Click here for tour cities and dates
Click here for Press
Cliff Bemis does not eat pancakes for dinner before going onstage as fictitious producer Feldzieg (that's Ziegfeld, backward, syllabically) in "The Drowsy Chaperone," the hilarious musical spoof of musicals at the Palace Theatre in Playhouse Square.
At this particular early evening repast, he even asked the waitress at Acapella, a cozy little place practically next door to the Palace, to hold the croutons on his grilled chicken Caesar salad.
He also refused fresh bread.
This from a man who freely admits he did very well (he owns a home in the Hollywood Hills) doing a 10-year stint in a television commercial campaign as Cliff at IHOP (tagline: "Hi, Cliff here for IHOP") starting in 1985.
Bemis, 59, and bearing more than a passing resemblance to former Chicago Bears player and coach Mike Ditka, hails from Amherst, grew up in Elyria and Lorain, and got his show-biz start in Cleveland in one of the city's most-storied shows.
Which means that he's a much-beloved dude -- and much-visited at the Palace stage door -- as "The Drowsy Chaperone" launches its U.S. tour in his old stomping grounds. "I'm having a blast in the show and in Cleveland," Bemis said. "But it's like everyone wants a piece of me here, which is great, but I'm also trying to do eight performances a week of this very physically demanding show.
"To tell the truth, I'm sort of looking forward to St. Louis," where the hit Broadway show moves after closing in Cleveland on Sunday. "Maybe then I can relax."
Bemis worked at the Cleveland Play House for seven seasons, sang with the former Cleveland Opera and worked with the Cleveland Orchestra.
He also did the national anthem at Browns games, the National Air Show and -- a particular point of pride -- Tribe homestands.
"I can remember, going to school in Lorain, that we would get a pair of Indians tickets for getting straight A's. Or maybe it was perfect attendance. Nobody in my school could ever get straight A's."
But his most important role came in "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris," which played the lobby of the State Theatre for 522 performances from 1973 to 1975 and helped save the Playhouse Square theaters from the wrecking ball.
He last appeared publicly onstage at Playhouse Square in 1985's "Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?" His last visit to Cleveland's theater district came in 1998, when a star honoring "Jacques Brel" was placed in the floor of the State lobby.
A small ceremony at the Oct. 16 opening night of "The Drowsy Chaperone" honored Bemis, other "Jacques Brel" participants, 101-year-old Ohio theater entrepreneur John Kenley, and the Palace itself, which turns 85 next month.
Thanks to a friendship with actor Robby Benson, Bemis made the move to Los Angeles in the mid-1980s.
"Taking a left turn" to Los Angeles "instead of a right" to New York, took Bemis out of the theater and onto the screen, a decision he does not regret.
In addition to the Cliff-at-IHOP gig, Bemis has made a career of being a character actor in more than 70 TV shows and films, mostly playing "regular guys" like dads and cops.
But, he said, his first national tour of a Broadway show has been a welcome return to live theater.
"The first day of rehearsal in New York, walking into that studio, it was like, I'm a gypsy again!' " Bemis said. "It was like, I'm at home.' "
And so he is.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: tbrown@plaind.com, 216-999-4181