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he was discharged was to go back to school on the G.I. Bill. "In the service I was resentful of the people in authority for their lack of intelligence and sensitivity. I saw clods who had Second Lieutenant bars and I couldn't even get into OCS because I didn't have a high school diploma."

Once out of the Army he attended the Randall School of Fine Arts in Hartford and later the American Theatre Wing in New York where he learned "about Ibsen, Marlowe and Chekhov and those guys." His first job was as radio newscaster in Hartford. "I decided to use my full name—Tadeus Wladyslaw Konopka. I thought it would add a little dignity to the news." But he only had five minutes of newstime and after the first night's broadcast the station manager rechristened him Ted Knight. From radio Ted edged into TV at regional stations along the East Coast, playing lots of Ted Baxteresque roles ranging from newscaster to local kiddie favorites like "Teddy the Milkman," "Jungle Ted," and "Windy Knight."

By 1956, he'd earned enough money to pack up wife and child and drive across country to California "because I just knew Hollywood was waiting for my arrival. It took me over a year of unemployment to realize that I wasn't the only talented person in the business." Eventually he found the best way for any actor to gain employment was to have people see you act. He became involved in the little theatre movement playing roles like Stephen Douglas in [[italics]]The Rivalry [[/italics]]at the Pasadena Playhouse, and E. K. Hornbeck, the H. L. Mencken role, in [[italics]]Inherit the Wind[[/italics]] at the Player's Ring in West Hollywood. 

This theatre experience coupled with his regional television stints made him the perfect choice for "MTM's" six o'clock news anchorman.

Ted says he's never been to a psychiatrist ("Instead I talk to myself a lot") and age doesn't bother him ("If things get really bad I'll just get a little nip and tuck here and there"). What's of utmost importance to him are his wife of 29 years, Dorothy, and three kids who share his California home, which he says is located on "the other side of Malibu." Ted Jr., 20, is studying to be a certified public accountant; Elyse, 17, is theatrically bent and sings with a non-professional band on weekends; and Eric, 14, the athlete of the family, is a straight A student whom doctors predict will be 6'5". "I'm tough on my kids and I hope they won't resent me for it," he says. "I don't go along with the times; I'm a turtle and I don't care what anybody else wants me to be. There are certain values that I've been happy with, have faith in and I'm going to cling to them. I don't go for any of this elusive liberation thinking. I feel if you live with someone you should marry them."

He's not religious though he was brought up Catholic. "These days I'm only a Catholic when I go to the hospital," he says. "I'm what you call a deathbed Catholic though I have nothing against religion and do believe still in a Supreme Force."

Polish jokes do ruffle him a bit "If they're really funny I'll laugh at them," he says, not smiling. "But if someone says they have a Polish joke to tell me I usually say, 'Tell it to me in Polish!' That usually stops them." Then Ted Knight laughs that [[italics]]heheheheheheh laugh and suddenly he's Ted Baxter again. 

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TED[[strikethrough]]'S[[/strikethrough]] ^[[was]] ON BROADWAY

Last month when PLAYBILL went to press, Ted Knight was on Broadway in Stanley Hart's comedy Some of My Best Friends. Unfortunately the play was panned and closed after seven performances.

When a collaborative effort fails everyone feels responsible. Some of My Best Friends had been in the works for over a year and for its producer Arthur Whitelaw, who in the past has presented such successful shows as You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and Butterflies Are Free, it represents a loss of over $220,000.

Mr. Whitelaw feels that the play that was presented onstage was not the play he first read. "I'm not vindictive or anything like that," he said a few days after the opening/closing, "but you get so involved with the production emotionally it tends to cloud some of the issues at hand. Of course in hindsight you see everything with 20/20 vision."

What upset Ted Knight the most were the unanimously unfavorable reviews. "I know Broadway is the most ludicrous gamble anyone can make, but those so called men on the aisle have turned into executioners on Death Row," he said. "They should be encouraging theatre not ripping it down with their wise quips."

Whatever. Mr. Knight and his cohorts have no intention of giving up theatre. Mr. Whitelaw has a new musical [[italics]]The Utter Glory of Morrissey Hall,[[/italics]] which he's readying for later this season. Mr. Hart is writing a two-character musical which Mr. Whitelaw says he intends to produce. Mr. Prince will be back in February as director of the new Betty Comden/Adolph Green/Cy Coleman musical [[italics]]Twentieth Century[[/italics]]. And Mr. Knight says he expects to be working with Mr. Prince soon again, "maybe on a new musical by Stephen Sondheim." But in the interim he'll return to television (where win, lose or draw, a show is given the benefit of the doubt for 13 weeks) for his new series [[italics]]The Ted Knight Show[[/italics]].

Failures are nothing new for Broadway. Back in 1952, when a play called [[italics]]The Grass Harp[[/italics]] folded in a hurry (a musical version 20 years later suffered the same fate), one of its mourners, lyricist-playwright Howard Dietz, wrote a lament which was first published in the drama section of [[italics]]The New York Times[[/italics]] and later in [[italics]]The Passionate Playgoer[[/italics]] (Viking). We've reprinted a portion of it here.

[[italics]]
(accompanied on a grass harp)
Sing a lament for the plays that fail —
A dirge for the shows that fold.
A tear on the bier of the flops of the year
And the ticket that couldn't be sold.
Requiem sound of the overly ribald —
The "ball in the air" that was faultily dribbled
And the play that had little to say.
Wringing of hands for the major fiascos,
The Saturday sundown of would-be Belascos
And the scenery carted away.
[[/italics]]

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