In November of 1970, Atlanta sculptor Martin Emmanual had a show at the High Museum in Atlanta - a well deserved exhibition by one of the country's best artists. As a colleague at the Atlanta College of Art, Martin was a good friend and we had recently done a group show together. Sitting on a bench outside the show was a familiar face only I couldn't recall the name. I sidled up to Marty and asked who was that guy. "That is Clark Polling's (a professor at Emory University in Atlanta) father-in-law, Jeff Corey" Marty told me. Jeff Corey? Not the actor Jeff Corey? Oh it is, it's him! So I made a bee-line for the bench. Corey was sitting by himself and I sat down and said "Mr. Corey I have always enjoyed your work". He looked quite relieved that someone knew who he was. We talked for thirty minutes or more and I asked him what his latest projects were, what his reaction to Marty's sculpture was ( he like it a lot) and he asked me about what I did. All the while I'm thinking this is the guy who taught everybody how to do character acting - Jack Nicholson, Leonard Nimoy, James Dean, Candice Bergen, Kirk Douglas, Robin Williams, Rob Reiner, Ann-Magaret, Anthony Perkins, Jeff Bridges, Jane Fonda, Steve Allen just to name a handful. And what a great actor - Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Little Big Man, True Grit and dozens more. And here he was just sitting by himself and ready to have gab with a perfect stranger - but one who knew him, a little. There is an excellent Website about him at http://www.jeffcoreytheteacher.com/ .
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