicals when he was twelve years old. Upon graduating high school, he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin at Madison to study music, at one point leaving to be the lead singer and trombone player in a rock band. But later he returned and began his acting career in campus productions of the musicals West Side Story, Jesus Christ Superstar, and South Pacific. After performing in summer stock productions at the Barn Theatre in Michigan for two seasons, he decide to go to New York for "a serious try at musical comedy."

Within weeks of his arrival in 1977, he appeared off-Broadway in the musical A Bistro Car On The CNR. He then signed for the title role of The Robber Bridegroom at Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C. Once back in New York, he made his Broadway debut in Cy Coleman's I Love My Wife. After three months, he joined an off-Broadway production of Oklahoma as Curly.

Soon after his whirlwind success, during a trip to the West Coast, he auditioned for and won the role of Luke Duke. "I read the script in New York on Tuesday and was on a plane that night for Los Angeles. My screen test was on Friday and ten days later I was in Georgia for filming."

For seven seasons, 1978-1985, The Dukes of Hazzard was a popular phenomenon. For Wopat, it provided both stardom and an education. "I had a wonderful time," he says. "I developed relationships that I've held in good stead, I learned both the responsibility a leading man had in a show, and I learned how to direct (which he did for five episodes)."

During the show's span, Wopat also continued to develop his musical talents, touring the country with his then-band, The North Hollywood All-Stars. When the series went off the air, the singer-songwriter-guitarist returned to his roots, creatively and geographically. In 1987, he moved to Nashville, where he resides for half of each year, where he debuted his brand of contemporary country-rock with the album Tom Wopat, produced by Mike Post. "Although I live in both Los Angeles and Nashville for career reasons, I'm happy spending a lot of time in Nashville," he says. "I sincerely love the town because it feels like the Midwest to me and there's a great climate for writing music."

His follow-up album, A Little Bit Closer, was released later that same year, produced by Herb Pedersen and Jerry Crutchfield. Then came Don't Look Back (1991), also produced by Crutchfield, and Learning To Love (1992), produced by Rick Hall. Along the way, Wopat enjoyed two Top 20 country hits (The Rock and Roll of Love and Susannah), a Top 5 country video (A Little Bit Closer) and a Top 5 hit as a songwriter (co-writing Shadow of a Doubt, performed by Earl Thomas Conley). With his current group, The Full Moon Band, he's also toured throughout the U. S. and Europe.

During the same period, he returned to the stage. In the summer of 1986, Wopat starred in Carousel at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D. C. He then played the Greek god Jupiter in Olympus On My Mind at the Lambs Theatre in New York. From January to June 1991, he took over the lead role of the hard-boiled Detective Stone in the 1990 Tony Award-winning Best Musical City of Angels at Broadway's Virginia Theater. From October 1992 to April 1993, he was Sky Masterson in the 1992 Tony Award-winning revival of Guys And Dolls at the Martin Beck Theatre. For the 1993-1994 winter season, he reprised that role. In February of 1999 he begins the starring role of Frank Butler to Bernadette Peters' Annie in a Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun at the Marquis Theatre. On Occasion, he'd also sing Broadway show tunes with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl.

Wopat is excited about his current project on Broadway. Regarding Annie Get Your Gun, he comments, "It was an opportunity to open in a Broadway show in a major production with a major star, and at this point in my career it was just too delicious to pass up, and I'm just so glad I'm here."

There was still television too, reuniting with fellow Duke, John Schneider, for a CBS movie-of -the-week, Christmas Comes To Willow Creek (1987), then starring in the drama series Blue Skies (CBS, 1988) and Peaceable Kingdom with Lindsay Wagner (CBS, 1989). In 1992 Wopat starred in the critically acclaimed NBC movie-of-the-week Just My Imagination, co-starring Jean Smart. Teaming up with former co-star Lindsay Wagner, Wopat played her plague-stricken husband in Contagion for the USA Network in 1997.

Then, after finishing his second run of Guys And Dolls in February 1994, he began to explore the possibilities of a change-of-pace. Enter Cybill. Called "a smart, bawdy adult comedy" by the show's creator, Chuck Lorre, Cybill had all the right genes. Lorre (coincidentally a former songwriter himself) had created the hit Grace Under Fire. The show's executive producers also included Moonlighting's Jay Daniel and the producers of The Cosby Show and Roseanne (Marcy Carsey, Tom Werner and Caryn Mandabach) as well as Shepherd. Though he had never done a sitcom before, Wopat seized the opportunity.

As another change-of-pace, Wopat accepted the opportunity to host a talk show. The Nashville Network chose him to host the first season of Prime Time Country. Tens of millions of viewers each week saw yet another side of one of America's most popular, recognizable and multi-facetted performers.

-Bio courtesy of The Brokaw Company 9255 Sunset Boulevard Suite 804 Los Angeles, California 90069