When she recently returned to Sioux City for the 50th anniversary of her Central High School class, Sharon Spelman could still remember the location of many of her favorite haunts.
Green Gables Restaurant – the eatery where she and her girlfriends would talk about boys over massive sandwiches.
Or the long-demolished Victory Theater in the heart of the downtown, – once the home of the Sioux City Community Theatre, the place where she dreamt of a career spent on the stage.
Even after a 42-year career that has given her the opportunity to appear alongside the greats of the New York stage, allowed her to experience primetime television stardom on the 1970s series “Angie,” and flex her acting muscles performing in regional repertory theater, Spelman still considers Sioux City “home.”
Born in Sioux City in 1942, Spelman was raised by her mom, Helen Schwartz, the longtime assistant principal at East Junior School.
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“Going to the movies on the weekend was something every kid did,” Spelman said. “And seeing the big shows that would be booked at the (Municipal) Auditorium were something else, too. I saw Harry Belafonte there and it was so colorful and exciting that I can still remember it.”
It was only after sneaking into the back of the Sioux City Community Theatre that the then 14-year-old Spelman got to experience the stage, firsthand.
“I was hoping no one would spot me,” the girl, who often imagined herself a star in the privacy of her bedroom, explained, “but someone did.”
At first, Spelman was asked to be a “prompter” – the person who gave actors forgotten lines while they rehearsed on stage. Eventually, Spelman, herself, would take to the stage.
“It was wonderful,” she recalled. “I was getting the chance to experience my dream.”
Off to college, then to New York
After graduating from Central High School, Spelman was accepted into the University of Iowa, with hopes of, someday, becoming a diplomat.
“My mom was worried that international diplomacy was considered a 'man's job' and, at the time, it really was a 'man's world,'” she said with a laugh. “So I decided to become an actress, instead.”
Moving to New York in 1968 to pursue acting, Spelman quickly became an understudy for several actresses currently in Broadway shows.
In order to make ends meet, she was cast in several national commercials.
“Sanka, Folgers, Dunkin' Donuts, I did 'em all,” Spelman said of her more than 40 commercials. “Guess I had that bubbly Doris Day/Debbie Reynolds look that was all the rage at the time.”
Hollywood, at last
“The stage was my home,” Spelman insisted. “I would have never gone to Hollywood if it wasn't for my manager, who was relocating to the West Coast.”
The actress' Midwestern good looks allowed her to be cast in several primetime shows, like “Barnaby Jones” and “The Rockford Files.”
Spelman was eventually cast in the short-lived sitcom “The Cop and The Kid” (starring Charles Durning) and, in 1979, co-starred on the ABC show “Angie,” a vehicle for “Saturday Night Fever” actress Donna Pescow and a pre-”Everybody Loves Raymond” Doris Roberts.
“That was my big break and my big show,” she said of the series that lasted two seasons. “ABC was the No. 1 network at the time, with shows like 'Happy Days' and 'Laverne & Shirley' but they thought their comedies were more popular than they actually were.”
“We were a Top 10 show our first year and moved into three different time slots our second year,” Spelman said, explaining the series' cancellation. “That just killed the show.”
But the setback didn't stop her from booking guest shots on several popular shows like “Gimme a Break,” “The Golden Girls” and “L.A. Law.”
“I've done plenty of TV dramas but I preferred sitcoms because they were closer to doing a stage play,” Spelman said. “After all, a sitcom is essentially a two-act play, performed in front of a live audience.”
“That was my comfort zone,” she said. “The stage was always where I felt comfortable.”
In fact, this was the reason Spelman and her husband, actor-writer Stephen Johnson, left California for Florida in 1996.
A new life in the 'Sunshine State'
After more than two decades as a television actor, Spelman decided to take to the stage in Sarasota, Fla.
“When I was just starting out, I was cast in a production of 'Born Yesterday' in Sarasota,” Spelman said. “Thirty years later, Sarasota had changed a lot and so had I.”
Indeed, she has, appearing in several productions staged at the city's Asola Repertory Theatre, including, most recently, a limited run of Janece Shaffer's “Managing Maxine,” a comedy that explores “sex, love and life” after 60.
This, according to Spelman, marked her farewell to acting.
“Oh, no, I'm not 'retiring,'” she insisted. “I'm offically retired and couldn't be more happy about it.”
