Dan Shor… not Jamaican, but brilliant nonetheless! Another of my cool friends

I’ve made a decision to get out of the house more (it’s really not that cold here in New York, relatively speaking). So, yesterday, I hung out in downtown Manhattan with veteran film actor Dan Shor. Yes, THAT Dan Shor of Tron movie fame. So, me and Dan were shooting the breeze in an Indian restaurant, and, um, what’s that? Who me? Casually dropping names in my blog to inflate my own importance and impress you with my circle of friends? Oh, come on! I’d NEVER do a shallow thing like that!

But, just in case you don’t know who Dan Shor is, here’s an excerpt from the wikipedia page on him

“Shor’s acting credits include Air Force One, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Tron , Red Rock West, and John Huston’s Wise Blood. Television films and mini-series include Friendly Fire, Elvis and the Colonel and The Blue and the Gray (for which Shor won a People’s Choice Award). He was a series regular on Cagney and Lacey and several other television series as well as numerous guest star appearances including a Ferengi doctor on Star Trek: The Next Generation, a role he would reprise seven years later on Star Trek: Voyager. In 1983, Shor starred in the band Kansas’ music video “Fight Fire With Fire” and made appearances in their “Everybody’s My Friend” video. Stage appearances in Los Angeles and San Diego have garnered Shor eight Drama-Logue and LA Weekly performance awards.”

Now, apparently, there’s a whole parallel universe of Tron movie fanatics and others from his fan club whose love of Dan Shor’s appearance in the role of Ram in the original Tron prompted the producers to reprise his role in the recent 2011 sequel!

Anyway, you might be wondering how we met. Like me, Dan escaped from America a few years ago to live on a tropical island in the Pacific, and, you guessed it: we met while he was on Saipan back in 2006! It’s a small island! He was getting into directing at the time, and I wrote an article on him for the Saipan Tribune, and recently helped him re-issue the dvd for Looking for America, the pilot he produced and directed for a Saipan-based television series he envisioned.

Dan left Saipan and returned to New York shortly after we met, but we’ve kept in touch, and yesterday, finally had a chance to spend a few hours reminiscing about Saipan, China, acting, directing and life abroad and other, um, man stuff!  

He’s doing a lot more diverse types of directing now through his company, Shodavision.


Dan as Ram in the movie Tron

looking for america by dan shor
The DVD, Looking for America, produced by Dan Shor’s Shodavision (also available on Amazon), and also featuring Dan as a Russian bar owner!

ben salas and dan shor saipan
Dan and filmmaker Ben Salas back on Saipan back in the day!

dan shor and walt goodridge new york
Dan Shor in New York, with the Jamaican in China New York for now!

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