It was a shock to me to hear that Andy had passed on. My younger sister Martha in St. Louis saw the obit and she called me. She knew he was my friend.
Andy and I met at McBride High School. We did plays together and served as officers in a St. Louis high school drama society and went on to a summer at St. Louis University pursuing boards to tread. I can still hear Andy's dad ask: "Gene, what's theatre gonna do for my Andy?"
As chance would have it nobody hired either one of us for some several more years to trod boards or learn dramatic lines, but we did learn lines. On the day we graduated high school, he and I met at school and went for a walk, from Kingshighway and Easton (Martin Luther King) to downtown. We put in applications for work at every open shop along the way. By the end of that day we had two offers: one was to show up at 7:00 a.m. and swing sledge hammers breaking big rocks into little rocks; another was to sell encyclopedias with Collier. We opted to learn the Collier spiel. That was probably the only time I ever beat Andy at anything; for while I did in fact sell more books than him, he sure made up for it in terms of getting in front of the camera thereafter. We cavorted a bit in Connecticut a few years later, and wound up in New York in the late 60's, early 70's. My then wife and I took an apartment in Brooklyn next to his after a visit to his President Street abode. And then he went on to Paris and Peter Brook (for years and years) and I went to Hollywood and at least got a few acting roles and later became a talent agent. Funny how that came full circle, with Andy showing up there a few years later where we ran lines and he got some movies and some more and he became a star.
Years ago we had agreed to meet up in Central Park, in our 70s or so, and compare notes as to whether it was all worth it. Well, I hope we make it there, because ... I think we'll have a lot to talk about.
Eugene
I was deeply saddened to hear of the loss of my Babylon 5 colleague Andreas Katsulas. Once in every makeup artist's career a dream job comes along, creating Andreas Katsulas' G'Kar makeup for the Babylon 5 pilot was mine. Although he made his career playing "bad guys" in films, Andreas was truly one of the good guys in the industry.
His continuous encouragement during the long hours I spent sculpting his makeup for G'Kar and his easy-going manner during the stress of meeting tight deadlines definitely help put his stamp upon the character. The numerous make-up sessions I spent with Andreas on both the pilot and the series was a time of pride and great joy for me.
Andreas was a special actor that never complained about the experience of being "made up" and even helped pass the time in the make-up chair with great stories, a great sense-of-humor and an uncanny ability to always make the time fun. Thinking back over that time it is obvious to me that he loved getting put in character make up which is something unique. His love for his character and the life he put into G'Kar on screen, not only helped me earn an Emmy nomination for our work, but also helped the character grow to become one of the most popular characters in sci-fi history. I could never thank Andreas enough for his patience, his advice, his laughter, and his ability to make our job fun. The industry has lost a great actor and I will miss him dearly.
Rob Sherwood
Makeup Supervisor Babylon 5 Pilot
Emmy-Nomination for B5 Television Series
I've attached a few pictures from 1992. Please feel free to use any or all of them.
Hi, just read your page featuring the tribute from jms, thought I'd drop you a line about the one time I saw Andreas at a Babylon 5 convention in London in (I think) 1996.
Peter Jurasik was nearing the end of his time on stage, talking to the fans, and acting in character as Londo. Everyone was having a great time, when suddenly a huge guy in a brown warehouseman's coat came onto the stage carrying a ladder.
Nobody seemed to recognize him, and as he set the ladder against the backdrop of the stage, everyone was thinking 'Who IS this guy ruining Peter's act?'
He promptly climbed the ladder and started 'dusting' around the top part of the backdrop. This went on for about thirty seconds, by now most people had kinda recognized him, but Peter was still in full flow and hadn't spotted Andreas, and as such thought all the laughter was aimed at him.
When he finally spotted him, he just looked up at him and burst out laughing, then introduced him to the remaining members of the audience that hadn't recognized him. They then spent the next few remaining minutes on stage together, singing 'Me and My Shadow', and joking with each other.
A truly memorable event for those of us lucky enough to have been there.
Andy K, we'll miss you.
Regards
Paul from London UK
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This page last updated February 23, 2006