Ron Raines
Encyclopedia
Ron Raines is an American
actor
. He is known for the role of Alan Spaulding
on the long-running television soap opera
Guiding Light
. Raines also performs in musical theatre and in concert with symphony orchestras.
minister, and Raines became interested in music through the church. He was once in a band called Renaissance.
He graduated from Nacogdoches High School
in Nacogdoches, Texas
, graduated from Oklahoma City University
and later attended Juilliard. He decided to pursue a career in performing after he finished Juilliard.
in 1994 in his first television role. He is the third actor to play the part of the sinister, nefarious Alan Spaulding
, a role which has earned him three Emmy nominations. He remained on Guiding Light through its cancellation in 2009.
as
"Danilo" in The Merry Widow
. Subsequently he has appeared in Naughty Marietta
, Rose-Marie
, The Gypsy Princess, The Desert Song
, The New Moon
and Die Fledermaus
.
in the 1983 Broadway revival of Show Boat
(as "Ravenal"); the 1987 Broadway production of Teddy & Alice
and as "Billy Flynn" in the long running revival of Chicago
in 2002.
He has also appeared in productions of South Pacific
,
Annie
, Kiss Me Kate
,
Can-Can
, The King and I
, Brigadoon, Oklahoma!
, Carousel
, "The Pajama Game
", Guys and Dolls, A Little Night Music
, Kismet
and Man of La Mancha
. He played the role of Johnny Brown in the Debbie Reynolds
US tour of The Unsinkable Molly Brown
in 1990.
In 1994, he was offered a part in the national touring production of The Sound of Music
with Marie Osmond
on the same day he was offered the role of Alan Spaulding on Guiding Light. He decided to take the TV role.
He appeared in the Kennedy Center production of Follies
from May 7 through June 19, 2011, as Ben Stone, with Bernadette Peters
, Jan Maxwell
, and Danny Burstein
. He had played this role previously in the 1988 Michigan Opera production (with Juliet Prowse and Nancy Dussault). He is reprising his role in the Broadway engagement of Follies, which started in previews in August 2011 at the Marquis Theatre
.
), Philadelphia Pops (with Peter Nero
), San Diego, San Francisco, Tulsa and Washington D.C.. He also appeared with
the Boston Pops (with John Williams and Keith Lockhart).
He has performed with BBC Concert Orchestra in London, the Royal Philharmonic, the Jerusalem Symphony and the Israeli Philharmonic. Ron has had the honor of singing for two former First Ladies: Nancy Reagan
's White House luncheon for the Senate wives and Lady Bird Johnson
's National Wildlife Federation gala in Austin, Texas
.
Raines has appeared in several PBS Great Performances specials and has recorded two solo albums: So In Love With Broadway (2004)and Broadway Passion,along with several musicals including
Man of La Mancha
and Pajama Game on the Jay Records album label.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
. He is known for the role of Alan Spaulding
Alan Spaulding
Alan Spaulding is a fictional character on the CBS soap opera Guiding Light. He was played by Chris Bernau from the time of the character's introduction on November 7, 1977 until June 1988, when Bernau left the role due to health problems ; Daniel Pilon stepped into the role from 1988 until Alan...
on the long-running television soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
Guiding Light
Guiding Light
Guiding Light is an American daytime television drama that is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest running drama in television and radio history, running from 1937 until 2009...
. Raines also performs in musical theatre and in concert with symphony orchestras.
Early years
Raines' father was an evangelicalEvangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
minister, and Raines became interested in music through the church. He was once in a band called Renaissance.
He graduated from Nacogdoches High School
Nacogdoches High School
Nacogdoches High School is located in NE Nacogdoches, Texas.Nacogdoches High School is the high school of the Nacogdoches Independent School District. It serves all of the city of Nacogdoches, and most of Nacogdoches County.-History:...
in Nacogdoches, Texas
Nacogdoches, Texas
Nacogdoches is a city in Nacogdoches County, Texas, in the United States. The 2010 census recorded the city's population to be 32,996. It is the county seat of Nacogdoches County and is situated in East Texas. Nacogdoches is a sister city of Natchitoches, Louisiana.Nacogdoches is the home of...
, graduated from Oklahoma City University
Oklahoma City University
Oklahoma City University, often referred to as OCU, is a coeducational, urban, private university historically affiliated with the United Methodist Church...
and later attended Juilliard. He decided to pursue a career in performing after he finished Juilliard.
Television
Raines joined Guiding LightGuiding Light
Guiding Light is an American daytime television drama that is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest running drama in television and radio history, running from 1937 until 2009...
in 1994 in his first television role. He is the third actor to play the part of the sinister, nefarious Alan Spaulding
Alan Spaulding
Alan Spaulding is a fictional character on the CBS soap opera Guiding Light. He was played by Chris Bernau from the time of the character's introduction on November 7, 1977 until June 1988, when Bernau left the role due to health problems ; Daniel Pilon stepped into the role from 1988 until Alan...
, a role which has earned him three Emmy nominations. He remained on Guiding Light through its cancellation in 2009.
Operas/Operettas
He made his debut at New York City OperaNew York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
as
"Danilo" in The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro–Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play,...
. Subsequently he has appeared in Naughty Marietta
Naughty Marietta
Naughty Marietta is a 1935 film based on the operetta of the same name by Victor Herbert: Jeanette MacDonald stars as a vivacious Princess who trades places with her maid Marietta in order to avoid an arranged marriage...
, Rose-Marie
Rose-Marie
Rose-Marie is an operetta-style musical with music by Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart, and book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II. The story takes place in the Canadian Rockies and concerns Rose-Marie La Flemme, a French Canadian girl who loves miner Jim Kenyon...
, The Gypsy Princess, The Desert Song
The Desert Song
The Desert Song is an operetta with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel. It was inspired by the 1925 uprising of the Riffs, a group of Moroccan fighters, against French colonial rule. It was also inspired by stories of Lawrence of...
, The New Moon
The New Moon
The New Moon is the name of an operetta with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, Frank Mandel, and Laurence Schwab. The show was the third and last in a string of Broadway hits for Romberg written in the style of Viennese operetta...
and Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II to a German libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée.- Literary sources :...
.
Musical theatre
Raines appeared on BroadwayBroadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in the 1983 Broadway revival of Show Boat
Show Boat
Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It was originally produced in New York in 1927 and in London in 1928, and was based on the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber. The plot chronicles the lives of those living and working...
(as "Ravenal"); the 1987 Broadway production of Teddy & Alice
Teddy & Alice
Teddy & Alice is a musical with a book by Jerome Alden, lyrics by Hal Hackady, and music adapted from the work of the late John Philip Sousa, with some new songs by Richard Kapp...
and as "Billy Flynn" in the long running revival of Chicago
Chicago (musical)
Chicago is a musical set in Prohibition-era Chicago. The music is by John Kander with lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal"...
in 2002.
He has also appeared in productions of South Pacific
South Pacific (musical)
South Pacific is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. The story draws from James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific, weaving together characters and elements from several of its...
,
Annie
Annie (musical)
Annie is a Broadway musical based upon the popular Harold Gray comic strip Little Orphan Annie, with music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin, and the book by Thomas Meehan. The original Broadway production opened in 1977 and ran for nearly six years with a blonde Annie as the poster...
, Kiss Me Kate
Kiss Me Kate
Kiss Me Kate was a British sitcom that ran from 1998 until 2000. It followed the everyday life of a woman counsellor, Kate , who must not only manage her clients' problems, but must also help her neighbours and unsuccessful business partner, Douglas, played by Chris Langham. Amanda Holden played...
,
Can-Can
Can-Can (musical)
Can-Can is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, and a book by Abe Burrows. The story concerns the showgirls of the Montmartre dance halls during the 1890s....
, The King and I
The King and I
The King and I is a stage musical, the fifth by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The work is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in...
, Brigadoon, Oklahoma!
Oklahoma!
Oklahoma! is the first musical written by composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in Oklahoma Territory outside the town of Claremore in 1906, it tells the story of cowboy Curly McLain and his romance...
, Carousel
Carousel
A carousel , or merry-go-round, is an amusement ride consisting of a rotating circular platform with seats for riders...
, "The Pajama Game
The Pajama Game
The Pajama Game is a musical based on the novel 7½ Cents by Richard Bissell. It features a score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. The story deals with labor troubles in a pajama factory, where worker demands for a seven-and-a-half cents raise are going unheeded...
", Guys and Dolls, A Little Night Music
A Little Night Music
A Little Night Music is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. Inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, it involves the romantic lives of several couples. Its title is a literal English translation of the German name for Mozart's Serenade...
, Kismet
Kismet (musical)
Kismet is a musical with lyrics and musical adaptation by Robert Wright and George Forrest, adapted from the music of Alexander Borodin, and a book by Charles Lederer and Luther Davis, based on Kismet, the 1911 play by Edward Knoblock...
and Man of La Mancha
Man of La Mancha
Man of La Mancha is a musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion and music by Mitch Leigh. It is adapted from Wasserman's non-musical 1959 teleplay I, Don Quixote, which was in turn inspired by Miguel de Cervantes's seventeenth century masterpiece Don Quixote...
. He played the role of Johnny Brown in the Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds
Debbie Reynolds is an American actress, singer, and dancer.She was initially signed at age 16 by Warner Bros., but her career got off to a slow start. When her contract was not renewed, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave her a small, but significant part in the film Three Little Words , then signed her to...
US tour of The Unsinkable Molly Brown
The Unsinkable Molly Brown
The Unsinkable Molly Brown is a 1964 American musical film directed by Charles Walters. The screenplay by Helen Deutsch is based on the book of the 1960 musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown by Richard Morris. The song score was composed by Meredith Willson. The plot is a fictionalized account of the...
in 1990.
In 1994, he was offered a part in the national touring production of The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music is a musical by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers...
with Marie Osmond
Marie Osmond
Olive Marie Osmond is an American singer, actress, doll designer, and a member of the show business family The Osmonds. Although she was never part of her family's singing group, she gained success as a solo country music artist in the 1970s and 1980s...
on the same day he was offered the role of Alan Spaulding on Guiding Light. He decided to take the TV role.
He appeared in the Kennedy Center production of Follies
Follies
Follies is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman. The story concerns a reunion in a crumbling Broadway theatre, scheduled for demolition, of the past performers of the "Weismann's Follies," a musical revue , that played in that theatre between the World Wars...
from May 7 through June 19, 2011, as Ben Stone, with Bernadette Peters
Bernadette Peters
Bernadette Peters is an American actress, singer and children's book author from Ozone Park, Queens, New York. Over the course of a career that has spanned five decades, she has starred in musical theatre, films and television, as well as performing in solo concerts and recordings...
, Jan Maxwell
Jan Maxwell
Jan Maxwell is an American stage and television actress. She is a four-time Tony Award nominee.-Biography:She is the daughter of former First District Judge Ralph B. Maxwell and Elizabeth Maxwell, a lawyer for the EPA. She attended West Fargo High School, West Fargo, North Dakota and Moorhead...
, and Danny Burstein
Danny Burstein
Danny Burstein is a versatile American actor who is known for his work in theater, film and television. He won the 2008 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical and was nominated for the 2008 Drama Desk Award and 2008 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical...
. He had played this role previously in the 1988 Michigan Opera production (with Juliet Prowse and Nancy Dussault). He is reprising his role in the Broadway engagement of Follies, which started in previews in August 2011 at the Marquis Theatre
Marquis Theatre
The Marquis Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 1535 Broadway in midtown-Manhattan.Situated on the third floor of the Marriott Marquis Hotel, the 1611-seat venue was designed by developer/architect John C. Portman, Jr...
.
Concerts and recordings
As a concert performer, Raines has appeared as soloist with the symphony orchestras in Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, Columbus, Utah, Dallas, Minnesota, Omaha, Pittsburgh (with Marvin HamlischMarvin Hamlisch
Marvin Frederick Hamlisch is an American composer. He is one of only thirteen people to have been awarded Emmys, Grammys, Oscars, and a Tony . He is also one of only two people to EGOT and also win a Pulitzer Prize...
), Philadelphia Pops (with Peter Nero
Peter Nero
Peter Nero is an American pianist and pops conductor.-Early life:Born in Brooklyn, New York, As Bernard Nierow, Nero started his formal music training at the age of seven. He studied piano under Frederick Bried...
), San Diego, San Francisco, Tulsa and Washington D.C.. He also appeared with
the Boston Pops (with John Williams and Keith Lockhart).
He has performed with BBC Concert Orchestra in London, the Royal Philharmonic, the Jerusalem Symphony and the Israeli Philharmonic. Ron has had the honor of singing for two former First Ladies: Nancy Reagan
Nancy Reagan
Nancy Davis Reagan is the widow of former United States President Ronald Reagan and was First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989....
's White House luncheon for the Senate wives and Lady Bird Johnson
Lady Bird Johnson
Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Taylor Johnson was First Lady of the United States from 1963 to 1969 during the presidency of her husband Lyndon B. Johnson. Throughout her life, she was an advocate for beautification of the nation's cities and highways and conservation of natural resources and made that...
's National Wildlife Federation gala in Austin, Texas
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
.
Raines has appeared in several PBS Great Performances specials and has recorded two solo albums: So In Love With Broadway (2004)and Broadway Passion,along with several musicals including
Man of La Mancha
Man of La Mancha
Man of La Mancha is a musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion and music by Mitch Leigh. It is adapted from Wasserman's non-musical 1959 teleplay I, Don Quixote, which was in turn inspired by Miguel de Cervantes's seventeenth century masterpiece Don Quixote...
and Pajama Game on the Jay Records album label.