Bartlet4America News Archive

Big Bro Details West Wing’s Josh

By DOUG MOE
The Capital Times (Wisconsin)

The phone call came from David Granger, the editor of Esquire magazine, who had a story idea. David Whitford, a 1975 Madison East grad, author of three books and Boston-based writer for Fortune magazine, wanted very much to write for Esquire, and he knew Granger from when they'd worked together on Sport magazine in the '80s. But the story idea gave Whitford pause.

"How about a profile of Brad?" Granger asked. "Brad" is Bradley Whitford, himself a Madison East graduate, quickly becoming famous for his TV role as Josh Lyman, deputy White House chief of staff, in "The West Wing." Brad was in Madison in late October when he stood on a stage at the top of King Street and introduced Al Gore at a massive campaign rally.

He's also David Whitford's younger brother. By phone Friday from Boston, David was recalling what his brother's reaction was when he mentioned a possible Esquire profile. "He said, You're not going to slam me, are you?' "

The article, which appears in the May issue of Esquire, is not a slam — anything but — though in its complexity it is far superior to most celebrity magazine profiles. David loves and admires his brother but must probe to find out what Brad had inside that allowed him to climb so high in such a long-shot profession as acting.

At one point in the piece, David remembers a moment at East High in Madison after the Whitford family had relocated here from Philadelphia in 1972.

"To a place called Maple Bluff, on the east side of Madison," David writes. "One day during my senior year, I was sitting with my back to the wall in the big covered courtyard at East that we called the mall. There were lockers and benches and picnic tables there, and people had their spots. Crossing the mall between classes was like crossing a stage, always nerve-wracking — for me, anyway.

"But here came my brother, maybe 30 feet away when I spotted him, moving in a way I'd never seen him move before. So easy and so cool, almost floating, as if he were king of the mall or something. I was dumbfounded. Who's that? I was wondering." In that moment David caught Brad's eye, and Brad seemed to wilt — caught in the act. Later David would tell Brad he figured Brad wilted because David knew that cool dude wasn't his little brother, not really.

Brad looked at him and said, "How about if that was me?"

It was, it surely was. The kid could act. There's a great picture included with the Esquire piece of Brad at 17 playing the male lead in "Annie Get Your Gun" at East. There's another picture, further up in the magazine on the contributors' page, of Brad and David standing in swim trunks with a lake in the background. "Has to be Lake Mendota," David was saying Friday. He provided Esquire the photo. "We didn't have a house on the lake or anything but it looks like we're standing by a truck that's trailering a boat."

David details the rise of Brad's career in the piece, and also Brad's marriage to actress Jane Kaczmarek, who is from Milwaukee and stars in "Malcolm in the Middle." David attended the Golden Globes with the couple earlier this year (both were nominated but didn't win) and hung out in Hollywood for a while. One night he asked Brad to rent "Billy Madison," in which Brad played a bad guy opposite Adam Sandler. "I really don't want to," Brad said. Neither brother had ever seen the movie. "It might be good," David said. "I really don't want to." They didn't. Brad doesn't watch "The West Wing" very much either. He said he finds watching himself on screen "weird."

David said Brad is happy with the completed article: "He said he was happy just to be in Esquire." David ends his tale by relating a moment when he was on the set of "The West Wing," watching his kid brother, now grown up, act. "That's Bradley Whitford, I'm beginning to realize," David writes. "That's my brother. And once again he catches my eye. But this time he doesn't wilt."