During a career that has spanned over 30 years, Jack Wagner has proven himself to be, not just a triple, but a quadruple threat. Though most well-known for his work in television, Wagner has achieved great recognition as an accomplished stage actor, musician, and holds the rare distinction of being a scratch golfer. He currently stars on Hallmark Channel’s acclaimed drama series When Calls the Heart.
In 1983, after graduating from the University of Arizona, Wagner burst on the scene as rocker Frisco Jones on the No. 1 daytime series, “General Hospital.”
Now, he’s going to be the grand marshal of the 2024 Seminole Hard Rock Winterfest Boat Parade.
Wagner was interviewed by Lifestyle Group Editor-in-Chief Kevin Gale while on location in Vancouver where his series is filmed. The following transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.
How do you go from a kid born in Missouri to being famous?
I think there’s certain people that come into our lives that allow us to be at some sort of crossroads or fork in the road. A teacher came in when I was a sophomore in high school in the mid-1970s and had heard me play guitar. He said, “I want you to audition for the play that’s coming up.” So, that’s how I started doing theater. I was an athlete as well. I pursued a career in golf, but that first play really gave me the bug and so I followed that bug and eventually wound up in Los Angeles.
You played some memorable characters, Frisco Jones, Warren Lockridge, Dr. Peter Burns, and now you’re playing Bill Avery. Do you have a favorite?
Well, people still call me Frisco. This is still probably the No. 1 thing when people say something. But for me, the most rewarding role I’ve ever played was Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde on Broadway. That was my role of a lifetime up to now, although I’ve been blessed to have a great run on television to play some characters that have their own identity. Peter Burns on Melrose Place was kind of dark, but a noble doctor who had a lot of female patients and never did any surgery, but certainly slept with a lot of ’em.
You were also involved in the “Wedding March” series films, which became quite a franchise.
The “Wedding March” franchise came out of my relationship with the CEO and executives at Hallmark. So once I started on “When Calls the Heart” with Executive Producer Brad Kevoy, I was able to formulate a pretty good pitch for “Wedding March.” Bill Abbott (then CEO of Hallmark Channel) immediately loved it and said, “You’re in development.” I got ahold of Josie Bissett and asked her if she’d want to jump in and be my co-star. It was great. I was able, as executive producer and the star, to collaborate with the writers on the scripts and the direction of the scripts, including music, and sort of tell a little bit of my life story through this franchise of movies about a songwriter who had a romance in college where they wrote together. He got a record deal and that’s how they broke up. And then, 25 years later, they see each other at a wedding lodge that he owns, and she’s getting married. And as I pitched it, I said, “When they see each other, it’s a drop the platter moment.”
You were also a director on Melrose Place for some of the episodes. Is that something you aspired to? Did you enjoy it?
Aaron Spelling (the producer) was fantastic to the actors. I was one of several actors who directed. I love directing. I just love it. But gratefully, I’ve been on a very good run as an actor, so I never really pursued directing outside of “Melrose Place” because the crew had my back. It was very easy for actors to transition into directing on “Melrose Place” because it wasn’t like we were going to a movie set where we didn’t know anyone. And even to today on “When Calls the Heart,” the collaboration with the directors, with the other actors, with the head writer, is something I’m very invested in and that’s how I like to work.
You’ve also had a lot of appearances as a guest star. I read “Hot In Cleveland,” “Castle,” “Monk” and 16 movies of the week. How do you decide which shows to do and is there something we might anticipate in the future?
I’ve had a couple guest starring things that have been so fun. “Hot in Cleveland” with Valerie Bertinell. You didn’t mention it, but I also did “Ray Donovan.” That was fantastic to work on that show. I try to diversify the guest star roles. In “Castle,” I played an alcoholic golf pro. That’s the fun part of me for doing any kind of episodic show where I’m not a cast member. But for me now, having been on “When Calls the Heart,” working as we speak on season 12 and having had a franchise of six movies, and then about five or six other movies for Hallmark Channel in this run, I really haven’t spent any time looking for any guest star roles. I’ve been very content working for the Hallmark Channel and “When Calls the Heart.”
You’ve obviously had some success as a music performer. You had a No. 2 hit, “All I Need.” I read that you started playing guitar at 14 and then sung Kenny Loggins’ “Wait a Little While” for your final General Hospital audition. Talk about your early interest in music and then how that part of your career progressed.
I am kind of a self-taught guitarist and took a few lessons early on and then a couple buddies of mine, they were brothers, played guitar, and so I kind of picked up an acoustic and I just started to play with them. I just loved Neil Young and Seals & Crofts and James Taylor and artists of the early and mid ‘70s. When I got out of high school, I just continued to play and learn and teach myself. I loved Elton John, that kind of solo artist.
So, when I actually got to LA and came down to the wire for General Hospital, my fifth screen test, they called and said, “Do you by chance play the guitars and sing?” And I said, “Actually, yeah.” And they said, “Well, do you think you could bring your guitar and do something?” So, I just kind of went in and knocked out a Kenny Loggins tune and then went into the audition scene and that’s how I got the part.
Within a week of getting cast, I had to go into the recording studio, which I’d never been in. I’d never sang with headsets on. I had to sing a couple songs because my character Frisco was the lead singer in Blackie and the Riff Raff, which was the John Stamos character’s band on the show. It turned out that the woman who just got hired for ABC music had just left Mercury Records, and her first project was Frisco Jones on General Hospital. So, she hears me sing, I knock out these two songs, and she says, “Would you be interested in a record deal?” And I said, “Well, yeah!” And so two nights later I had dinner with Quincy Jones and Herbie Hancock, and I signed with Quincy and he put together a production and writing team of Glen Ballard and Clif Magness. Glen, of course, went on to do Alanis Morissette, Wilson Phillips and Dave Matthews. Clif Magnus went on to do other things as well. I was their first project as Quincy Jones’ staff members, writers and producers. They wrote “All I Need” and it came in just behind “Like a Virgin” on the pop charts and No. 1 on the adult contemporary charts.
My publisher at the magazine says she had “All I Need” played at her wedding. I thought that was fun.
That’s fantastic. Makes me feel good. You can just tell her something for me. Just tell her that (starts singing) You’re all I need.
All right, sounds great! Do you still perform music these days? Do you do any songwriting?
I still dabble in songwriting here or there. I wrote quite a bit for the “Wedding March” series, but my last album was in 2013 and formulating a team, I realized how much the music business had changed. I do four or five dates a year, maybe a little bit more. I toured all through the 80s in my band.
Roseanne Barr was my first warmup comedian. So, she lived with us for about three or four weeks on the bus.
What was she like?
I would say real Midwestern, real authentic, and she just kind of would tell it like it is. She had to adjust her material a lot because my fan base were teenage girls, and her material was pretty raunchy. We got on really well. It was a fun deal to meet her and then see her explode and become so famous.
By the way, I’m sort of annoyed at Apple. I have iTunes and I wanted to listen to “On The Porch,” [his last album] and I couldn’t find it on there. I like that sort of Americana stuff.
It’s one of those things where I was in a place in my life and I literally kind sat down at the foot of my bed and wrote this album. I pulled something from my past. I had co-written a few things that were demos that I punched up, but it’s the first album that I felt I really took the time and wrote pretty much where I was and who I am. And it’s my kind of music. I was raised with folk, Americana music and that’s what that album speaks to.
I’m sure that some of the fans here at the Boat Parade would like to hear you sing. Is there any possibility you might sing a little bit?
Listen, if I have a mic in my hand, we can always pull out a little acapella “All I Need” for sure.
I’m sure they’d love that. Had you heard about or seen the boat parade before they talked to you about being Grand Marshall?
No, I haven’t, but the clips I’ve seen it looks like it’s just such a fun event. I’m looking forward to it.
What was your reaction when you were approached?
Well, first of all, I wanted to understand what it was. And secondly, I’ve created a few relationships in Florida in the last few years that are really terrific. So, it’s great to just sort of show up.
I read that you had a very significant event in your life down here reuniting with a long lost daughter in Boca Raton.
Well, that was in 2011, and yes, it was a very strange thing that happened. Rick Springfield’s people reached out to me. I’ve been compared to Rick for 40 years because he was on General Hospital, had a massive hit with “Jesse’s Girl,” had left the show right when I came on and we had never met. So, people called and said, “Hey, Rick does a cruise with his fans, and last year Richard Marx was the guest artist and we were wondering if you’d come down and be Rick’s guest artist. It would entail a concert with his band.” Then they said, “It turns out he’s doing an event at an amphitheater the night before the cruise, would you be willing to do an hour set with the band and warm up before Rick goes on? We think it’d be a huge event for this.” So, I did the amphitheater and it turned out my daughter that I really didn’t know had found me there and she went on the big cruise with me. So, it was pretty incredible. Rick Springfield was the bridge for my daughter and I to reunite.
That sounds like a Hallmark show!
I mean, unbelievable.
Are you looking forward to some of our nice Florida winter weather?
Yes. I played a golf tournament in Orlando in January and Florida’s winter is fantastic — almost like California.
The theme for this year’s boat parade is sort of an environmental feel “from sawgrass to seagrass waves of holiday cheer.” What’s your happy place in terms of environments?
I’m from the Midwest. I bailed hay on farms when I was in high school, so I kind of know that world and the desert — I graduated from the University of Arizona, right in the middle of the desert — from drama school, and then I moved to California. I’ve sort of fallen in love with the mountains that California offers as well as the beaches. If I had to go on a vacation, it would probably be a beach. But I got to tell you, I’m diversified. I owned a property for 20 some years in the mountains of California, 80 acres that I actually sold last year, but it’s where I took the boys, Kristina [his ex and co-star on “General Hospital”] and I dirt biking. I actually am a man of nature. I love all diversified forms that our planet gives us. I love the desert. I love the mountains. I love lakes. I love beaches and oceans. But if you had to pick one to go to for a vacation, I’d probably pick the beach area, plop my butt out on that beach in a chair and just chill.
You mentioned considering a career in golf.
I’ve been a member of Bel-Air Country Club in LA since 1986. I’ve won seven club championships. I’ve won 12 tournaments on television. I’ve won the AT&T National Pro-Am at Pebble Beach. I’ve won the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship up in Lake Tahoe. I didn’t turn professional at golf, but that was my intention in going to the University of Arizona. I walked onto the golf team and did not get a scholarship. I went to the drama department in my junior year and told the head of the drama department my story, and he said, “Well, prepare a song, dance and a monologue.” I did, and I got a full-ride scholarship in drama in 1980.
So, I quit playing golf, which was what I wanted to aspire to, to be a professional golfer, and went into acting. But Gloria Monty, the producer of “General Hospital,” found out I played golf and she had her husband take me out to Bel-Air Country Club. They wound up sponsoring me. James Garner, who was a club member, said, “You should play in the AT&T.” He gave me his pro John Cook, who has won a lot of tournaments. John and I are great friends. I won the AT&T in 1991 on CBS. From that, came NBC’s the American Century Celebrity Golf Tournament. I’m one of only two players who have been playing it for 34 years along with Jim McMahon [Super Bowl quarterback for the Chicago Bears]. I’m the only non-athlete who has ever won it. I’ve won it twice. Golf has been a huge part of my life.
That’s raised a lot of money for charity. Are there other philanthropic causes that you like to support?
I was the West Coast ambassador of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society for nine years. My brother got leukemia in 1999, so I formed the Jack Wagner Celebrity Golf Tournament. I decided it would benefit the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. So, it’s always been how I give back — playing in charity events. I play in George Lopez’s every year. I play in Marcus Allen’s. That’s sort of been my platform in terms of giving back.
