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Carrie Coon and Morgan Spector in a scene from “The Gilded Age.” (HBO Max via AP)
By Dan Taylor, The Press Democrat
Fans of the HBO series “The Gilded Age,” which aired its season three finale on Sunday, know actor Morgan Spector as railroad tycoon and robber baron George Russell. For Sonoma County, Spector is also a native son.
Born in Santa Rosa, he grew up in Guerneville, graduated from El Molino High School in Forestville in 1998 and got his start in local theater when he was just 7 years old.
“I worked with a theater group in Jenner, the River Repertory Theatre,” Spector said in a recent phone interview from the United Kingdom, where his wife — actor and director Rebecca Hall — was working.
“I don’t think I can overstate how important it was to have the River Repertory,” he added. “I have a clear memory of falling in love with the experience of performing for a live audience. That little company meant a lot to me.”
Spector’s mother, Jane McDonough, a former teacher, principal and school superintendent in Sonoma and Marin counties, currently lives near Spector and Hall’s home in New York’s Hudson Valley, where she helps care for their daughter. The actor’s father, retired attorney Stephen Spector, remains in Sonoma County. McDonough vividly remembers her son’s debut as the little boy in Christopher Durang’s satire “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You” at River Repertory, wearing a child-sized suit.
“He just did it,” she recalled. “He enjoyed the community of the other actors a lot and the interplay with the crowd.”
Jeffrey Diamond, former music and theater teacher at Monte Rio Union School, remembers young Morgan as a very talented kid with a natural stage presence.
“When we did a fifth-to-eighth-grade production of ‘Little Shop of Horrors,’ he wanted to play the dentist, which is not the nicest character, but he was fantastic,” Diamond said. “He stole the show.”
At El Molino, Spector studied under drama teacher Caren Johnson, who remembers him as a bright and promising student. As a senior, he starred in the school’s production of the musical “Grease.”
“He was a very funny, very intelligent kid. He was also a thinker. He took direction well, but trying to keep him reined in was an effort. Most actors are like that,” said Johnson, who taught theater at El Molino during the late ’90s.
She is pleased, but not surprised, by Spector’s success.
“It’s hard out there and you have to have a certain type of personality to survive in that life,” she said.
From the Bay Area to Broadway to TV
Spector graduated from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, then enrolled in the American Conservatory Theater’s acting program in San Francisco. He worked in regional theater, including a touring production of “The Lion King.” In 2006, he moved to New York City and, in 2010, he got his first big break on Broadway as Rodolpho in a revival of Arthur Miller’s “A View from the Bridge.”
“I finally got booked for a two-minute walk-on role,” Spector recalled, but soon moved into a major role. “The actor I was understudying got injured during previews.”
Spector went on to appear in several TV crime series and soap operas. He made his HBO debut with two appearances in “How to Make It in America,” which ran from 2010 to 2011. In 2020, he starred in HBO’s miniseries adaptation of Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America” alongside Winona Ryder, who attended junior high and high school in Petaluma. He also appeared in the HBO series “Homeland” and “Boardwalk Empire.” Then, in 2022, Spector was cast in “The Gilded Age,” set in 1880s New York. The series is written and produced by Julian Fellowes, best known as the creator of “Downton Abbey.”
“We don’t get to see him as often as we’d like, because he’s based in the United Kingdom,” Spector said of Fellowes. “Just once or twice a year.”
“The Gilded Age” is filmed in Queens, on Long Island and in Newport, Rhode Island, he explained.
Spector is thankful for his live theater experience and training.
“You learn to pursue quality that way, night after night,” he said. “You don’t get locked into an image of yourself.”
HBO recently announced “The Gilded Age” will return for a fourth season. Beyond “The Gilded Age,” Spector is ready to explore new opportunities.
“I would love to do some more contemporary work,” he said.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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