(This article, reprinted with permission, featuring John Radnor, class of 1992, appeared in The Columbus Dispatch on October 10, 2005)   10/10/05

Bexley native gains notice as busy actor
Monday, October 10, 2005

The bulletin board in Hill Theater at Kenyon College serves as a constant reminder to drama students that they, too, can ‘‘make it."

Professors dutifully clip articles about the acting careers of former students and post them at the small Gambier college.

While anyone at Kenyon knows about the easy selling point (‘‘Paul Newman went here"), the news that other actors have succeeded since Newman graduated in 1949 certainly helps.

One of the more recent names on the board is that of Josh Radnor, a 1996 grad and Bexley native.

Radnor stars as Ted on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Television isn’t the stage, but the actor still gets his Kenyon drama props.

Professor Tom Turgeon, who has clipped Radnor stories for quite a while, remembers his former student as Romeo in the Shakespeare play that Turgeon directed.

Perhaps most impressive are the 2002 notices from his starring turn on Broadway as Benjamin in The Graduate opposite Kathleen Turner.

"I never get the sense that someone’s going to make it or not," Turgeon said, "but I often get the sense of people I hope will make it because I admire what they can do, and he certainly fell in that crowd."

Radnor has been through the Hollywood ringer before. Three years ago, he was cast in The Court with Sally Field, only to see the drama yanked after three episodes.

At a summer gathering for TV critics in Los Angeles, Radnor, a media-tour newbie, was more or less left alone as reporters and photographers swarmed around his co-stars, including Neil Patrick Harris, former star of Doogie Howser, M.D.; and Alyson Hannigan, who portrayed Willow on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Not that Radnor minded.

"I’ve got tons to do in the show," he pointed out.

Smart kid. He’s the star of the awkwardly named sitcom that features a dad telling the title story to his children, years in the future. The series follows his quest to find the right woman. The show is doing well: How I Met Your Mother is the secondmost-watched new comedy of the season — safe, for the time being, from the ax.

Radnor is cute but not Hollywood-cute. He seems like a real person you might actually be able to go up and talk to. So I did. (I’d seen his name on that bulletin board when I attended Kenyon.)

He had just been home for his sister Joanna’s wedding. His parents, Alan and Carol, still live in town. After all, some other people from central Ohio make it and never look back (I mean you, Mr. Yoakam).

"I still have a lot of friends from high school who are there. But it’s tough to do a TV show out of Columbus; you’ve got to come to L.A. if you want to do that."

He returned to Kenyon last year to deliver a talk to students on "What Have I Done? Acting in the Real World."

Although he is often called a newcomer, Radnor points out that he worked for years to get where he is now.

It all began at Columbus Children’s Theatre, then on to Bexley High School productions, up to the halls of Kenyon (where he won the Paul Newman acting award) and then to New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Radnor loves the stage but also likes to eat, so eventually he considered television.

"I wanted to, you know, make a living," he said somewhat sheepishly.

"I just like acting, basically. I know that sounds silly. Everything I do, I’m just happy to be there."

Turgeon is happy to have another notice to put up on the bulletin board. For years, Allison Janney (C.J. on The West Wing), Class of ’82, received all the real estate. But she has some competition.

He even likes what he has seen of How I Met Your Mother, although getting a drama professor to talk about television is comic relief in itself.

"I thought he did his job with good humor and verve," Turgeon said.

For those of you who didn’t study theater: "I thought it was fun."

And Radnor’s mom, not surprisingly, is getting a big kick out of it, too.

"We were out (to visit him) in California in August, and I said, ‘Josh, when am I going to see you again?’ "

He answered like a working actor: "Sept. 19 at 8:30."

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