Where are They Now? Bill
Timoney (ex-Alfred Vanderpool; 1982-87, 1998-2005)
Sex, Lies and College
Reunions: Coming Home is Not Just Another Day in the Valley
Fun Fact 1: For
Bill, All My Children was a family business. His mother,
Mary Gardiner, was a background extra, and his brother Mike Timoney,
was Tom Cudahy's groomsmen at his marriage to Erica Kane.
Fun Fact 2: Julia Roberts and Bill once shared
a kiss. She auditioned opposite Bill in 1983 for the role of Linda
Warner, which would go to fellow Oscar nominee Melissa Leo.
Fun Fact 3: After ending his initial run in Pine
Valley, Bill stayed close to his Pine Valley roots when he became
an assistant to former co-star and now sitcom director, Dorothy
Lyman (ex-Opal Gardner) in Los Angeles.
Fun Fact 4: Boys II Men based their look off
of Alfred Vanderpool's preppy wardrobe. The name "Vanderpool"
shows up in music videos for "Motown Philly" and "I'll
Make Love to You." Band member Nathan Morris took on the
stage name, "Alex Vanderpool." |
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Bill Timoney (ex-Alfred Vanderpool) fondly remembers his
time on All My Children as the socially inept Alfred, college
roommate to good guy Greg Nelson and friend to town vagabond Tad Martin.
Though most people remember Bill for his run as Alfred, his affiliation
with the show began long before Jenny and Greg made it to the halls
of Pine Valley University. Meticulous fans could spot Bill onscreen
as a background extra as early as 1978.
"There is a photograph you always see of Greg and Jenny at the
high school prom. Right between them, or behind them, is me. I was right
between them, upstage," Bill said.
Bill recruited his friends to come in as extras on the show during the
height of the Pine Valley High storylines. Bill coined them, "The
Bad Extras Club," after the Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor slogan in
Stir Crazy, "That's right. We're bad." The extras
served to fill the shots as Jenny and Greg labored over their unrequited
feelings, and Liza Colby plotted to keep them apart.
"All My Children was my first professional home,"
Bill said.
Bill grew up right outside New York City. His mother, Mary Gardiner,
worked in the early days of live television as a model. Bill remembers
being exposed to the world of entertainment at a very young age. "My
mom was the Vanna White of her time. She used to bring my brother and
I to her agency. Eventually my brother and I got cast in TV commercials,"
Bill said. "I have footage of me in my first TV commercial from
when I was eight months old."
As Bill grew up, he fell in love with classic cinema. In college he
decided acting was his calling. Without an agent, Bill was not sure
how to start his search for work. Bill hoped his mother's former career
would help him get started. "She said, 'all my business contacts
are dead,'" Bill remembered. Gardiner had stopped making television
appearances years before to raise a family.
Gardiner teamed up with achurch friend in hopes that she could sway
Bill back into a more traditional career. She was Joan D'Incecco, All
My Children's famed and original Casting Director. D'Incecco and
Gardiner had become close friends while putting together charity fashion
shows at their families' church. "Her son was going to school with
my kid brother. Her daughter was in dance class with my sister,"
Bill said. "Joan told my mother, 'Why don't I bring Bill in with
me. He can audition and see it is really hard. Hopefully this will dissuade
him.'"
"That was the plan," Bill said. "New York City was this
big bad place. I did not have an agent. People were flying in from LA
for auditions. I could see it was going to be really hard. It was a
big deal."
By 1978, All My Children had gained a solid viewership and
was ranking at the top of the ratings chart. Bill was another actor
trying to get his big break on the daytime serial. "It was the
middle of the Devon McFadden and Dan Kennicott thing," Bill remembers.
"Phoebe was pretending to be in a wheel chair. Brooke caught her
walking, trying to fix a drink."
"I was sitting outside the office waiting for my turn when Nick
Benedict (ex-Phil Brent) came by and sat next to me," Bill said.
"He gave me a few tips. He did not look at me like I did not belong.
It was a wonderful thing."
"It came down to me and one or two other guys for the role of Wally
McFadden," Bill said. The role would go to Jack Magee, and was
recast two more times before being written off the show. But the producers
at the show liked what they saw from Bill. D'Incecco told Bill they
wanted him to start as a background extra and under-five. "Joan
got me a commercial agent. I transferred colleges and moved back home.
Joan's assistant used me as a background player as much as she could,"
Bill said. "Joan called my mom and said, 'I have really bad news,
they really like him.'"
So began Bill's days in the "Bad Extras Club." "The club
had certain rules," Bill said. "Don't talk to the contract
players unless they wanted to chat with you. Whenever you were in a
dancing scene, your head had to be upstage so whomever you danced with
had their face to the cameras. If it was somebody's first day as an
extra, we did the best to get them on camera."
Bill became the go-to background extra for his early years on the show.
"I was the stand-in for the young man who played Tad Gardner Martin,
John Dunn. John was in High School. Sometimes he could not cut class
to tape if he had an exam of something." Bill said. "I got
to understand the going-ons by going to the set so much."
In 1981 the show began to see a change in focus. Headwriter Agnes Nixon
sought to introduce a new decade of youngsters to the teen set. They
were Laurence Lau as Greg Nelson and Kim Delaney as Jenny Gardner. The
Jenny and Greg romance dominated the early 1980's and garnered the show
national attention. Bill saw his airtime as a background extra increase.
As more roles were being written to support the younger storylines,
Bill sought to capitalize on the opportunity to land a contract.
"I was pretty close to booking the part of Greg, but they hired
Larry," Bill remembered. His second chance came about with a role
he was not all too unfamiliar with. Executive Producer Jacqueline Babbin
wanted Bill to read for the role of the now much more grown up and promiscuous
Tad. "They remembered I did a lot of work for John Dunn. It was
a brand new producer. I had never met her before. The first time I did
was for the final reading," Bill said. As Bill awaited his fate,
his fellow "Bad Extras" were shooting a big Jenny and Greg
scene. "This was my third audition for Tad. I went to lunch with
my buddies," Bill said.
When Bill came back to the studio that day, Casting Associate Suzanne
Ringrose approached him. "She said, 'I had good news for you,'"
Bill said. At that very moment, Delaney turned the corner. "She
asked, 'Is he going to be Tad?'" Bill remembered. Ringrose replied,
"No, Alfred."
Delaney and Bill both responded with, "Who's Alfred?" The
producers were also casting for the recurring role of Greg's mentioned
but never seen college roommate. Though the role was not contract, they
already had a number of appearances lined up for Bill. "I jumped
up and almost hit the ceiling. Kim gave me a great hug. Some people
in the industry will tell you that doing background extra work never
leads to bigger jobs. I'm living proof that they're wrong."
"When you are a recurring day player, you usually exist as a sounding
board. You say things like, 'and then what happened?' Amanda Bearse
(ex-Amanda Cousins) was a recurring player. Liza needed someone to talk
to because she was evil and always standing apart plotting," Bill
said. "Strong (Peter, ex-Bob Georgia) was another non-contract
recurring day player in the AMC youth storyline, serving as Tad's sounding
board."
"But Alfred Vanderpool was such an exception that most of my cast
mates assumed I was under contract. Whenever Alfred appeared, his scenes
were not of the, 'and then what happened, Gregory?' Rather, his scenes
were about him, usually about how uptight he was when he tried to ask
out Dottie, Hillary," Bill said. "Greg and Jenny had to teach
Alfred how to relax, how to talk to girls.
The role of Tad would go to Michael E. Knight, who has played the role
on and off ever since. "Joan told me Jackie turned to her and said,
'Bill is not right for Tad. I want someone more evil. But, he was the
best actor you've shown me yet. Let's find him something," Bill
said. Knight recalled from his final audition that the temperature in
the studio was so cold he had to keep his hands in his leather bomber
jacket to keep warm. That type of swagger was what made him stand out
to Babbin and eventually won him the role.
"Michael is such a professional and good at what he does. He is
the luckiest man I have ever met in the business," Bill said. "I
remember the first time he left. He was leaving for LA. It was the last
day before he left and he got a call at the studio from his manager."
"He had booked a movie," Bill said. "He never made it
to LA. He was on his way, but then came back to the show. I marveled
at that, to get such a deal on your last day on contract."
Though Alfred was a new face for the Pine Valley younger set, Bill was
already familiar with his cast members. "Kim, Larry, Marcy (Walker,
ex-Liza Colby), they had all gotten familiar with me," Bill said.
Lau and Bill had a secret handshake they would do on and off screen.
Walker and Bill had met years prior to their time at the program.
"In 1979….I auditioned opposite a young blonde. She told
me she had just moved from Chicago and it was her second audition. She
didn't even have a place to live. She was staying in New Jersey with
friends," Bill remembers of his first encounter with Walker in
New York City. " I gave her a lift home because she was a really
nice person, and I was happy to help out another 'new in town' young
actor, the way Nick Benedict was nice to me. In our profession, ya gotta
pass kindness on."
"It wasn't really on the way," Bill remembered. "I probably
had to go an additional thirty minutes out of the way,"
"She knew nobody," Bill said. "We did not exchange numbers,
or stay in touch. I had her headshot in my bag. She gave it to me to
give to casting directors in case I heard of anything. I recognized
her immediately when she came on as Liza." When the pair was reunited
in 1998, Walker remarked that Bill never forgot anything.
Bill knew he had a large task at hand to make the character of Alfred
likeable. He was a member of the Main Line's upper-crust. An intellect
whose social skills bordered on nuisance. "Jackie wanted me to
act like Thurston Howell (from 'Gilligan's Island'). I was to be very
preppy and clench my teeth when I walked. I did not want to do that.
I hated preppy stuff," Bill said. "I used to go up to Michael
Knight and turn down his collar."
Bill came up with two character traits that he attributed to Alfred's
longevity. Firstly, he was to never speak a contraction. "He said,
'will not,' and 'can not." Soon, they stopped writing contractions
in my lines."
Secondly, he wanted Alfred to win over the audience by channeling their
love for Jenny. "My plan was to harness the magic of Kim Delaney.
Kim is such a natural. The way she smiles, the way she laughs…it
was why she was America's sweetheart," Bill said of his co-star.
"Dorothy Lyman (ex-Opal Gardner) had taken her under her wind and
taught Kim what it takes."
Bill did not think he had the relationship with Delaney to ask her to
be his accomplice. Instead he decided to act on the element of surprise.
He would do things differently during taping than what he did during
rehearsals. He knew Delaney's natural reflex was to laugh if something
went not as planned. "Kim laughing, enjoying me as Alfred, read
as Jenny enjoying Alfred. If Jenny loved Alfred, the audience would
love Alfred too," Bill said. The planned worked.
Bill continued to infuse his own views of Alfred subtly into his role.
He would reword his lines to make them a reference to "Bugs Bunny"
cartoons. He also sought to make lines more comical, which made him
a perfect scene partner for fellow class clown Knight. The two would
improvise their lines frequently in the scenes as friendly rivals.
Though Alfred became more a fixture with his arguments with Tad, bonding
moments with Greg, and hopeless crush on Liza, Bill was on the show
without a contract. On his days off, he was working at a liquor store.
"Alfred is from Sewickly, Pennsylvania. When our PVU freshman year
ended, Alfred apparently went back home and got out of Pine Valley for
the summer. So I didn't appear on any episodes that summer. While I
hoped Alfred would return that next Fall, and he eventually did, I had
no contractual guarantee from AMC that I would," Bill
said. "So I always needed another gig to pay the rent."
"Customers would volunteer to help me run lines," Bill remembered.
In 1984, Bill opted to get lingual braces to correct a crooked tooth.
The procedure left Bill with a slight speech impediment. One day, Babbin
stopped Bill in the hallway to ask, "When do you get the braces
off the back of your teeth?" Bill honestly answered he had about
a year left. "I had a feeling. She was being a good producer, to
find out her options," Bill said.
Tad was in a romance with Hillary Wilson. The writers wanted one more
spoiler to delay their pairing. "Two days later, Peter Strong was
jumping up and down in the hallway. They had signed him to a contract.
Hillary was going to marry Bob because he was dying," Bill said.
"I felt very happy for Peter. After all, I knew what getting a
contract could mean. But I remember feeling that Alfred could have fulfilled
the same function in the Tad/Hillary storyline as Bob."
"Jackie Babbin never stopped me to chat in the hallway before,
so her question about the braces and speech impediment had a reason
behind it. Now, I was not in the room when Jackie and the writers discussed
devices to keep Tad and Hillary apart, but I couldn't help thinking
that it could've gone another way," Bill said.
"I did outlast several contract players," Bill said. "They
signed you to three years… some would be gone before that time.
I remembered contract players would complain. They wanted to leave.
But I loved being here. I would have signed in a heartbeat."
Bill never forgot his time as an extra. His dressing room was always
the extra lounge where the day's groups could leave their bags and get
ready. "If you were assigned in the dressing room with me, you
had ten extra people in the room," Bill said.
"All the extras, we used to go out to lunch as a big group. One
time this guy said he could not come. He did not have the money to.
I told him, 'No sweat. I will float you,'" Bill said. Bill thought
nothing of it. Weeks later, the extra was at the front desk with the
money to pay Bill back. He had been cast in Nixon's newest soap opera,
Loving. He was Perry Stephens, Loving's Jack Forbes.
Through Stephens, Bill became good friends with Bryan Cranston. The
three remain close friends long after their soap stints ended.
Though he never met Nixon, she was a fan of Bill's work. "A friend
of mine did. He introduced himself as a friend of mine and she told
him, 'Tell your friend that the Erica's and Greg and Jenny's may be
a big part of the show, but it is the Alfred's of the show that are
the foundation for many of our viewers,'" Bill said.
In the early 1980's All My Children stood out for its diverse
group of comedic characters. There was Alfred, Tad, Edna Fergueson and
a character the likes of which Daytime had never seen, Opal Gardner.
Lyman came on to the role thinking it was a short term gig. "She
was supposed to be the ex-wife of villainous Ray Gardner. Her job was
to come from West Virginia, and dump her daughter off where Tad was
staying with the Martins," Bill remembered. "They were going
to establish Opal as a rotten mother."
"She (Lyman) decided to make the character more interesting with
conflict. She wanted a dichotomy to the character," Bill said.
"In her first scenes, they (Lyman and Delaney) are on a bus. Opal
turns to Jenny and asks , 'Why did you do that?' Then, she was supposed
to slap her across the face and say, 'Never do that again.' Come tape
time, Dorothy does, 'Why did you do that?' Bam! Across the face. She
then tenderly puts her hand on Jenny's face, kisses her and says, 'Momma
loves you baby. Now never do that again.'"
The cast of All My Children in 1982. Bill is on the top row, seventh
from the Left next to Larry Lau (ex-Greg).
Can you name everyone in the photo?
"The director told her not to do it that way. But
Dorothy kept doing it her way. She was supposed to be on only for a
couple of days. The audience went crazy for her," Bill said. "In
a matter or weeks, Dorothy was signed to a contract. It was that moment
that galvanized much of what you saw in the 80's. I secretly believed
that is why Dustin Hoffman's character in Tootsie was named 'Dorothy.'
If you follow the timelines, it was on the heels of the Dorothy Lyman
phenomena."
"I think that spilled over to Michael and I," Bill said. "They
started letting more comedy reign in."
His comedic prowess did not go unnoticed. "One of the greatest
experiences of my life was when Carol Burnett (ex-Verla Grubbs) came
to town," Bill said. "The associate producer was with Carol.
She stopped me to introduce me to her. Carol blows by her and says,
'I know who this is -- hello, Bill!.' She then told me how much she
enjoyed my performances in the Alfred role."
"It was a surreal moment in my life," Bill said.
By 1987, Alfred's role began to diminish. He was now a professor of
Anthropology at his alma martyr, Pine Valley University. He remembered
his last plot had him hitting on Cecily Davidson (Rosa Nevin), who had
eyes for more dangerous men. "I had heard Susan Lucci (Erica Kane)
once say that the one person who would do well in Hollywood was Bill
Timoney because he was good with the sitcom stuff," Bill said.
"She asked me what kind of deal I had with the show. I told her
I did not have a deal. Everybody was stunned to see I did not have a
deal. I decided to leave the show for Hollywood."
Bill remembered his early days in LA were not easy. "I could not
get any work. I was thinking about leaving the business. What was I
supposed to do?" Bill said. A phone call lifted his spirits. "It
was Carol's assistant. I had written Carol telling her I was in town.
Her assistant had an appointment for me. That kept me in the business."
Bill found his niche as a voice actor and producer on Japanese animation
films. He also continued to guest star in television. Staying true to
his Daytime roots, Bill had hired D'Inecco as a Casting Director for
one of his projects. He also collaborated with his old friend Bryan
Cranston. It was on the set of Cranston's 1998 movies Last Chance,
that Bill heard a familiar voice for the first time in a long time when
he got a surprise phone call.
"The voice said he was looking for Bill Timoney. It was Michael
Knight," Bill said. "He said, 'They're looking for you! They
want you to come back as Alfred.'"
"Maybe it was Jean Burke (former Executive Producer), she was a
big fan of mine," Bill said. "Suddenly, Alfred was at the
bank. He came out with a safety deposit box that exonerated Brooke.
That's when it all started again."
"Every time Adam needed a shill, they called me," Bill said.
"I don't know how Alfred stayed at the bank for so long. He was
such a pushover. Every time someone needed to write a bad check, or
if Babe made goggley eyes at him… he would break the rules for
them."
"Megan (McTavish, former Headwriter) remembered Alfred and wrote
good moments for him," Bill said. "She wrote a scene where
Tad was trying to get back at Liza, and Liza wanted to date him again.
He set her up with a stranger. The stranger turned out to me. I was
putting the moves on Liza again."
"I did not wear my checked sweaters and bow tie again," Bill
said. "I felt it was time to let the character grow up; he could
still be eccentric, but he couldn't remain that awkward teenager any
longer. That's also the reason why I stopped wearing glasses on the
show."
"Then there was the stuff in 2005 when I finally got back at Tad
and locked him up in the bank," Bill said. "I know that was
Megan's doing. She had known about our relationship from those years.
She finally let Alfred get back at Tad."
Though Bill fondly remembers the Greg and Jenny era, he also remembers
the day it all ended. "In 1984, Kim and Marcy both left. Kim, Marcy
and Larry all signed with the show at the same time. Marcy said she
was going to renew, but left at the last minute for Santa Barbara.
Kim made no secret she was not going to renew," Bill said. "I
don't think the network believed her. When they realized she was serious,
it was too late. They asked for a contract extension."
"From what I heard, Kim wanted to be killed off. She did not want
to come back ever. It was the eleventh hour and the show had to deal
with how to write out Jenny," Bill said. Jenny would die after
her jet ski was set to explode by her former fiancé, Tony Barclay.
"So many people in the audience did not forgive us for that. Killing
Jenny was a big part of All My Children beginning to lose its
audience," Bill said. It did not help that the show hired a Delaney
look-a-like to romance Greg. The story failed to fill the void that
Delaney's departure left in the young set storyline.
"Really, it was poor Larry. Greg was really worked between these
two wonderful actresses, Marcy and Kim. When they left, Larry was stuck,"
Bill said. Eventually, Lau would leave the program too and the role
of Greg was too recast with Jack Armstrong.
After Bill left the program, he continued to be seen in daytime. In
the late 1990's he landed a recurring guest role as Holly Reade's assistant
on Guiding Light."I have a hard time saying no to work.
I am not one of those rare actors who can afford to say 'no' to work,"
Bill said. He had been in New York recording some voice over roles when
Frank Dicopolos (Frank Cooper, GL) helped him land the role.
In the early 1990's, Bill also moonlighted with Perry Stephens in a
nightclub act. "I was the warm up, since I did stand up. Perry
would do the nice songs. We would do duets," Bill said. "So
Perry taught me to perform as a singer and I helped Perry be funny."
Their show also featured a guest soap actress the likes of which included
Kim Zimmer (Reva Shayne, GL), Liz Vassey (ex-Emily Ann Sago), Sue Scannell
(ex-Nicole, Dynasty) and the late Nikki Goulet (ex-Mary Finelli, RH).
He also directed acts for Catherine Hickland (ex-Lindsey Rappaport,
OLTL) and Babs Hooyman (ex-Ethel, Opal's Glamoramma Assistant).
Bill continues to act and produce primarily out of New York City. He
and Bryan Cranston have a project in the works. "My wife and I
live on the Jersey Shore. Our dog loves to chase deer in the woods,
which is really hard to do in Manhattan," Bill said.
Bill has been busy performing in regional theater. "My first job
out of school was a nine months as part of Shakespeare touring company.
I got to see a part of the country I never got to see before,"
Bill said. Bill and his wife are auditioning for roles together so that
they can travel and act together.
He will never close the door on Pine Valley. "I love to work with
Michael E. Knight. It is always a blast," Bill said. "Now
that Darnell (Williams, Jesse Hubbard) and Debbi (Morgan, Angie Hubbard)
are back, I would love to work with them too. Darnell and I had great
scenes back in the days of Jesse and Jenny.
"I absolutely loved the part and going back to Pine Valley. No
matter the changes it has gone through, it is always exciting to me.
I always go back when they ask me," Bill said. "So many times
I thought it was the last time I would hear from them, only to come
back."
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