17 Comments

      • Not me! I was a drama geek. I could tell you who was popular among the drama geeks, but the rest of school was sort of a fog of random humans.

        And you might be thinking “Wait- if you were a drama geek, wouldn’t you know about a guy who was an actor?” But Billy wasn’t really a drama geek; he was a guy trying to be a professional actor. Yes, he was friends with some people in drama, and he may have even taken a drama class at El Camino somewhere along the way, but his focus (I assume) was on real world jobs. Play rehearsals and performances would get in the way of professional productions.

        • He did plays in highschool. He did some comedy thing where everyone was screaming and laughing. It’s on YouTube!
          Was he nice? Was your drama teacher as mean as he said she was? Please please tell me.

          • Well , how about that! I was wrong! I think this is what you were talking about. The play that’s featured was from a Drama B class. At the time, Drama A class was for beginners. Play Production was where we did big shows that charged admission. Drama B was… weird. Most of the class was people who just graduated from Drama A, but there were a few students from Play Production who would direct plays that were performed for free at lunch. The video mentions Brian Leasak (pretty sure I spelled that wrong), who was a senior at the time, as the director.
            I was also in Drama B in Spring of 1982, but either I was in a different period or just forgot he was in my class. Watching this, I’m a little envious of him. He got to play a fun, over the top role that appealed to high school students. My student director took a serious (but not good play) and tried to get us to play it so straight that it was funny. Sort of like “Airplane” and “Police Squad” were thin reworkings of “Zero Hour” and “M Squad.” I am not a good actor, and I’m definitely not a good serious actor, so it just sucked.

            I don’t think Billy was ever in the “big” plays, but I could be wrong (obviously).

            And I think the best thing I can say about the drama teacher is this: I’m actually a teacher now, and a lot of the things I do when I teach are informed by the way she taught her class.

  3. Billy said in in an interview that the drama teacher would scream at him and call his girlfriend a whore because she wore high heels.

    He said the teacher told him he had to choose between hs play and the karate kid gig he got. He chose the gig obviously. Then he said that the karate kids championship scene was actually shot in the same gym that the teacher taught. Hahahaha!

    Do you remember talking to him at all? Pleease Did you ever think he’d get famous? Of course I guess he didn’t really get famous until a couple of years ago. Do you watch Cobra Kai?

    • I have no idea how our teacher treated him or his girlfriend. I wouldn’t be surprised if she told him to choose between the movie and the play- that’s something that was logistically true – and I wouldn’t be surprised if she approached it as an ultimatum (“Do the movie and you’re out of Play Production”) instead of a career choice (“If you do the movie, you won’t be available for the play”). He clearly made the right choice; nobody’s making a series based on a 40 year old high school production of “Dark of the Moon.”

      And I don’t think the championship scene (or any part of Karate Kid) was shot at El Camino. As I understand it, the outside school shots were filmed at an adult school a couple of miles from ECR, and the championship was shot in the CSUN gymnasium. But I wasn’t there, and could be wrong. Maybe he conflated filming Karate Kid with his appearance on The Greatest American Hero, which did film at ECR. Here’s that episode, if you’re really curious about what an early 1980s San Fernando Valley school looked like.

      Did I ever talk to Billy? Maybe. He had friends who stayed in drama, and he would hang out with them. But I’d guess our total time actually interacting was less than ten minutes.

      I don’t watch Cobra Kai, but that’s not a judgement of the show. I don’t watch much TV these days.

  4. Whoops! Nope I screwed up I guess he did say it was The Great American Hero that was shot there, not Karate Kid.

    Anyways, I can see that you are being mature and not going to give me any juicy details.

    Waaaahhhhh!!!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭

  6. You grew up in Southern California in 80’s. You went to school with Johnny Lawrence. That is NOT boring. I grew up in the rural midwest, and let me tell you, THAT’S boring. You could write a blog about a soda you drank in the 80’s and alot of us would find it entertaining. Ooooorrr you would tell us about a random time you saw Billy walking down the halls of your school.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *