I met Dwight Schultz at the Williamstown Theater Festival in 1978. Even then, we all knew, you’d need a turnpike truck scale to weigh his talent off. Dwight had what, in anthropology, they call contagious magic. His readings were cerebral and yet instinctive. His emotional life was intense to the point of nervous exhaustion (on stage and off). His dramatic choices were provocative, quick, unusually easy, and humane. Dwight was also such a perplexing natural mimic that he could vanish in front of you at dinner.
His New York stage career has been extensive: David Mamet’s The Water Engine, Crucifer of Blood (with Glenn Close), Night and Day (with Maggie Smith), all on Broadway. He is a powerful interpreter of Ionesco and Ibsen. But stage acting can chapter-11 you. In 1983 he left for L.A. to visit a lady friend (actress Wendy Fulton, now his wife). “I’m coming home soon,” he told me over the phone. “I’ve just got to audition for an implausible TV pilot.” That pilot was The A Team. It turned NBC’s fortunes around. Dwight, as Howling Mad Murdock, brought distinction to an otherwise shallow, if profitable, four-year enterprise.
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