A First in Presidential Representation


Alan Toy has acted in dozens of films and TV shows, but getting the opportunity to play President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in NBC’s Annie Live! surpassed his wildest expectations.

“It was like doing a Broadway play, a movie, a TV show and an event all at once. It was exhilarating,” he says. “I was just trying not to think about the 5 million people who were at home watching it.”

Annie, which premiered on Broadway in 1977, takes place during the Great Depression and revolves around the title’s namesake, a spunky, optimistic orphan, who is taken in by billionaire Oliver Warbucks. The role of FDR traditionally has been played by nondisabled actors, but NBC specifically wanted to cast an actor with a disability for Annie Live!, a holiday performance of the beloved, seven-time Tony Award-winning musical that aired live on the network Dec. 2.



“The real FDR’s disability was a vital part of his experience, his strength and his empathy,” says Lear deBessonet, who directed Annie Live!. “I wanted an actor who could bring depth and truth to their performance, which Alan Toy did beautifully.”

Like the president, Toy contracted polio that resulted in paralysis. Toy is the first wheelchair user and polio survivor to be cast as FDR in a major production of Annie.

“It was great on the part of NBC to look for a person with a disability, and through the course of the audition process, they landed on the one actor in the world probably that has the same disability from the same cause that Franklin Roosevelt did. I think that’s pretty cool,” says Toy, 71. “I never thought at my age that I would be playing Roosevelt, though I always wanted to.”



To prepare for the part, he watched recordings of FDR. “I think the essence of the character is that he is completely optimistic, and he’s just been elected,” he says. “He’s faced with the dregs of the Great Depression and trying to figure a way out of it. I think that if I go in there with a lot of optimism and love for the character, that’s the most important thing.”

Toy contracted polio at age 3, when his family lived in Key West, Florida. He was a poster child for the March of Dimes, an organization founded by FDR in 1938 to raise money to help combat polio. “I was the cute little kid with crutches and braces in the ’50s. I was at bake sales and rodeos and stock car races,” says Toy. These early experiences in the limelight along with his involvement in theater in Winston-Salem, North Carolina — his family moved there when he was around 11 — helped lead him to a career in the arts.

As an actor, Toy is probably best known for playing the creepy cult leader “Professor Finley” in Season 5 of Beverly Hills, 90210. His character convinces Kelly to dump Brandon for Dylan, who is rich, to help fund his cult activities. Toy also had guest spots in shows such as Matlock, Highway to Heaven and M*A*S*H, where he made his television debut. Some of his favorite acting experiences include playing a photojournalist in the movie Kansas and performing alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in the famous hand-washing scene in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator.

Toy has been instrumental in helping pave the way for better disability representation in Hollywood. As a union activist in the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, he negotiated the inclusion of people with disabilities in the protected groups contract language. He then helped create and was the first co-chair of the Performers with Disabilities Committee.



In 2015, Toy, who also has his master’s degree in Urban Planning from UCLA, retired from his role as the executive director of the Westside Center for Independent Living (now Disability Community Resource Center). Since then, Toy has done a lot of traveling. He celebrated Annie Live! by going to Mexico with his wife, Theresa, and son, John Henry, who helped him self-tape the auditions that booked him the role. “It was the love of my family and support of Theresa and John Henry that really got me this part,” he says, “between Theresa saying, ‘No honey, do it this way,’ and John Henry saying, ‘Dad your glasses are reflecting, let’s move that light.’ So, we are going to celebrate together.”

Toy has a part in the upcoming comedy film Bromates, executive produced by Snoop Dogg, and he hopes his performance in Annie Live! leads to more acting work. “If I move our image forward before I check out, that is great. And the cool thing now is I am not freaking out about needing money to pay rent — that’s taken care of. It’s just going to be for the love and fun and the heck of it now.”


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James
James
2 years ago

Wow, just WOW!