learn anything." He changed his major to drama after enrolling, but dropped out after one semester and returned to California, moving in with his older half-brother, David, who encouraged him to pursue an acting career, paid for his acting and vocal lessons, and helped him get an agent. Career Stage As a youth, Carradine had opportunities to appear on stage with his father in the latter's productions of Shakespeare. Thus, he had some background in theater when he was cast in the original Broadway run of Hair (1969), which launched his acting career. In that production he started out in the chorus and worked his way up to the lead roles playing Woof and Claude. He said of his involvement in Hair, "I really didn't plan to audition. I just went along with my brother, David, and his girlfriend at the time, Barbara Hershey, and two of their friends. I was simply going to play the piano for them while they sang, but I'm the one the staff wound up getting interested in." His stage career is further distinguished by his Tony-nominated performance for Best Actor (Musical) as the title character in the Tony Award-winning musical, The Will Rogers Follies in 1991, for which he also received a Drama Desk Award nomination. He won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Foxfire with Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, and appeared as Lawrence in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at the Imperial Theater. In 2008, he appeared as Dr. Farquhar Off-Broadway in Mindgame, a thriller by Antony Horowitz, directed by Ken Russell, who made his New York directorial debut with the production. In March and April 2013, he starred in the Broadway production of Hands on a Hardbody. He was nominated for the Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award for his work. Film Carradine's first notable film appearance was in director Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971). His next film, Emperor of the North Pole (1973), was re-released with a shorter title Emperor of the North. Carradine played a young aspiring hobo. The film was directed by Robert Aldrich and also starred Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine. Carradine then starred in Altman's film Thieves Like Us (1974), then played a principal character, a callow, womanizing folk singer, Tom Frank, in Altman's critically acclaimed film Nashville (1975; see "Music and songwriting"). He had difficulty shaking the image of Tom Frank following the popularity