DANBURY - At 74, Ted Neeley still has the voice, the looks, and the Texas-born stamina to portray Jesus of Nazareth - as he has thousands of times since he emerged and endeared himself to worldwide audiences in the title role of Norman Jewison's film version of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar way back in 1973.The Newtown Bee ahead of that visit to chat about the film and his other career highlights as a young pop star performing on programs like The Smothers Brothers and Sonny & Cher, and working with personalities from Meatloaf, Robin Williams, Jack Black, and OJ Simpson to director/producer Robert Altman.Jesus Christ Superstar is based on the award-winning Tim Rice/Andrew Lloyd Webber project that sets to music the final six days in the life of the son of God through the troubled eyes of his exasperated friend Judas Iscariot, who feels that Christ and his fellow apostles may have lost sight of their core mission.The Bee from the sing-along tour's opening night show, which happened in Chicago on June 8.Jesus Christ Superstar would have never been the sustaining global hit it has been unless it was "an excellent piece of music."VIP reception, click here.Check out Ted Neeley performing the pivotal scene from the film Jesus Christ SuperstarThe Teddy Neeley Five perform "Always Something There To Remind Me" on the Smothers Brothers Show

Neeley, along with film co-stars Bob Bingham (Caiaphas) and Kurt Yaghjian (Annas), will be attending a 7 pm meet and greet, followed by a "Sing-along Experience" screening of the digitally restored and remastered film on Friday, June 22 at The Palace Danbury, 165 Main Street.

He called in to 

Albeit a bit more wrinkled, Neeley still has a sparkle in his eyes. And he cannot feign the genuine excitement that bubbled through the phone when talking about his experiences in the desert outside Jerusalem working with respected director Jewison, whose only expectation was for Neeley to humanize one of the most widely-known and interpreted religious figures in history.

For the uninducted, Neeley's film version of 

Shot entirely on location in Israel with the cast walking in the footsteps of the actual biblical characters they portrayed, the film features epic sets, unforgettable '70s-era costumes, and of course, an explosive set of songs that range in style from stage and disco to funk and rock.

Audiences at the Danbury screening will witness a restored European print of the film that Neeley himself had not yet seen when he spoke to 

Frank Munoz, Neeley's tour manager, who joined him on the call, explained that the both the print and its audio soundtrack have been restored and improved from the original domestic print he and Neeley had been touring with for more than five years.

"This is going to be like deja vu for anyone who saw one of the original 1973 screenings," Munoz said. "The sound, the picture - it's unbelievable. Ted hasn't even seen this print yet."

"Sometimes people look at old prints of the film, and it's not pretty," Neeley added. "It's old, and it's got blotches and scrapes. This print will look like it was shot yesterday. It was digitally restored just last year."

Before Neeley ever got a chance to screen test against some other "heavy hitter actors" who were much more well-known than he, the actor was already intimately familiar with the material and the demands of the role - having been the original Broadway understudy for the role. So it was interesting to hear that when Jewison chose Neeley to play Jesus in the film, he was looking for something distinctly different than what was expected on the stage.

"There is no question he was looking for something different," Neeley said. "Norman also wrote the screenplay. He was a huge fan of the original soundtrack, and he had this absolute devotion to making this thing as magical as it could be.

"The thing that makes it all work, and I've learned this over the years," he continued, "is that Tim and Andrew sat down to do this looking at the man called Jesus of Nazareth as seen through the eyes of his contemporaries."

Neeley said he was always striving to show the human relationship between Jesus and his friends and foes alike.

"Once Carl Anderson and I got to Israel to start filming, Norman told us that the reason he cast us was when he saw our screen test together, he saw a natural human relationship between the two of us.

"He said that's what I want to see between the characters of Jesus and Judas. It was about the men we were - a bunch of human beings celebrating what happened whenever it happened, and how it began," Neeley said. "That's what people all over the world relate to - and remember, he had us all entering the film on a bus. He wanted to show real human beings, real people doing a play out in the middle of the desert."

Neeley said he had no idea what it would be like filming on a location where the character he was portraying actually walked hundreds of years before.

"For all of us, every single one of us, no matter where we walked in that country, you felt like you were walking in somebody's footsteps," he recalled. "We were working around the Dead Sea the whole time, so when you got to thinking about the what ifs, and whens, and the way the country looked, and the way Norman shot it in 70 millimeter Panavision, it actually looks like we went back 2,000 years."

The actor said, virtually without spoken dialogue, 

"It was a hard rock, go get 'em piece of instrumentation," Neeley said, "and the lyrics tell a story that the world believes in. We had no idea where it was going; we didn't even know if it would be released. But here we are so many years later, and audiences are still going crazy, no matter where we do it."

Over the years, Neeley has played Jesus opposite many other actors and personalities, from the obscure to well-known artists like Ben Vereen, Clint Holmes, Jack Black and Styx front man Dennis DeYoung. And none have ever disappointed.

"For some reason, from the very beginning, the people who show up to hopefully be in the production, whether it's the theatrical piece, or the film, all came with that glow in their eyes," he said. "For each one of them, this was a very special thing and they wanted to be a part of this spiritual experience.

"And it's the collaborative element that makes it always work," Neeley added. "As an actor, you go into a play, you want to bring as much of a back story in about your character as possible. And you can imagine the information that was available to us in the form of a backstory for virtually every character in this piece was in such abundance, that anybody could just read a few passages and understand what they needed to do with the character."

Even now, Neeley said he continues to discover fresh information that brings new elements to his character of Jesus.

"It never ceases to be new," he said. "I can say that from my heart because I've been doing it all these years and I promise you that every night I walk on stage, it's like the first time all over again."

For more information, and for tickets to the screening and a pre-screening

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QW2Wh1OZBA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJeg43-FTmg

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