David James Elliott; Celebrity Profile

David James Elliott Celebrity Profile

E!: In the fall of 1980, 20-year-old David James Elliott, then David Smith, enrolled in Toronto's Ryerson Polytechnic University to study acting. The rebellious boy from nearby Milton had finally found a focus.
Pat: You could see that it really mattered to him. He worked very hard at what he was doing. It just seemed to be his whole life, doing this.
E!: As a freshman, money was tight, but David was too proud to let his parents know how grim things had become.
DJE: By the end of the season, I had lost so much weight, 'cause we were starving.
Pat: David lost a lot of weight because he wasn't eating as well. When he was at home, he was a good eater.
DJE: But I remember going home and I ate so much food. My brother and his buddies were barbecuing out in the backyard, so I ate a meal there. And then I went in and my mother was cooking dinner. I ate another meal. And then my stomach started like ... exploding ... and the pain! I had never felt pain like that. It was like, oh my God!
Pat: Believe me, you wonder where he put it. Used to say he had a hollow leg.
E!: With frequent care packages from his mother, David managed to avoid starvation and continued his stage training. One day, David's father made a surprising acknowledgement.
DJE: We were doing a musical and my father came to see it. And I remember he came backstage and said, "Son, I used to hear you singing around the house and I thought, 'The kid's going nowhere,' but after seeing you tonight, you're doing the right thing." Which was like, incredible for me.
E!: David graduated from Ryerson with a degree in acting in May of 1984. That fall, David auditioned for and won a spot in the prestigious Stratford Festival.
Pat: I was really proud. I thought that was terrific that he won. It was just like winning a little Academy Award or something.
E!: Actor Richard Monette was in the company with David.
Richard Monette: It was clear that he had a great gift. When you work at a place like Stratford, you get to work with the best stage actors there are, so he got to work with great people. And you learn by doing that.
E!: Richard Monette recommended David to his agent who quickly signed the handsome 23-year-old. However, joining the actors' union created a little problem for David Smith.
DJE: I applied and they said, "You can't, somebody has your name", and somebody has my middle name and last name.
E!: David's mother came to his rescue.
Pat: I thought he should stick with David 'cause it was a nice name.
DJE: My arch-enemy in all through public school was David Elliott. And my mother ... I was like racking my brain, "What am I gonna ... how am I gonna come up with a name?" She said, "Why don't you be David Elliott?"
Pat: And he said, "Oh yeah! That's great! I like that one."
E!: The newly-christened David Elliott played a series of supporting parts in local stage productions.
Pat: First time I saw David in a theatre, he had to say some profanity sort of thing and I was sitting there with a few of my friends. We'd gone to see it. And David came out with this as part of the... and I know I just went, "David!" And it was embarrassing that I had done that. [laughs]
E!: In 1987, David auditioned for the role of a dim-witted stripper in the campy stage comedy titled B Movie: The Play. In the audition, the notoriously shy David was anything but.
DJE: I said, "You know what? If you don't hire me for this part, you're a fool because I'm the only guy to play this role." And that's it. It was like I wasn't saying those words. Someone else was moving my mouth. It was like God went, "Blah, blah, blah, blah!" And I went, oh my God! I can't believe I said that! I walked out of the room aghast. I thought, oh I must be finished. They'll call my agent, tell him I'm insane. I went home and like a couple of hours later, I got a call, and I got the part.
E!: Writer and friend John Frizzell recalls David's debut.
John Frizzell: Frankly, most people thought, oh, well, this is all about eating this guy alive. They're gonna take him to town. They'll clean him. And David was extraordinary. And I think it was a revelation for a lot of people. But it was just sort of so unbelievable that this guy who looked like this could also do all of these other things and so well.
E!: B Movie: The Play was a critical and financial smash. The production marked a turning point for David. In the spring of 1988, Brenda Greenberg, executive producer of the Canadian television drama Street Legal saw B Movie: The Play.
Brenda Greenberg: We were looking for a handsome, romantic love interest for our lead actress, Sonja Smits, and I saw this guy standing onstage who had a small part, who was very good-looking, and he seemed to be able to act and I thought, "Who is this guy? I can't believe I've never seen him."
DJE: I came in and read for a thing that was supposed to be a three-show, for a part that would go over three shows.
Brenda Greenberg: We were thrilled. We felt like we found a prize.
E!: David's heartthrob character clicked with viewers and producers quickly signed Elliott as a regular. Suddenly the shy boy from Milton was a national celebrity.
Brenda Greenberg: It seems really fast that there were suddenly TV Guide covers of him and everybody wanted him in photo shoots.
Pat: He looked really really handsome. And it was great. It was really great. And then when he made the covers of some of the TV Guides for the newspapers, I want to stop everybody and say, "Hey, that's my son!"
E!: In August of 1989, Nanci Chambers, a model and actress, read for a small part on Street Legal.
Nanci Chambers: Went in, I saw David, and I just about fell on the floor. It was definitely, for me, love at first sight.
DJE: I remember saying hello to her and she was kind of rude to me.
Nanci: [laughing] Oh, okay! I was! I forgot about that part. I had worked on the show once before. And I was reading a script, and I had on these brand new cowboy boots that I had just gotten myself for my birthday, and he walked by and he said, "Oh, nice cowboy boots." I looked up and went, "Oh definitely! Thank you."
DJE: Yeah, you know, blew me off.
Nanci: I went back to reading my script, and you could just see him melt.
DJE: She tells me later ... because she thought that I would be full of myself, which I wasn't. I was very kind of shy and unsure.
Nanci: And then a year later, I was called back to do the show again. And I saw him, and that was it. We had a scene together, and I had my hand up in his face, and I swore I was just standing there going, breathe, breathe breathe! 'Cause I swore he could, like, feel my heart beating through the end of my fingers.
E!: This time, the attraction was immediate and intense.
Nanci: Oh God! I don't know if I should be telling this story. He asked me to move in with him three weeks after we met. So I moved in ... Mom and Dad ... and we lived together and three weeks after I moved in, given up my apartment, moved all my stuff in, David comes to me one day after he'd gone golfing. He said, "I don't really think this is working out." I'm like, "What do you mean, this isn't working out?"
DJE: It was a little stormy relationship. It was so hard for me because I had never really dated long at that point in time.
Nanci: I know he was in love with me. I really firmly believe that. But he had it in his head that he couldn't have a girlfriend and go to Hollywood and be an actor. And that was his ultimate goal, his entire goal, since he decided he wanted to be an actor. So I really think that he thought I was gonna get in the way.
E!: In the spring of 1990, David decided he was ready to move to Hollywood.
Nanci: And he came over and sat in my living room and he said, "I have a goal in my life. I have a plan and you just don't fit in and I'm sorry, I don't love you and good-bye." So I watched, and it was like the saddest day of my life.

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