The first thing you’ll notice when you see Michael Gross in Call Me Fitz is, well, he looks great.
Gross, of course, is best known for his role as Steven Keaton, the father on Family Ties back in the 1980s. Gross, now 66, has a guest-starring arc in the fourth season of Jason Priestley‘s Canadian cable comedy Call Me Fitz, beginning with the episode airing Monday, Oct. 28 on The Movie Network and Movie Central.
My God, it doesn’t look as if Gross has aged much.
“First of all, I think that’s delusional, but I appreciate the compliment nonetheless,” Gross says. “Because I do feel older. But having said that, I was blessed with my mother’s wonderful Irish skin. She was relatively wrinkle-free, even in her mid-80s.
“But yet, that’s a problem in some ways, too, because I should be moving into the grandfather roles and they’re going, ‘You know, you don’t look like a grandfather.’ I’m serious. There is all that sagging that takes place, the wrinkled, wizened quality, and it actually stands in my way, to be quite honest.
“I’ve got that thing that juvenile actors have, when they’ve played all these kids, then they move into their 20s and they should be playing 20- and 30-year-olds, but they still look 17.”
You know, in any other walk of life, looking young would be a good thing.
“I found a way to make it bad,” Gross says with a big laugh. “As my wife would say, ‘Well, you’ve managed to find the negative side again, Michael.’ ”
There’s plenty of comedic negativity to go around among the core family on Call Me Fitz, but Gross found a way to make that work for him, through his character.
“When I took the role, people said to me, ‘Call Me Fitz is so edgy and coarse, how are you doing that show?’ ” Gross recalls.
“And I said, ‘Simple – I play the character who is very nice.’ ”
bill.harris@sunmedia.ca
