Hunt Block Fan Site

Preppy Hunt Block Takes the Long Jump to Hollywood as a Winner in the First Olympics
People Magazine
May 21, 1984
BY LOIS ARMSTRONG

If he didn't exist, somebody would have had to invent him: Maybe F. Scott Fitzgerald. Maybe Michelangelo. Maybe a press agent with a brave imagination. The name's Hunt Block, short for Huntington MacDonald Block. This Harvard grad, who is the star of NBC's mini-series The First Olympics—Athens 1896, has dark blond hair, blue eyes, chiseled features and a body that could play Chippendale's.

In the five-hour opus he's Robert Garrett (1875-1961), a Princetonian underdog who copped two gold medals (for discus and shot put) in the first modern Olympics, held in Athens in 1896 after a 1,500-year hiatus. The show traces the recruiting and training of the 13-member U.S. team, which began as a laughingstock in the eyes of the experienced Europeans and ended up winning nine out of 12 gold medals in track and field. "It's astonishing to me that this story has never been told before," says Hunt, 30.

A natural athlete, Block excelled early in football, swimming and track. At college he added sprinting, pole vaulting and the long jump. None of the sports in which Garrett won medals are ones that Hunt participated in, but television took care of that. "The process of filming, with repeated takes of us running and jumping, was training in itself," he says. "By the time we got to Greece I felt like I was watching a real track team."

Like his TV alter ego, Block is not exactly underprivileged. Born in Washington, D.C., where his father insures artworks for museums and galleries, Hunt attended the requisite prep school—St. George's in Rhode Island. A self-proclaimed introvert, he spent up to four hours a day on his own in the gym.

His curiosity about other cultures manifested itself in sudden bursts of teenage wanderlust. "I have an inherent sense of transience," he says. "A lot of people don't have the fire chasing them that I do." He spent one summer working with the Sioux Indians in South Dakota, another with a family in Bolivia.  

Following his second year at Harvard, where he majored in anthropology and film, he decided to "find himself" by going to New Guinea. On the plane he read about Fiji and got off there. "I saw men in skirts with bullet-shaped hairdos and women with no clothes," he says. "My solitude hit me." Or, as they say in California, Hunt was finally getting in touch with his feelings.

After nine months in the South Pacific and the Orient, Block went back to college renewed and rid of his painful shyness. "I had confronted my problems by exposing them to an alien culture and alien situations," he says. "I got my perspective on an island between New Guinea and New Britain."

But he got perspective on performing on Manhattan island. He studied directing, then acting. An agent saw him in an off-off-Broadway show and helped find him soap and commercial jobs. When he went to L.A. a year ago, he was cast as a wind surfer in a TV movie, Summer Girl, which didn't quite capitalize on Hunt's acting lessons or Ivy League education.

He is not married or serious about any particular woman. "I know when I fall, I'll fall like a ton of bricks," he says. In New York home is an old cream-cheese factory turned loft that he shares with a cat named Mingus—"a cross between Charlie Mingus and Shelley Winters." In L.A. he rents a one-bedroom beachfront Venice apartment. Through an open window in that colorful community, Hunt points out some of his pals: an ex-Marine in a wheelchair, an Indian named Crow and a saxophone player.

In The First Olympics the result of Robert Garrett's historic quest is already known. What's not determined is whether Hunt will get the Hollywood gold. But he doesn't think going the distance is a problem. "I started late in this business," he says, "but boy did I start."

Hunt Block Interviews... Hunt Block (Craig, ATWT; ex-Ben, GL)
Soap Opera Digest
August 17, 1999

Block: You've been reluctant to give interviews. Why?
Block: My personal life is personal. I know nothing more about the plot of this show than anyone else. And, my recipes are secret.

Block: Even the casserole?
Block: Especially the casserole.Block: So, why now?Block: I didn't want my egg dishes to become an issue.

Block: How do you like working on GUIDING LIGHT?
Block: There are a lot of talented people here who work their tails off every day trying to make something compelling, entertaining. Of course, it always has to be done by yesterday, so usually, we're one ring short of a circus (without the jokes). Still, I take a lot of pride in working hard.

Block: Do you have any say in what goes on?
Block: I'm just a mouthpiece. I do what I'm told. I play a character in a story.

Block: What do you think of your character?
Block: For a guy who was given away as an infant; who, from that primal pain, hardened himself to be untouchable, a shark, a predator, he seems to listen to a lot of Johnny Mathis.

Block: You don't think sharks respond to Johnny Mathis?
Block: Sharks respond to their mates, offspring and blood in the water.

Block: How do you like your workmates?
Block: Like any crowd, we at the GUIDING LIGHT Feeling Factory are a bunch of artists, artisans, lunatics, blowhards, whores, dancers, capitalists, posers, angels, deviants, paranoid-schizophrenics, schemers, clowns, heroes, princesses, self-obsessed pigs, parents, children, punks, slags, etc.

Block: What are you?
Block: A face in the crowd.

Block: We're noticing an empty vodka bottle.
Block: I take a lot of empty drinks.

Block: Why?
Block: I find I have to pretend I'm drunk most of the time to explain Ben Warren's behavior.

Block: Has that been a problem?
Block: I have been developing artificial complications of the liver. Someday, I'm going to have to pretend to dry out.

Block: We've noticed that there aren't a lot of windows here.
Block: First of all, it's a privilege for any actor to be in a dressing room. That said, I'm better off in the dark. If I knew what time of day it was, I'd probably get depressed, and that might interfere with my aggravation preparations.

Block: What part of Ben has been left unspoken?
Block: His quiet side.... Never mind. His past. He locked himself up emotionally early on. Control and deny the pain, and it can't hurt. So, what does he really care about? We don't know. He's already rich, famous, powerful, persuasive. Most of his life is just a game now. The holes are in the past: his father, his children, abusive adoptive parents, old girlfriends, associates, friends, clients, pets, golf game, etc. So much is buried. Pity.

Block: We see that you like to talk ... sometimes. Do you ad-lib lines?
Block: Rarely. This ain't the place. There ain't the time.

Block: Do you speak in tongues?
Block: I only speak with a tongue.

Block: You all spend a lot of time at the studio. Has anyone ever died there?
Block: Of course.

Block: Anyone born?
Block: Not to my knowledge. When I arrived, I shared an air shaft with a couple of castmates who liked to have sex during lunch.

Block: That must have been a distraction.
Block: It made my memorization harder. I am pro-love.

Block: Are you having fun on GUIDING LIGHT?
Block: You betcha! Of course, on various occasions, I have been instructed not to smile, laugh, sing, hum, jump, eat, drink, breathe, grunt, bite, lick, grimace, dance, get too mad, act too sober, act too drunk, and no hands in pockets, ever. Add that to my considerable natural limitations and, well, you have to be resourceful.

Block: What does that mean?
Block: Boxer shorts come in a lot of wacky patterns.

Block: Have you made a lot of friends?
Block: There are some really great people at GUIDING LIGHT.

Block: Where exactly is Springfield?
Block: I don't think anyone knows.

Block: What's your favorite egg dish?
Block: Just a second....

Block: We had to try.
Block: We all have to try.

This article originally appeared in the August 17, 1999 issue of Soap Opera Digest.

{about Knot's Landing):

"Physically, a piece of cake. Single-camera show with a big cast. Three half-days a week, even when you were heavy. Story issues were the same as any soap, but the technical aspects of working with a single camera are more specific than a three-camera production. The show is put togehter out of logs of carefully built pieces. Some great craftsmen... Bill Devan [Gregory], Donna Mills [Abby] - eye makeup by Titan."


(about Guiding Light):

"What a shock. First daytime experience. The job came up quickly. I'd never had to memorize and forget so much. Day after day. Brutal. The technical aspects are slightly more theatrical. Happily, I had Jerry ver Dorn [Ross]. He knows a thing or two about three... Daytime pace is furious, numbing occasionally. The fabric is loose, sometimes sloppy... But Ben Warren, as conceived, had this incredibly clear singular psychology. Easy. He was just a shark. No equivocation. Kind of a problem memorization-wise because as a lawyer, he had lots to say and as a shark, he never misspoke... There were some good people there, but it was a grim place."

(about All My Children)

"A short story. Nice place. Jeanie [Dadario Burke, executive producer] was nice. Judy [Blye Wilson, casting director] was nice. I'd known Finola [Hughes, Alex/Anna] for years. She's pretty nice, too. Guy's appeal to me was that he was a total cipher, anything was possible, I thought. Plus, it was kind of poetic to play a guy named Guy. Kind of Zen."


(about As The World Turns)

"Great place. Strange commute. Creatively, ambitious group... First time outside of the theater I'd played an established character... Craig has a lot of similarities to Ben Warren. They're both men who have rebuilt themselves out of emotional trauma and armored themselves against ever being hurt again. Ben did it from infancy. Craig reinvented himself much later in life. But in both men the attitudes, presentation, carriage are strictly big capitalist cowboy... Beneath all the armor, Craig is a lot more emotionally available then Ben was - until the end - because he's raised children, engaged in relationships. Craig's psychology is a lot more complex, fragile, as I'm discovering. He has an appetite for life that Ben didn't. And he's still alive. Which is nice."


Remember Me When I'm Gone: The Rich and Famous Write Their Own Epitaphs and Obituaries - By Larry King

"Who? Me?"

"I love working with Hunt Block. Besides being a wonderful actor, he's a very funny guy, you know? He's very intense and very amusing and we sure have a good time spending hours learning lines and figuring things out together."

- Saundra Santiago (Carmen, GL) 

"[Hunt Block is someone] who presents a real challenge. I rise to his level. He brings out the best in me." 

- Cady McClain (Rosanna, ATWT)
  at the 2004 Daytime Emmy Awards