Robert Wagner and Jill St. John appear in "Love Letters."
It’s easy
when you’re
already in love
Starring in a
By Tim Ryan
love story is a snap for
this performing couple
Star-BulletinThe call from Jill St. John and Robert Wagner was supposed to be an interview about their performance in "Love Letters." But the couple, married since 1990, first veered into talk about how fond they are of Hawaii and friends here.
"Hawaii is like a second home for us," St. John said from the couple's Aspen home. "We have so many friends there like Jimmy Borges, but he can't come to the show because he'll be performing in California."
"For one, I'm glad he's not coming; he's such a pain in the ass," Wagner, known as RJ to friends, joked about his Hawaii golf partner. "Jimmy would be out there humming in the audience. And he would want to come on stage and sing."
"RJ," St. John chirps in, "you're going to get into trouble."
Wagner, 68, the handsome, genial lead actor who achieved star status in films like "Titanic" (1953), "Prince Valiant" (1954) and "A Kiss Before Dying" (1956), performed "Love Letters" here six years ago at the Blaisdell Concert Hall with Stefanie Powers, his co-star on the television series "Hart to Hart."
"When RJ was doing the play at the Blaisdell the first night I was next door (at the arena) watching Dennis Alexio win like his seventh world kick-boxing championship," St. John said, laughing.
Wagner and St. John have been performing in the two-person romantic comedy by A.R. Gurney for several years. They just finished a swing through the Midwest.
"Love Letters," which Gurney wrote in 1989, explores the lives and thoughts of two privileged WASPS -- Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and Melissa Gardner -- from second grade through adulthood. As they grow older, Ladd III and Gardner suffer more of life's slings and arrows.
Despite their common well-heeled backgrounds, the pair are diametric opposites. He's righteous, snooty and a prig; she's rebellious, fearless and in love with role-breaking. Originally a bit for a library benefit, "Love Letters" turned into a professional show in 1988 in New Haven, Conn., and then Broadway.
("Love Letters" will debut on television in an upcoming ABC film.)
The stories of the two characters are told entirely through letters. All talk and no action is a charming premise, Wagner said.
"It goes from childhood crushes to a lover's suicide, a lifetime of love and friendship portrayed strictly through the words of these two people," he said.
St. John, a show-business veteran who racked up more than 1,000 radio and 50 television credits by the time she turned 16, said "Love Letters" is "beautifully written and very concise."
"It makes you laugh and cry; it addresses the human condition," she said. "It makes you you think about life, opportunities taken and opportunities missed."
The play is performed with the two actors seated behind an ornate table, reading their letters from the script. Part of the charm and fascination of the piece is watching "Love Letters" transpire between the actors, Wagner said.
"We like to think of it as an evening with Jill St. John and Robert Wagner because it's such a very intimate kind of piece," he said. "The two protagonists have kept missing each other because of life's circumstances, some fated, some of their own making."
"They're not being honest with themselves, to open up their hearts to really see how they feel about each other," St. John said.
"Eventually," Wagner says, "they write notes to each other, answer invitations and soon commit their deepest feelings to paper," feelings about their parents' marriages and divorces, later about their own, about psychotherapy and about sex, Wagner said.
Acting with a spouse in "Love Letters" is easier on both actors and audience, St. John said. "They know we love each other so we're not stretching their imagination in that regard. They know we're two lovers doing a love story."
Before Wagner and St. John go onstage they follow a pre-performance ritual.
"We hold hands and tell each other how lucky we are to be able to do this," said Wagner, who estimates he's done the play 500 times.
"Doing ('Love Letters') has made me realize how important it is to live in the moment; that today is here only once."
Wagner continues to be in demand for motion pictures. He's just finished three and is starting a fourth in Vancouver right after he leaves Hawaii.
In the 1960s Wagner had engaging performances in "The Pink Panther" and "Winning," though his career was already moving toward TV. The small screen consolidated Wagner's image as an American David Niven: mildly roguish, but essentially honorable.
He twice played a thief-turned-detective, in "It Takes a Thief" and "Switch." His last and most popular TV detective drama, "Hart to Hart," aspired to be a "Thin Man" series for the '80s, with Wagner playing William Powell to Stefanie Powers' Myrna Loy. He was twice married to the late Natalie Wood.
St. John has primarily been performing only in "Love Letters."
"Between us we have more than 100 years of show-business experience," she said. "And we're never going to retire. My two goals are to keep acting until they have to pull me off the stage kicking and screaming, and to be the oldest lady on the ski lift."
Love letters
Featuring Richard Wagner and Jill St. John:
On stage: 8 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday
