From tobacco fields to Wilmington-shot 'Matlock,' a Tar Heel actor reflects on his career

Veteran actor Jordan Rhodes is based in New York but he's quite familiar to audiences in Wilmington and Southport. He had a recurring role as a police detective on the shot-in- Wilmington TV series "Matlock," and he's toured the area with his two-person show about Ernest Hemingway, "Papa: The Man, The Myth, the Legend."

Although he never reached the magnitude of a George Clooney or Matt Damon, Rhodes has enjoyed a busy five-decade career. In the 1960s and '70s, he popped up all over network TV, with guest spots on shows from "Green Acres," "Quincy," "Barnaby Jones" and "Ironside" to "Battlestar Galactica."

He appeared in feature films such as "Mr. Majesty," "Marooned" and the 2006 version of "All the King's Men." In the film version of "1776" he had a walk-on as William Hooper, one of North Carolina's signers of the Declaration of Independence (although he didn't get credited, according to Internet Movie Database)

Rhodes has written a memoir of his eventful career, "The Life of a Blue Collar Actor," and, not surprisingly, he proves to be a gifted storyteller as well. Screen and stage buffs will be entertained.

Born in Raleigh's Rex Hospital, Rhodes grew up all over North Carolina and Virginia. His father, a mostly self-taught electrician and barbecue chef, moved around a lot. By his account he caught the acting bug in junior high, playing Tom Sawyer (he was sweet on the girl playing Becky Thatcher). That led, eventually, to theater school and summer stock.

In New York, he was auditioning alongside Dustin Hoffman and Joe Don Baker. In 1965, he made the leap to the West Coast, where his pals ranged from Robert Wagner to a young Sean Penn. (Wagner wrote the foreword to "Blue Collar Actor." Penn donated a jacket blurb.)

Rhodes will not be a classical stylist, but he mastered a key lesson of Creative Writing 101: Write the way you talk. Some of his best passages come early, recalling summers spent on his uncles' farms, working in the tobacco fields.

Book review

The Life of a Blue Collar Actor

By Jordan Rhodes

Rhodes Productions, $19.95 paperback

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: From tobacco fields to Wilmington-shot 'Matlock,' a Tar Heel actor reflects on his career