By Ken Hall
 Growing up in Seattle, Wash., actor Richard Karn was drawn to the outdoors
and spent a lot of time fishing and playing golf. Looking every bit the rugged
outdoorsman, he was a natural to play "Al," the cordless power tool expert on
TV's Home Improvement. With a stout build, trimmed beard and a clean lumberjack
shirt each week, Karn was the perfect "Tool Time" sidekick for Tim
Allen.
Richard likes to camp the Grand Canyon. "I also like the Islands up in
the American San Juans. You can get around there by ferry and RV."
Richard/Al
has a home improvement tip for RV Owners: "Put an Alka-Seltzer in your toilet
bowl to clean it. The Alka-Seltzer will do the job by itself for you.
As it
turned out, Karn's love of the great outdoors (golf especially) has led to other
things in his life. For one, he regularly holds the Richard Karn Celebrity Golf
Tournament in his home state with the proceeds going to benefit cancer research.
And that's resulted in a nice collection of celebrity-signed golf balls, about
80 in all.
"I've got them all in a self-contained, wall-mounted cabinet,"
Karn said from his home in Los Angeles. "I've devised a rack system, with each
rack acting as a golf ball holder. There are about nine balls per rack." He
added it isn't easy to sign a golf ball. "You have to rotate it as you sign it,
to keep up with the dimples," he said with a laugh. "Some of the signatures are
a little bit wobbly."
Karn's collection is about equally divided between
celebrities (or noted public figures) and golf professionals. In the former
category, he has one signed by the late Bob Hope ("I got it when I played in the
Bob Hope Desert Classic in 1996. He only played the first three holes and the
last three holes, but he knocked it around pretty good"), Samuel L. Jackson,
Jerry Ford and Bill Clinton.
But Karn really lights up when he talks about
the golfers he's played with, rubbed shoulders with and gotten autographs from.
"One time I was playing the Augusta National in Georgia and I saw this big,
looming figure. I got closer to see who this tall man could be, and it was
George Archer (the golf pro and one of the top all-time tour money winners). I
felt so grateful to get him to sign a ball."
Other golfers who've been happy
to oblige Karn include Fuzzy Zoeller, Arnold Palmer, Tom Kite, Davis Love III,
Vijay Singh, John Daly, Chi-Chi Rodriguez and Phil Mickelson. Great golfers
all-legends even-but what, no Tiger Woods? "I asked Tiger for his autograph, but
he has a tight contract that prevents him from signing balls. I did get him to
sign a glove, though. That he could do."
The Phil Mickelson autograph almost
didn't happen. When Karn approached him, at a tournament, Mickelson mistook him
for a stargazing fan and dismissed him. Besides, he's restricted from signing
almost as much as Tiger is. "But his wife recognized me and kind of poked Phil
in the ribs. He caught up to me and signed the ball. I tease him now that I sold
it for a huge amount on eBay."
Richard has yet to "find a bad golf course."
He's played Orlando's Celebration Course, Augusta, Pebble Beach, and Lakeside in
Burbank is his home course.
Traffic Court Yields "Al"
Richard Karn Wilson was born Feb. 17, 1956, one
of Gene and Louise Wilson's two children. He dropped his last name when he
applied for membership in the Screen Actors Guild and found there was already a
Richard Wilson listed. He acted in school plays and was active in community
theatre and summer stock. He majored in theater at the University of Washington
in Seattle.
Karn's professional acting debut was in a 1979 Michelob beer
commercial. He has since done another beer ad, for Miller Lite. In New York, he
acted in the off-Broadway productions, "Losing It" and "The Other Shore" (where
he met his wife, Tudi), as well as in the Broadway plays, "Me and My Girl" and
"Our Father." His TV debut was as a sketch player on Carol Burnett's Carol &
Company in 1990.
By this time, Richard and Tudi had moved from New York to
Los Angeles to raise a family (their son, Cooper, would later appear in a Home
Improvement episode titled "I Was a Teenage Taylor"). Karn was piling up stage
credits, becoming comfortable as a comic lead. He earned high praise by
receiving a Critic's Choice Award from the Los Angeles Times for his work in
"Our Father."
But stardom was still eluding him. Work in two
films-"Desperately Seeking Susan" and "House of Games"-ended up on the cutting
room floor. It wasn't until he rolled through a stop sign while on his way home
from a rehearsal for "Macbeth" that Karn's life would change forever. He was
given a ticket and ordered to attend traffic school. It was the best thing that
could have happened.
"One of the people in traffic school was a talent agent
who told me about a new TV show called Home Improvement,"" Karn recalled. "The
series was being produced by several writers I had met while working in
repertory years earlier in Indiana. I made a few phone calls and was able to
arrange a meeting, but I was told the show had already been cast. I asked for an
audition anyway."
His persistence paid off. As it happened, the actor who had
been chosen to play the "Al Borland" role decided instead to accept a movie
part. Karn was in, but only for the pilot, he was told. They were fairly sure
the original actor would return for the series. But when Karn delivered the
now-famous line, "I don't think so, Tim," it got the biggest laugh of the pilot,
and the part was his for good.
Home Improvement was the #3-rated show in its
first full season (1991) and consistently ranked in the top 10 Nielsen ratings
during its seven-year run. Even after the show was canceled, Karn had become so
linked with his character that it led to other opportunities outside of acting.
He was a spokesman for Wayne/Dalton, the garage door maker. Karn is currently a
spokesman for the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corp., based in Atlanta. He
travels across the U.S. and Canada for RBRC, educating consumers about the
importance of rechargeable battery and cell phone recycling. His likeness
appears on RBRC materials, usually in a dressed-down, "Al" persona. He also
makes public service announcements for the firm.
Lest we suggest that life
for Richard Karn post-Home Improvement" has been all corporate spokesman gigs,
he's still very much on television (as anybody who watches cable TV can tell
you). He's the host of the weekly game show Family Feud, which is seen in
syndication nationwide. Karn replaced Louie Anderson, who took over for Richard
Dawson on the hit program.
Karn could have forgone acting to become a
fourth-generation builder. His father, Gene Wilson, is a retired Seattle
architect and building contractor. "I got a kick out of seeing my son as the
brains behind 'Tool Time'," he once said of the show-within-a-show. Karn's
mother, Louise Wilson, was a noted Pacific Northwest artist before losing her
battle with bone-marrow cancer in 1983.
Karn said he's proud to be involved
in the fight against cancer in honor of his mother through his charity
tournaments. And he's not a bad golfer, either-a 9 handicap!
Karn has
authored two handyman books: Handy at Home: Tips on Improving Your Home from
America's Favorite Handyman and How I Remodeled My Home for Just Under Three
Times the Original Bid. Is Richard really a handyman? "I can be. Like most guys,
I will take a stab at it. I won't try to fix a dishwasher, but I will fix
certain things. There is a certain satisfaction from doing it on your own."
Then he deadpans, "I put up my own Christmas lights. It takes me four days
to do it, though."
Here are a few tips
from his books:
"Want to paint your home, but abhor
the noxious stench of fresh paint? Add some vanilla flavoring to the paint
before applying to the walls. Are your squeaking floorboards driving you crazy?
Sprinkle talcum powder in the floor cracks Want your house plants to grow big
and strong? Pour a little tea in the pot from time to time."
You can catch
"Al" in rerun syndication these days on cable, or you may see Richard on a golf
course.
Richard
Karn's
Grandma
Ruth's Shrimp Salad
Ingredients:
Savoy cabbage, finely chopped
Mayonnaise to taste, not a
lot
Salt and pepper to taste
A little lemon juice
Teaspoon of
sugar
Boiled shrimp, 1 pound
Directions: Mix and serve. |
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