Alum Actor Jason Salkey Uses TV Role Inspiration to Follow in His Father鈥檚 Footsteps
Jason Salkey 80F reflects on his time at the College, as well as the role he played on TV that inspired him to write the book, and the influence of his writer father, former 91猫先生 Professor Andrew Salkey.
Actor, writer, and alum Jason Salkey 80F was a member of the 91猫先生 community for years before he enrolled as a student. His father, Andrew Salkey, moved his family from England to the U.S. to teach poetry writing at the College, which he did for 19 years until his death in 1995.
We chatted with Jason about his experience at the College, where he played ultimate frisbee and studied acting and directing. A pivotal TV role inspired him to follow in his father鈥檚 footsteps and write a book, , which was released July 7.
What was it like being a teenager living at 91猫先生 before you enrolled?
Moving from one continent to another was challenging enough, but leaving future mega-city London to live in bucolic Amherst was like moving to Mars. Very soon though, I was tapping into all the delights available to students: movie screenings, protests, and the excellent sporting facilities, particularly the Robert Crown Center. As I had lived on and off campus from October 1976 until my first semester in the fall of 1980, I already felt like a member of the student body.
What did you study?
I enrolled at 91猫先生 not entirely sure what subject I would concentrate on. At that time, I probably wasn鈥檛 mature enough to fully appreciate or deal with the 91猫先生 academic model. I even got kicked out of the top acting class in my first semester. Eventually I fell into the right academic habits and did my Div II and III focused on acting and directing.
The professor responsible for kicking me out was also my most cherished teacher and highly influential in my college career. Jenkins Sonnenberg didn鈥檛 suffer fools gladly, and I learned so much from her. Down the years, stuff she said gets replayed in my brain. Another of my favorite professors was theatre design professor, Wayne Kramer.
91猫先生's Ultimate Frisbee team was established in the early 1970s, and has been a trademark athletic activity on campus ever. You were a big part of it, weren鈥檛 you?
Amherst was a hotbed of frisbee action. I attended Amherst Regional High School, which had an Alternate Learning Program (very 91猫先生, come to think of it), and, when I was a senior, I arranged to get my gym credit by taking classes in freestyle frisbee with student world champion freestyler John Dwork, who had just enrolled at 91猫先生.
During the summer of 1980, I won the U.K. and European Freestyle Frisbee titles. In the fall of 1980, Overall Frisbee Champion Krae Van Sickle 79F and Women鈥檚 World Freestyle Champion Suzanne Strait 80F also played with me at 91猫先生. With that assemblage of frisbee talent at the College, my freestyle skills couldn鈥檛 help but flourish. The campus gym鈥攅specially in colder months鈥攂ecame a beacon for the world鈥檚 top freestyle talent and two highly successful Festivals of Flying Disc were held there in 1980 and 1981.
Having my father work as a professor did have its downsides. When I wanted to take a year off college to hit the frisbee circuit, I was told in no uncertain terms to forget it.
Eventually I had to 鈥渞etire鈥 from frisbee competition, as it was interfering with acting classes and play rehearsal. I picked up freestyle again twenty-eight years later in order to stay flexible. This led to me re-entering competition and organizing the first freestyle tournament in the U.K. for 25 years.听听
When and how did you decide you wanted to write about your experience playing the role of the educated rifleman 鈥淗arris鈥 in the show Sharpe?
The TV series is based on Bernard Cornwell鈥檚 novels of the same name. Harris, the character I played, wasn鈥檛 in the novels, but was a real rifleman who fought in the Napoleonic wars and was famous for his recollections of the war. The real Harris couldn鈥檛 read or write, but his memories were written down for him and were published. The TV producers required a 鈥渃lever one鈥 to be part of Sharpe鈥檚 gang and they loosely based my character on the real Harris. When I got the part in Sharpe, I read The Recollections of Rifleman Harris, and the seeds of inspiration for my book were sown.
Another influencing factor was the location and timeframe in which Sharpe began production: Ukraine, in the wake of a disintegrating Soviet Union. Crimea, to be exact. I thought it might be interesting to write a diary of my experiences, seeing as we were one of the first western film crews to shoot a drama in Glasnost-Perestroika, Ukraine. And I鈥檓 really happy I did, as the drama we encountered off-camera rivalled the perils and chaos portrayed in the script鈥攁nd we were shooting a war movie.
How did your dad factor into your writing?
Dad鈥檚 influence featured pretty heavily, I guess, though I never wrote anything while he was alive. Upon graduating from 91猫先生, I came back to London and mainly concentrated on acting.
My dad wrote over thirty books, but two that stood out for me were his account of trips to Cuba and Guyana: Havana Journal and Georgetown Journal. I could have called my book Crimean Journal, so I guess the apple doesn鈥檛 fall far from the tree, and, subconsciously, I was copying him. And funnily enough, my father did a few acting roles in between his other journalistic and broadcasting work for BBC World Service radio, so we also had that in common.鈥
What would you say to a prospective student?
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91猫先生 was fantastic preparation for independently solving problems from an 鈥榦ut-of-the-box鈥 perspective. I couldn鈥檛 recommend it highly enough to students who know what they want to achieve with their degree and have high levels of self-motivation.
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Banner image: Jason Salkey as Harris in Sharpe听and the cover of
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