Doug McClure

College Friend

“I was discovered on a surfboard in Malibu. I was a cowboy surfer; a surfboard under one arm and a saddle under the other.”

He was a true California Golden Boy when Hollywood tapped him to star in a film with Robert Mitchum. There’s still a lot of boyish enthusiasm in his voice when he talks about his craft. And Doug McClure has a lot of terrific successes to remember over the course of a career that began in SMC’s theatre. “That’s where I learned I had something worthwhile as an actor,” says McClure. “And once you develop that sense of yourself, it carries on with you for the rest of your life. It sure held me in good stead later,” he continues. “As an actor, it’s terribly important to be secure in what you do. And at SMC, I felt the kind of encouragement you don’t always get elsewhere in life.”

There’s a comfortable den in the McClure home that’s filled with posters of his films and photographs of his famous friends. “There’s even a photograph of me and Mickey Mouse!” he says. But there is a place of honor he reserved for an award he got for his work in a play at SMC. “Awards are important to young people,” says McClure. “They provide the encouragement you need. And the friends you make in school,” he continues, “those are the young voices that you will always carry with you everywhere. Because you’ll never forget it when someone in your class—someone you really respect—sits you down and says, ‘You know? You’ve really got what it takes.’”

McClure says “I’m proud to be living my life as an artist,” and cautions other actors that they’d “better learn early on how to deal with the inactivity and the rejection.” But on balance, he says, he’s never regretted choosing his line of work. “It’s a tremendous profession,” he says, “as long as you always continue to stretch and grow as an actor.”

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