Lives of Consequence
Greg Mullavey '55
Actor
With a career spanning five decades and numerous roles in film, theatre and on television, Greg Mullavey ’55 still relishes the opportunities to “play” that his passion for acting affords him.
“When I work on a scene or line or a moment, I want to play with it,” says Mullavey, who is currently starring opposite Marlo Thomas as a successful businessman (and fumbling husband) in Joe DiPietro’s new play, “Clever Little Lies,” which has just been extended to March 20, 2016 in New York.
“The nuances are different in every single performance,” Mullavey explains. “The same form is there but it’s never-play-the-same-hand twice. That’s where my passion for the work comes from -- I love it. I can’t wait to go on stage and with the audience and work with other actors.”
During his time at Hobart and William Smith, Mullavey was active in a number of clubs and organizations, which provided some of his early theatre experience.
“Hobart and William Smith was a bit of a platform for me in a sense,” he says, recalling the fun he had singing and dancing in on-campus revues.
Following in the footsteps of his father -- who played Major League Baseball for the White Sox and Red Sox and coached for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers -- Mullavey was co-captain of the Hobart baseball team and later played baseball during service in the U.S. Army. But after injuring his knee in Germany and an unsuccessful surgery, he enrolled in acting classes and has been studying -- and steadily working -- ever since.
His career has encompassed hundreds of television credits including regular roles on four series, most notably as Tom Hartman on the late ’70s hit “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” and recurring roles on “iCarly,” “The Bold and the Beautiful,” “Bonanza,” “Marcus Welby, M.D.,” and “Dynasty,” as well as guest roles on “M*A*S*H,” “Shaft,” Hawaii 5-0,” “Mission: Impossible,” and dozens of other popular series. His résumé includes more than 100 stage productions, from the title role in “King Lear” to the current hit comedy, “Clever Little Lies."
Mullavey says he tends to prefer theatre to film because the “immediate feedback is better.”
“I look for the humanity in the character when the opportunity arises so audiences can relate,” Mullavey says of his approach to the craft. “That’s the main core of what I try to do with my work -- find human condition in character and story and expose it with emotional and theatrical truth. Less is more – that’s particularly true for film. You have to be that emotion without it seeming like any big effort, but the truth has to be told whatever the medium is.”
Mullavey earned his B.A. in philosophy from Hobart, where he co-captained the baseball team and was a president of Sigma Chi. As a student, he was also editor for The Herald, worked at WEOS and Saga, and was a member of Orange Key, Chimera, the Druids, Newman Club, and Schola Cantorum as well as the Board of Control.
Today, in addition to acting, he teaches at the Michael Howard Conservatory, one of oldest acting conservatories in New York.
“Actors have to know themselves very well,” he explains, “and I love teaching people what I know, what works for me, and how to find the truth about work and themselves, all these little tricks of the trade I’ve learned. And of course the other important thing for me is the chance to play.”