Biografia

Lost his best friend in the May 4th Shootings at Kent State University.

Spent 6 years (1988-1994) in South Africa, working with Nelson Mandela for the anti-Apartheid movement.

Won the Drama Circle Award for his stage portrayal of Billy Bibbitt in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in the early 1970s.

Was an assistant production manager for certain sequences of Spike Lee's film Malcolm X (1992) that was shot in South Africa where John was living at the time working with Nelson Mandela on the anti-apartheid movement. John had appeared in Lee's Faça a Coisa Certa (1989) a few years back, and later would show up in Lee's O Verão de Sam (1999).

In his early years he organized the Manhattan's Children's Theatre Group which performed in public housing areas.

I love plays like "Of Mice and Men." Modern classics. They tell you so much about America, how things were. The time it's about wasn't all that long ago, but we often forget times, and things, we should remember.

We make these stories, we play act, we pretend. But a lot of these stories we're playing or we're doing, people identify with us. We're real to them.

[asked to name the great actors from 1970s] Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Jon Voight, John Cazale, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, and John Savage -- nobody talks about John Savage. He's amazing in O Franco Atirador (1978), Assassinato a Sangue Frio (1979), Bar Max (1980).

There's a little bit of value in a lot of films that don't get a lot of attention. They have legs. They show up for years.

I have a deep interest in the experiences of men and women in the armed services.