Less daring audience volunteers are invited to join with the Polynesian dancers who back him up and perform Hawaiian, Maori, Samoan and Tahitian traditional dances. For those requesting more extensive productions, Hart can also supply live drummers and a live Polynesian band, as well as arranging for catering and decor, with sound equipment and professional operator. 

 

Incorporating all these performance elements, Hart also has a five-scene multimedia script designed to appeal to an international vacation audience at South Pacific resorts and hotels. 

 

As a long-time SAG member, Hart has credits in television episodes, commercials, and music videos. He has been the focus of NBC's "Maybe This Time" and "The New Romper Room," as well as the "Daigaku Quiz Show" for KSB in Japan, and he's done commercials for Energizer Batteries, HBO, Breathsavers, and Shiseido Cosmetics, among others. 

 

He holds great ambition for the future. Winning major roles, even romantic leading roles, would help erase the effects of lingering prejudices against individuals of mixed race - and even the prejudices he sees against successful variety performers. He noted, "If you're an actor and work as a waiter, people will still consider you an actor. However, if you're an actor and work as a juggler or other variety entertainer, uninformed people in the industry think of you only as a juggler."

 

Hart sees his juggling experience as contributing significantly to his performance as an actor. He said, "Juggling has given me this: knowing when I step onstage that people are going to love my skills because juggling skills are impressive. In addition, doing live shows and interacting with the audience has given me lots of improvisational training and skills, allowing me to continue during a crisis, as when another actor forgets his lines or goes up a page. I've been cast as game show host, for example, because of my superior interactive performance experience, which came from juggling." 

 

He noted that the preparations for juggling and acting are similar - getting mentally into character, visualizing the performance and physically warming up. There is a sharp contrast, however, between learning lines and learning a performance piece. He said, "In juggling you drill a certain movement until you've perfect- ed it. But once you've got it, it's in your repertoire for years. If you garn a monologue for a play, however, it's not necessary that you be able to do it permanently. You only need to know it the day you shoot or 4 the run of the show. 

 

"The 'work' in acting is bringing your true self into a role, being able to access psychological, emotional, and physiological states appropriate for the character you're playing. As an actor you have to be able to do this just as quickly and easily as it is for you, a really good juggler, to wake up in the morning and juggle five clubs." 

 

His appreciation for what juggling has done for him means Hart is willing to make sacrifices to try to raise its status in the television and motion picture industries. When a recent episode of "Star Trek Voyager" requested him to "do his thing as a Polynesian fire-dancer," he refused the role unless it was redefined as Principal Stunt Player, with the same pay and status as an actor's minimum daily rate. He felt that accepting the role without those conditions would have shown no respect for juggling or jugglers. 

 

"Never work on a film or TV as anything less than Principal Stunt Player," urged Hart. "Don't ever, ever let anyone talk you into working under the category of Special Talent Extra with a Bonus or signing a rider specifying No Residuals." 

 

He has pursued stage acting with the same intensity as juggling. At UCLA, his performances as Monsignor Parsley in "Our Lady of East L.A." and Lord Mortimer and Northumberland in "Henry IV Part I" were especially well received. He also values the opportunities the university gave him to play heroes and romantic leads in workshops that disregard racial casting conventions. 

 

Performing worldwide, he has discovered that racial stereotypes are not confined to Hollywood. At a theme park in South Korea, for example, the office staff automatically discounted his ability to rewrite English documents. He said, "Here I am, a guy with two degrees from from Disneyland who were also on the tour. They couldn't do it and turned to me for help. After I obliged, the staff didn't even thank me. 

 

"I also went into this 'Americans-only' bar in the military sector and found they didn't want to let me in. I had my American passport, and the ironic thing was that my adoptive father fought for the U.S. in the Korean War! That made me appreciate what African Americans have had to face." 

 

Losing his innocence about racial prejudice has contributed to Hart rethinking the choice he made a decade ago, and made him more deter- mined than ever to further his career as an actor. He does see affirming signs for hope in the fact that people of his ethnicity, such as Keanu Reeves or the late Brandon Lee, are getting significant work in TV and film. 

At a recent Screen Actors Guild (SAG) seminar, casting agent Danny Goldman singled out Hart from the roomful of actors attending. "I like your look!" Goldman announced. Thanking the lecturer, Hart then expressed his doubts, "But I feel there's no category for me..." 

 

"Exactly!" Goldman interrupted. "That's what makes you unique, and that's why you're getting work, and will continue to work." 

 

He acknowledges that there haven't been any a jugglers with major success in dramatic roles, but added, "I aim to change that." 

 

Citing Arnold Schwarzenegger's achievements before that actor's breakthough appearance in "Pumping Iron," Hart observes that "in order to be a great variety entertainer, you have to be an actor too. There were other body s builders just as good, but Arnold was the best poser. He showed the most personality and charm, naturalness, the most expression and drive." 

 

Matching Schwarzenegger's drive and ambition is a goal few performers are daring enough to express. But a young man who dances within the caress of knives and plays with fire already shows uncommon fearlessness. Don't be surprised to see him one day soon at the Academy Awards Ceremony where, he admits, one of his goals is to juggle three Oscars: Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Film!