Stevie Wonder and Janet Reno.
Arthur Miller and Billy from "Melrose Place."
"Drunks" and "Guys and Dolls."
While one might not think at first that these people and titles are connected, they all share a relationship to Dartmouth's many successful alumni in the arts.
Although Dartmouth is a small college set in rural New Hampshire, many of its graduates have gone on to fame and stardom.
For example, Walter Wanger '15 produced such films as 1956's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Wanger was one of the major producers working for United Artists in the 1930s.
Wanger also brought F. Scott Fitzgerald to Dartmouth in 1939 to write the film "Winter Carnival." Fitzgerald's drunken behavior during the trip has become the stuff of legends.
David Picker '53 served as president of United Artists, Paramount and Columbia Pictures. He was responsible for producing the James Bond films; the Beatles' "Hard Day's Night," "Help!" and "Yellow Submarine;" "Midnight Cowboy;" "Saturday Night Fever" and "The Jerk." He also produced the recent film version of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" and brought it to Dartmouth in 1996 for its first public screening.
Jerry Zaks '67, director of Broadway hits like the current "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," brought his first film, "Marvin's Room" to the campus last year.
Jonathan Nossiter '84 won the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize this year for "Sunday," a film he wrote, produced and directed.
On the small screen, Andrew Shue '89 plays Billy Campbell on the popular prime-time soap opera "Melrose Place."
Law, order, rhythm and blues
Michael Moriarty '63 starred in the first four seasons of NBC's hit "Law & Order" as Assistant District Attorney Ben Stone, garnering Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for the role.
In his 35-year career, Moriarty, who has won Emmys for his work in "The Glass Menagerie" and the "Holocaust" mini-series and a Tony and Drama Desk Award for his work in "Find Your Way Home," was most recently seen with Denzel Washington and Meg Ryan in "Courage Under Fire."
Moriarty, who currently works and lives primarily in Canada, said he left the United States and "Law & Order" in 1994 because he had been "blacklisted" after speaking out against Attorney General Janet Reno and censorship in television.
Moriarty said he is well-known and appreciated in Canada. "No man is a prophet in his own country," he said.
From Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation 1814" to George Michael's "Monkey," Vaughn Halyard '81 has produced, written and recorded with the best of them.
Although he studied and performed musically while at Dartmouth, Halyard originally followed the corporate recruiting path and became a marketing representative for IBM, then held a succession of various jobs and had to "do a lot of sleeping on couches in L.A." before getting the chance to work with Stevie Wonder and going on to start his own record company.
Halyard, who played the drums with the Barbary Coast Jazz Ensemble for four years, said he would not be in music if it were not for his experiences at the College.
"Musically, the cross-section of being in the Barbary Coast, Saturday night parties at the AAm with R&B records spinning, frat parties all over campus playing everything from the Bee Gees to The Dead and Jon Appleton's classes and course work melded the creative with the technical," he said.
Halyard was interested in music before coming to the College. According to a press-release biography, at the age of 6, Halyard was conducting Sousa's Marches and Prokofiev symphonies with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra's Young People's Concerts.
Last year, Halyard founded the Unencumbered Entertainment Group record company, which produces records ranging from The Boys Choir of Harlem to soundtracks to television productions.
More recently, he has co-produced the "Stevie Wonder -- Music From The Movie, Jungle Fever" soundtrack album and Wonder's "Conversation Peace." In 1996, he received a Grammy for his work on the Stevie Wonder single "For your Love."
Steven Singer '72 said he "was drawing like a bat out of hell" since he was three years old and has since become a sculptor who has exhibited in many galleries in New York and London.
Singer majored in visual arts at the College.
"I seem to be best known for sensuous female nudes," he said, though he has also worked landscapes, dinosaurs and mannequins to pay the bills.
His shows have received acclaim in The New York Times, Art America and Art News. One of his sculptures, "Sleep" is currently on display in Columbus Circle in New York City. "Sleep" is a bronze sculpture of a homeless woman.
He has also illustrated book covers, including one for Franz Kafka's "The Trial."
Behind the scenes
Producer John Hart '75 brought his film "Drunks" to the campus in 1996 before it was released nationally. "Drunks" featured Richard Lewis, Parker Posey and Spaulding Gray in the story of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in New York City.
Hart is also a big name on Broadway, where he produced the recent "Chicago" revival, the "Guys and Dolls" revival and "Hamlet" starring Ralph Fiennes.
He is currently working on a Shirley McClaine-directed film called "Bruno," which he said should be ready for Cannes Film Festival next May.
Hart's career in the arts dates back to his days in the College, when ragtime pianist and composer James Hubert "Eubie" Blake received an honorary degree and Hart had the opportunity to escort him around campus.
Later, this led Hart to the theater where he produced "Eubie," a show about Blake's life.
However, Hart does not attribute his success to Dartmouth, but rather to mere chance.
"After Dartmouth, one pursues a career of accidental education," he said.
Hart, who majored in history, said at least he left the College well-read.
A more recent student, Julie Davis '90, moved to Los Angeles right after graduation with hopes of breaking into the business, but had to start out in "demeaning and degrading jobs, such as being a movie extra and head editor for the Playboy Channel."
"It was all downhill after Dartmouth," she said with a laugh of her early jobs.
But at those jobs, she was able to save up money to make her first film "I Love You, Don't Touch Me!," which wowed audiences at the Sundance film festival. She presented it at the College last term and is returning again in the fall.
Paul Lazarus '76 directed eight to 10 episodes during three seasons of "Melrose Place" as well as episodes of about 30 other series, including "Friends," "Mad About You," "Beverly Hills 90210" and "Dream On."
He is currently working on his first movie, "Seven Girlfriends," which he co-wrote.
Lazarus has also been known for his work in theater and has earned the Critics Circle Award, among others. Last year, he directed an off-Broadway play called "24 Days," which starred Noah Wyle of "ER" and Peter Berg from "Chicago Hope" and "Cop Land."
While some believe opportunities in the arts only arise with connections, Lazarus said he had to develop a number of "associates" instead. For example, Lazarus directed a musical in New York called "Personals" -- a collaboration with the creators of "Friends" and "Seinfeld" star Jason Alexander.
The Royal Shakespeare Company's music director came to Dartmouth as a visiting professor and provided Lazarus with the opportunity to study with them. He served as their apprentice director in England for a year before discovering his calling as a director.
Lazarus said "it was a tough time" breaking into the arts business, but he attributes his success to hard work, including jobs on 60 theatrical productions.
He said Dartmouth's role as an arts facility devoted to undergraduates attracted him to the College, where he had the opportunity to direct plays.
"You can direct a play in a facility as wonderful as the Bentley Theater, while at places like Yale, undergraduates very rarely have access to the facilities," he said.
He said he considered Dartmouth his "testing ground" before he went on to his "real work."
Paths to stardom
Jean Passanante '75 said she really wanted to act when she graduated, but while waiting for opportunity to strike, she realized that acting is "not a good way to make a living for a thinking person."
After deciding not to act, she took a job as an artistic director of the New York Theater Workshop.
Then one day, she received a call from ABC Daytime which was hiring writers from other disciplines to aid their soap operas, which were "just starting to feel the impact of cable television and women in the workplace." She became associate head writer for "One Life to Live."
Passanante still writes about one episode a week and, because the show has no summer hiatus, she said she believes she and other people who work on soap operas are the "workhorses of entertainment business."
Passanante, who majored in drama and was the first female president of the Dartmouth Players, said the College provides many opportunities for students in drama and the faculty are very supportive.
During her time at the College, she said there were "12:30 reps" -- student-directed one-act plays during lunch in Bentley Theater.
"I felt like I owned Bentley. I think I lived there for a while -- I used to hide from the janitor because I never wanted to leave," she said.
Senior Music Lecturer Fred Haas '73, who also teaches jazz privately and at Middlebury College, is a performing musician, who plays piano and saxophone with a number of jazz groups throughout New England.
He has toured with The Ray Charles Orchestra and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and played with jazz musicians such as Oscar Peterson and Pat Metheny. His performances have taken him all over the country and Europe. "I get paid to do something I love," he said.
He also hopes to release his first CD this September.
When Haas graduated in 1973, he was still living in the area and worked at a hi-fi store selling records and stereo equipment, finding time to perform at night.
The following year, the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra came to White River Junction while he was playing across the street.
"Some of the guys came over to hear my group play and they sat in with us that night and offered me a job to join the band," he said.
Haas said many of the well-known big bands have a small circle of musicians that travel with them and "once you get in that circle," other opportunities ensue, such as his tour with Ray Charles.
Bill Brunson '75 is a composer of electro-acoustic music, chamber music and music for film. His music is popular all over Europe and Japan and Australia.
At the College, Appleton told Brunson about an opportunity to study at the Sweden Royal College of Music in Stockholm on a James B. Reynolds Scholarship for foreign study.
"What Dartmouth did was, in a way, to open a window of opportunity and I had to take the ball and run from there," Brunson said in a telephone interview from his home in Stockholm.
It is hard to overlook the work of Rob Evans '79, who paints murals of heights of up to 90 feet for such places as the Boston Museum of Science and Boston Aquarium.
Evans said his professors, studio space and the artist-in-residence program were also influential on his career.
Kate Augenblick '79, an abstract oil painter, said her first job was serving salads in Manhattan because she "was not qualified to do diddley-squat" when she graduated from Dartmouth.
She said being an artist is not easy economically because her income is "completely erratic."
"The trick is to develop a thick skin, accept the ups and downs and try to live fairly frugally," she said.
The College has invited Augenblick to the College in the fall as part of the 25th anniversary of coeducation celebration.
The College has also invited back Soprano Evelyn Chan '77, who will give a recital with Pianist Dalton Baldwin in October.
Chan, who was a member of every choral group on campus during her time at the College, has performed in 10 states in America and France as soloist in oratorios, cantatas and chamber music.
Chan was put up front and center as a singer at the very beginning of her freshman year on her Freshman Trip with the Dartmouth Outing Club.
At a group sing at the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge, the not-so timid Chan began to belt out a tune and her voice came as a surprise to the men at the lodge.
The "DOC jocks," she wrote, had not yet been confronted with a soprano voice such as hers because she was a member of only the second class of women at Dartmouth.
Her "loud mouth" caused her to be moved to the front row with the upperclassmen trip leaders who were teaching the songs.
Chan wrote she gained much from her music studies at the College, especially the keyboard proficiency requirement for all music majors, although it is "a real pain in the neck and three feet below."
She wrote, though, that she can now learn her solo recital repertoire without a rehearsal pianist and her proficiency allows her to "know a song as an entity instead of just a vocal line."
Chan wrote in an e-mail that she does not believe she is an incredible singer, but "I have the very great advantage of being very musical, and when I sing everything comes from the heart."
