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Calvin Lockhart stars as the sophisticated disc jockey in a grueling
fight for survival in MGM's ‘‘Melinda.”’
MAT NO. 2A
THE SEARCH
Moving to New York from his native land of Nassau, Calvin Lockhart was a young man in search of himself. After nine years in New York he says, “‘I felt that | was running around in circles, and | got fed up with the pushing and shoving of New York life style. My life there had become very narrow and insular. But | had discovered acting as a release for some of my energy.”’
Now he’s harnessing that energy for the role of a flamboyant disc jockey who becomes involved with a beautiful girl and murder in MGM’s ‘‘Melinda,” a slightly delayed follow-up to two earlier appearances that had critics marking him for stardom.
“When | left New York, there was no question in my mind that London was where | wanted to go,”’ explains Lockhart, “‘it was just a matter of getting there. | always knew that once | got there, | was going to stay. That meant | would really have to buckle down and work, and | wasn’t ready to do that just then. So | stopped in Rome on the way to London. | felt the necessity to be loose, you know, to be able to get up and move.
“‘In Rome | began to come across people who used each other without a twinge of thought or remorse. They used each other sexually and economically, openly and unashamedly,”’ he added.
“The boys on Via Veneto aren’t there for nothing. They don’t want to work, so they make it the best way they can, and that’s very much Rome. | became a part of that Roman scene, then | began to feel again this claustrophobia.
“My next stop was Germany. | decided | needed, with even more urgency, to get my head together. | spent the following year
there, and did nothing but write. Writing was my way of trying to come to terms with what was me. Putting it all on paper, made it almost like going to a psychiatrist.
“You kinda pour it all out on paper, and after it’s all there in front of you, you can then see what the progression has been. When it was over, | had written a book, a three-act play and two television scripts. None of them were very good, but it was very much therapeutic,’’ said Lockhart.
Arriving in London, where he has lived since 1966, Lockhart, at last, began to understand what the man inside the man was all about. While there, he did his film role in ‘Joanna’ and then “Halls of Anger.’’
“In London | found that | didn’t have to adjust to anything. The English life style is there, but it doesn’t impose itself on you. They have this facility for allowing people to do their own thing,”’ said Lockhart.
“‘That’s why the Beatles and the mini-skirt came out of England. Any kind of dissent is eventually neutralized by letting it filter into the system, then it’s not noticed anymore.
“They have this fantastic ability for absorbing things, but they never change. No one’s going to try and stop you from doing anything. They may not necessarily help you, but that’s how you find out what you’re all about,’’ he added.
Right now, film fans are anxious to ‘‘absorb’”’ his performance in ‘‘Melinda”’ and they certainly won't try to ‘‘stop him” from doing more roles.
Calvin Lockhart, having lured the mobsters into a trap, unleashes his attack on an astonished hood in MGM's ‘‘Melinda.”’
MAT NO. 2B