The Year I Was Defeated by Hollywood's Hal Stalmaster
Hal Stalmaster starred as Johnny Tremain in the Disney movie on the American Revolution. That was in 1957.
I didn't see that movie until it was on videotape sometime in the 1980's.
Throughout the 1970's, I kept seeing this announcement on movie screens: "Casting by Lynn Stalmaster." I figured that must have been Stalmaster's father. It turns out that he was his older brother. He won an honorary Oscar last year. He literally invented the field of Hollywood casting. When we hear the phrase, "he was sent by central casting," we should think "Lynn Stalmaster."
I met Hal in the spring of 1961. We were competing for a slot on the team that would be sent by the University of California to India for a summer. It was called Project India. All five campuses were involved: Berkeley, UCLA, Riverside, Santa Barbara, and Davis.
Every weekend for at least three weekends about 50 of us competed. It was rigorous competition. Why we all wanted to go to India is beyond me today.
I did not make the cut. In retrospect, I remember only two people who made the team. One of them is easy to remember.
Her name was Sandy Jennings. I didn't know her before we competed, but she became a friend afterwards. Quite frankly, that was worth losing in the competition. She defeated me fair and square. I wrote about her here.
The other was Stalmaster.
What is even more incredible, I still remember the speech that he gave as part of the competition. He was assigned the general topic of explaining economics to the group. I can remember his discussion of Adam Smith. He talked about three categories of production: land, labor, and capital.
It is rare that any of us remembers a speech that we heard a month ago, let alone well over half a century ago. But I remember it. I was impressed at the time, because that was a topic I knew something about. It was a good presentation. I wished at the time that I had been assigned that topic. Who knows? Maybe I would have gone to India.
I don't think anybody involved in the competition knew who Stalmaster was. I think the scuttlebutt would have gotten out if anybody had known. I think everybody knew who Sandy Jennings was and what she had accomplished.
In retrospect, I suspect the reason why I never forgot Stalmaster was that he had an air of confidence about him. He was not arrogant. There were other people in that group who had equal talents. But it helps to know how to give a speech. If you have this ability, you have a head start on your competitors.
When I finally saw Johnny Tremain, I did not recognize Stalmaster. I knew he was the star, but the man I remembered was nothing like the character in the movie. They did not even look alike. It was not the lack of makeup in 1961. There was just no facial resemblance as far as I recalled. What was common, I think, was something we generally call poise. Is the sense of being comfortable right where you are and who you are, even under pressure. Actors have this. Good speakers have this. Good speakers are a lot like actors.
Stalmaster was both. So, of course, was Ronald Reagan.
I recommend that you develop your public speaking abilities. This is why we have a course on public speaking in the Ron Paul Curriculum. It is a course for ninth graders. The earlier someone develops these skills, the higher the payoff over a lifetime.