By Luaine Lee
TARZANA, Calif. — Most people remember Greg Evigan as the swell fellow from "B.J. and the Bear" or "My Two Dads." But no more Mr. Nice Guy for him.
The one-time teen idol has been going for the throat lately, and it's a beautiful sight. On Saturday at 10 p.m., Evigan shows up as the devil incarnate on the Hallmark Channel's "Mail Order Bride." As a ruthless con man, he sports the right combination of menace and rue.
The character couldn't be more different from him. Evigan's a down-to-earth guy who's shattered every Hollywood stereotype. He's been married to the same woman for nearly 30 years and is the father of three kids, 27, 25 and 22, who still come to him for advice.
He's remained friends with his longtime pals Gus Corrado and Steve Reisch. He's a composer and musician who's mastered several instruments, including the piano. In fact, the first time we see him in "Mail Order Bride" Evigan is actually playing his own composition on the piano. He's constantly composing music and has recorded his work with the London Philharmonic.
People are also reading…
But the most ironic thing of all, he's a journeyman actor who keeps on working. Some years are better than others, he admits. There were some lean times when he had to sell one of his prized possessions, Elvis Presley's Fender Jaguar guitar, to make ends meet.
"The humbling stock market in the year 2000 definitely made me work harder because I remember a long time ago . . . when I was really young, (my business manager) said, 'When do you want to retire?' I said, 'I'd like to retire when I'm 40 'cause that's really old.'
"He said, 'OK, we'll set you up that way.' So pretty much I was in pretty good shape. Then 2000 came and wiped out a little more than half of what I had, and, at that point, it was either give up or keep on working even a little harder to try to live the life you want to live."
Evigan, 55, says he thinks he inherited his grit from his parents. "My kids say that Grandma and Grandpa are the rocks of the family. They live their life a solid way. They got their first credit card maybe 10 years ago. They never needed one. They paid cash," he said.
". . . But if you look at that thinking, especially now with what we're going through, you really say, 'You know what? That's what this country needs to do. Turn our thinking around and get back to basics.' "
While he's not conventionally religious, Evigan is a spiritual man. "I don't really consider myself a religious person, but when it comes to beliefs in God, I believe in God," he says. "I grew up in New Jersey, played the organ in the Baptist church. Grew up Presbyterian. Those values were always taught to me.
"All religions, I think — if you really break them down — they're pretty similar. All the good in all of them is the good for all of us. I don't really have a sect that I focus on. Nature is mine. I sit on the top of a mountain, and I see God. That's how I feel. I go to a beautiful lake or ocean with my dogs, I feel God."
So how does such a nice guy conjure up such evildoers? "(The villain) is everything you don't want to be in life," he says.
"It's the opposite of you, unless it's the same as you. In this case, it's the opposite. That's how I approach any character. I ask, 'What is like me in the character and what's different from me in the character?' And things that are like you, you just let them go.
"And things that are different, you have to make sure you define them and then focus on them and make sure they're in every scene because that's the real trick in creating any character," he says.
On TV
Hallmark Channel's "Mail Order Bride" will air at 10 p.m. Saturday.
