Cordic: Deejay, Aspiring Actor And A Genuine ^‘Human’

By EDWARD L. BLANK, Press TV-Radio Writer - April 2, 1970

There are interviews, and there are interviews. Some good, some bad, Then there’s Rege Cordic.

   He’s got a balance of candor, cooperativeness, humour and down-to-earth-ness you always hope to get, but rarely do, in conversations with well-known persons. Color him genuine.

   Formerly the morning man on WWSW and, later, KDKA, Rege left Pittsburgh in November 1965 in do a similar show (but with Hollywood actors assisting) in Los Angles. He was replacing Bob Crane, who had abandoned disc jockeying to start “Hogan’s Heroes.”

   “I must say,” Rege said, “really - the show out there [in L.A.] wasn’t as good as the one here. All those years in Pittsburgh, Bob (Trow), Karl (Hardman) and I had such an ensemble going.

   “It was very difficult for me in start that whole thing over again with new people, many of whom didn’t understand what we were after. They were too joke-oriented in their sense of humor. Bob and Karl and I were character-oriented in our approach in the humor.

   “Because of the arrangement out there I used quite a few people till I got in know the talent available, then I settled for a few.”

   The Los Angeles radio show lasted barely two years, and for 18 months Rege was not on the air at all. He accepted an offer from WTAE-Radio, here [in Pittsburgh], to do a show (usually on tape) from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sundays, and began it in February 1969.

   He’s working under his second one-year contract with the station now.

   Puffing his pipe and staring thoughtfully into space through this motel room mirror, he recalled the accident by which he’d become the founder of Cordic and Company an we know it today.

   Davey Tyson left WWSW in the late ‘40s to join WCAE (now WTAE), leaving open the valuable morning drive-shift on Double-Double.

   Rege, who had been doing evening and all-night disc jockey shows, was asked to be the third in a series of temporary substitutes.

   Feeling no pressure because it wasn’t his show for keeps, he ripped a few pages out of the rule book and “fooled around a bit with the commercials, throwing one-liners in.”

   With John Whited, a fellow University of Pittsburgh student, playing the background organ and contributing much of the humor, he found the show was beginning to catch on,

   “When Sterling Yates (‘a naturally gifted voice man’) joined us,” Rege said, “the show really started rolling.” Its length increased from two hours to four, gradually, and Hardman and Trow (separately) signed up in contribute their shenanigans.

   Yates switched to KDKA, and in 1954 Cordic and Company followed. Yates and others - notably Bob McCully - contributed to the show, but most of the time Hardman and Trow comprised the “Company” themselves.

   Their popularity grew in such phenomenal proportions that even today some district residents resent Rege’s departure and his failure to move back,

   “It’s funny,” he said. “I get this from some people who think it’s a personal affront that I won’t come back [to Pittsburgh]. I’ve done a morning show for so many years . . . the thought of approaching a five-or-six day week with that kind of program has lost all the thrill for me it once had.

   “This show, on that basis, is such a burden I can’t describe it.”

   The preparation of the material and the recording sessions took far more time than the 24 hours per week he was on the air, and toward the end it was taking its toll on the man behind the laughter.

   “It certainly wasn’t something anybody inflicted on me, I brought it on myself. I was tired all the time. I wasn’t being an good a husband and father as I might have been.

   “When I finally gave it up I realized what there was that I had missed in living, and now I’m not going to give it up.

   "I’m much more content with myself and within myself than I’ve ever been.

   “I’m not talking about an economic potential. I think I grew out of that. But I feel I could do that morning show using 20 percent of myself - literally - emotionally and physically, and that other 80 per cent would just wither.

   “Now I feel I’m using that other 80 per cent even on some cruddy little second-rate TV show. The things I’ve learned about myself since I’ve been away, that’s really the important thing.”

   KDKA, he pointed out, got along without him, just as WWSW had, His chuckle interrupted his bass voice momentarily an he admitted aloud: “It’s always a personal affront when an outfit you leave doesn’t go out of business. ‘How are they going in get along without me?’ you think. But they always do.”

   Rege’s greatest acting exposure will occur when Stanley Kramer’s “R.P.M.” is released later this year. He appears briefly in a scene with star Anthony Quinn.

   The former Squirrel Hill resident’s favorite role, and one of the larger ones to date, was in a recent made-for-TV-type film on Monday Night at the Movie called “Ritual of Evil”, in which he played a sheriff.

   He commutes almost daily to Hollywood, in search of parts or playing them. Auditioning for roles isn’t the easiest way to pass the day, but it’s a little easier for him because of his experience in auditioning others.

   “What many actors overtook is that the producer and director and the casting director really want you to be good. Then they don’t have to worry about filling that part any more. They can get on in other things.”

   The actor he talked most about is one he’s never met, George C. Scott: “The thing I admire about him is that when you’re looking at him there’s something going on in his mind.. It’s not Scott - it’s the character thinking.”

   The Hollywood rat race can’t always be a pleasant one, but for Rege acting is a satisfying experience. He’s got the bug, the fever . . . enough knock-'em-dead desire to propel him into better character roles, even at 44.

   “Acting’s a very creative thing,” he said, “because from your own experience and from the material in the script and from what you’ve learned, you create a human being.

   “That’s unique. Nobody else could do it the way you do I because part of you is involved.”

   Yep. Sounds like the fever.

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