Once, while watching the Mickey Mouse Club, Mark told his mother that he'd be on
TV one day. Ya know, some dreams really do come true, even if they get put on hold or forgotten for a while.
Time passed and Mark forgot about being on TV. But, while attending P.S.U. an instructor asked for volunteers to stand on stage as soldiers in a play he was directing. Mark raised his hand confident of an "A" in the course as a result. He got the part and the "A". But bored, just standing on stage as a speechless soldier, Mark memorized everyone's lines. At the cast party he performed the first act by himself. Accepting the obvious, Mark changed his major to Theater Arts. A year later he applied and was accepted to the Pasadena Playhouse for the fall of '67. But, the Playhouse closed its doors in the spring of '69 leaving him without his Equity card, a career, and living with a dream on hold again.
Two years filled with white collar jobs went by before Mark ran into a Playhouse classmate at a McDonald's. The friend told him about an opening in a play he was in. Mark read for the director and got the role. Soon after, he met his commercial agent and three months after that Mark got his first national commercial, for McDonald's. His dream came alive again and grew: theatre, a mini-series, a TV series, then another TV series. And, of course, commercials.
But by 2003 his career had slowed down and so had his wife's. They talked it over and decided to put his career on hold and work on hers for a while. But to do that they had to leave California. They moved to several foreign countries: China, Orange County, Florida. Finally, in 2009, when his wife had achieved major success in her career, they came back to L.A. to work on Mark's acting career again.
Now, as Mark pursues his career, he can attest to one thing being certain in this business: dreams really do come true. Even if they get forgotten for a while and occasionally put on hold.