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Last updated: November 01. 2006 4:41PM
MAKING HIS MARK
On living a life less ordinary
Coming from a family of seven sisters and one brother, Bakunas left home when he was 16, several years after his father died of a stroke. He then traveled the country and picked up various skills and leanings along the way. He landed in Wilmington in 1999 and began making his mark in the local theater community.
In 2005, Bakunas married actress Linda Lavin (Alice) who calls her husband “one of those renaissance people who can do everything.” While renovating a cottage and turning it into a small studio on South Third Street near Marstellar, he began to buy and restore other homes on Roderick Alley behind the studio. At 49, he now finds himself revitalizing the area in an attempt to create a small community from the ashes of what was only recently a drug-infested neighborhood.
Q: You’ve worked more than 70 jobs in your life?
A: Yes. I’d move somewhere, get a job, and not be satisfied. It wasn’t enough for me. I had big ideas about finding something, but I didn’t know what it would look like. As a kid, I worked in construction, then in asphalt paving. I worked as a bus boy and then as a carpenter. I worked in restaurants but became a Fuller brush salesman, going house-to-house. I worked in a car wash in Los Angeles, and met some car salesmen who said I should sell cars. So, I went to the thrift store and got a tie and went right across North Hollywood Boulevard and landed a job in a car lot. I went from selling cars to selling RVs. I left that and moved to San Francisco to join the sailing association, because I heard that if you joined, you could crew for somebody sailing around the world. Well, that didn’t work out, so I then hooked up with the circus.
In between all of this, I worked in an IHOP and as a hotel bellman. I did plumbing for a while and phone sales. After I left the circus, I started a “can-do” business and worked as a handyman, but then I heard about these storm windows that were made out of plastic. So I started a business selling these. I learned as much as I could about them and set up a little display at the mall. After this, I worked for a guy who had a carpet business in the state of Washington. He hired me as a salesperson. I got two sales in the first couple of days, so he made me manager. Then I became this big carpet, blinds and floor cover sales guy. ... I guess I can go on like this for another 20 minutes.
Q: At some point you got into theater? How did that happen?
A: When I was about 29, I ended up in Cape Cod, where I had family, and I went in the auto upholstery business, and then I discovered theater. I had never acted before. One day, I walked into a theater, and they said, “Hey, do you want to be in a play?” It turned out to be easy for me, and they told me I was a natural. I did this for a couple of years, and then applied to the Acting Conservatory in Rhode Island, where I got a scholarship. So I decided I wanted to be in movies, so I went out to California to be a movie star. The movie thing never happened. ... I was 41 years old and didn’t have a life. It was then I learned about Wilmington from a good friend, and so I moved down here.
Q: Somewhere along the way you became a painter whose work is shown in New York. Did you always paint?
A: No. My painting skills surprised me. I was 41 when I started painting. I first started when I played Picasso (in a theater production of Picasso at the Lapin Agile in Boston). I wanted to see what it felt like. I later did landscapes with an artist friend of mine, who encouraged me. He took me out and said, “Let’s paint these trees,” and he showed me how to look at the space between them and how to mix colors. I had 50 paintings in the basement and never showed them to anyone but friends. One day a fellow came by to pick up furniture in the basement. He had an antique store on Front Street called Riverside Market. He said “Where do you show?” I said “I don’t show.” He said he thought he could sell my work, so he gave me a showing at his shop. I sold nine paintings. Later, I was in New York City with Linda, and she set up a meeting for me with a fellow who owns a gallery on Madison Avenue. ... He asked if I could produce 16 paintings for a show in November. I went back the next day, just to make sure I heard him right.
Q: How is it you are able to do all of these things?
A: Well, let me explain it this way. I learned to play the drums recently, so I could play with my wife professionally. We play all over the country to audiences of 1,000 or 1,500 people, and I’m the professional drummer with this professional actress, and, believe me, sometimes while I’m playing, I’m thinking, “It is amazing that I’m even here.” Linda says to me, “You work harder than anybody” because I practice all the time. I need to make sure I’m good enough, because I’m surrounded by people like Liza Minnelli’s piano player and composer, and my wife, who is a great actress, and all of these other professionals who have done this all of their lives, and I’m just a guy who said, “Well, I can play a little.”
Q: Many people wouldn’t take that gamble. Why are you willing to, and what would you say to people who are afraid to do things they’ve never done?
A: I’ve failed enough in my life so that it doesn’t matter. People who have only done one thing in their lives probably have a lot more at stake because their identities are wrapped up in what they do, because it’s how they think the world perceives them. My friends don’t know what to call me. Today, I’m a builder. Last night I was a drummer. Tomorrow, I’ll be a painter. For me, if I fail as a drummer, I’m still a painter. I still have sculpting. Because I’ve allowed someone like Linda to love me, I don’t require as much as I did in the past to know who I am. I can laugh at myself now.
If I fail as a builder, so what? I’m not a builder anyway. I’m just a guy who can do this stuff. If this is all I did, I think it would bother me, and I would be afraid. It’s all a matter of how you see yourself in this world. I think I realized at some point that I identify myself with so many things that I don’t actually see myself as any of them.
Q: What are you up to here on Roderick Alley? I gather you’ve been buying cottages and restoring them.
A: When I bought this first place, I figured I’d rip it down and build a new building for a studio here for my work, but then I realized there were the remnants of a quaint neighborhood here, although it was lost to drugs. So I decided to fix it up, and the more I worked here, the more I liked it. So I’ve purchased five other cottages, and I’m fixing those up, too. I’m negotiating to purchase more to complete the block. I think there was a time when everybody here knew one another and where they shared a common yard – where kids ran around and played and were safe.
I lived down the street from a river, just like here. There was a sense of community as I remember it. I knew everyone. I knew the mailman. There was never a sense of fear or worry. I think when I moved to Wilmington, I felt this is a place where community exists and is important, a place where you can know your mailman and your neighbors. If I’m going to paint and sculpt here, I want my neighbors to be part of it. I want to be part of their lives and their work, so that’s what I’m trying to recreate here.
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