Terry Lester, an ex-little genius
By Alena Prime, Télé Star, 1993	Home   Cette page en Français

One day, Carol and Ernie Lester discovered their son reading the newspaper. The thing would not have had anything of astonishing if the little Terry Lester was not, only, 3 years old. The amazed parents wondered if they had not given rise to a prodigy child. The following year, after having spent a day with a cousin of his mother, a piano teacher, the little Terry posed his fingers on the keyboard and started to play an extract, of memory, without to have ever taken only one lesson !

Indeed, the child had gifts. As his two young sisters did not seem to have any particular talent, the mother devoted herself to her elder and made him give some piano lesson. In 1960, at 10 years old (he was born on April 13, 1950 in Indianapolis), whereas he accompanied a choral at the piano, the director discovered in him a pretty tone and encouraged him to follow courses of song. Terry did not wait many more time. But while growing, his tastes changed. Arrived at adolescence, he was interested in sport, with as much happiness. Then still changed to plunge in policy. It is this matter he chose at the university and for it he militated with all his young ardour.

"With a naive frankness, he estimates today, I really believed to be able to reform the world !" He thus took part in the election campaign of the governor of his State (Indiana). And, once the victory obtained, the rebounded on Terry. He was named president of the association of the students. What, between others advantages, enabled him to drive an all new Ford offered by the local patentee who made affix on the doors the name of Terry in gold letters. "I was proud like a pope, he remembers. The girls were hastening to date me." However, the shining student starts to ask questions to himself. In these Sixties, the values are confused and Terry wonders about his engagement. As a friend invited him to a course of comedy, he decides to try his chance as an actor. The pleasure that he takes there consolidates him in this choice.

Terry does his beginnings in the movie Airport 75. At the same time, he settles in Hollywood. With this energy which is his force, he finds contracts, accumulates the roles until becoming one of the heroes of The Young and the Restless. The character of Jack Abbott becomes so popular that, when Terry leaves the show, the fans break loose, send quantity of letters which oblige the actor to take again his place a few months later. In 1989, the producers of Santa Barbara propose to him to replace Lane Davies in the role of Mason Capwell. Terry hesitates a little. But as Santa Barbara is then one of the greatest soaps, he ends up accepting. To remain only one year there. After a few months of rest, Terry devotes himself to theatre. Until the day when one offers to him a new character in a show which, this time, is shot in New York. The actor must settle on the East coast. "At the beginning, I did not like this town. But the things changed. I put on sale my house in California, like my country cottage in Big Bear. I feel from now on a passion for New York. Here, one feels to beat the pulse of a big town. And I do not have to spend hours in traffic jams any more to go to work. I am close to everything : restaurants, theatres, Broadway. Yes, my heart is here. I am becoming a real New-Yorker."