MORE FROM GUY COPLAND:

MY DAD:
Hugh Copland is also in 440. He has always been my greatest inspiration and role model. Please read on as he is mentioned through out. I loved going to the station with my father as a child and watch him be an announcer at the flip of a swith and say everything effortlessly as the second hand on the clock swept by. He worked at WWJ in Detroit as a booth announcer and weatherman, was president of AFTRA, was on the Board of Directors at The Communicating Arts Credit Union, and did a lot of commercial & auto show work. Everyone knew Hugh... he was the man in my book, and who I wanted to be like.

BEST ADVICE:
Was given to me one day at WWJ-TV in Detroit where my father was a Booth Announcer and Weatherman. I'd gone to work with my dad and the Oopsy Show was taping. I was friends with Oopsy (Robert J. McNae) and he gave me the best advice ever when I was about 12 years old, but it never sunk in until I was about 28 yrs old. See, when I was 12 yrs old I was with Bob in his dressng room (he had his full make-up on) at WWJ-TV as he waited for the puppeteer to show up for taping that day. He called and told Bob that he'd been offered his own show at channel 7 (Mr. Patches?) and wouldn't be coming in to tape the Oopsy shows that day, or ever again (I think right after that is when Bob's kids stepped in and manned the puppets). Bob looked at me (looking like Oopsy, but talking to me like Bob) and said "Guy, don't ever shit on anyone on your way up the ladder, because you're bound to slip on them on the way back down". At age 12, the true meaning of what he said didn't really sink in... but I remembered those words all my life. Finally when my broadcasting career was taking off and I was seeing other guys "shiting on people", and getting what they deserved as a result of they're prior actions, it all sank in.

MEMORIES:
Guns N Roses:
I was the first Music Director in the country to add Guns N Roses to our reporting playlist. When they toured, they came to Jackson Mississipi and did a live interview on-air with us. Slash dropped the F-Bomb 14 times. When he arrived he had a full bottle of Jack Daniels he was drinking out of. Bt the end of the interview it was half empty and I have pictures of me and LollyDude holding him up.

Gene Simmons:
Arrived at the station for his interview and asked "who was that guitar player I heard on the drive in?" I told him it was Joe Satriani from a new album called Surfing With The Alien. Next thing you know Gene's people are calling Joe's people, and they soon colaboarted on a project together. Sure Gene would have eventualy heard of Joe, but I like think I had something to do with them getting together.

Jethro Tull:
LollyDude & I flew from MS to CO for the Jetrho Tull concert. We had Back Stage Passes and met with Ian Anderson. I brought along a camera and the mouthpiece to a flute and an electric metal engraver. After Ian engraved his signature on the flute he said "I've never done that before". I asked, "please don't do it again". I still have the flute, unfortunately there was no film in the camera.

Pillow Talk:
For several years I had a very successful show called Pillow Talk I hosted. I can't tell you how many times people would come up to me and tell me they "got together" because of my show. One couple even told me they named their son Guy Austin WhatEverTheirLastNameWas because he was conceived while listening to me.

JohnnyO:
Johnny O (John Boisvert) is the guy who gave me my break into broadcasting. He had a 10p-2a show on the hottest CHR station in town. He did BPM mixing (hey, it was the 1980s) and comedy bits. One night I called his show and started doing impressions and character voices into the phone. He said "Hey, can you come to the station next Tuesday and record comedy for my show?" We became best friends, he taught me everything about radio including how to be a production pro... and this is back when we used razor blades and that stuff called 1/4" tape. He's the sharpest and most talented radio person I have ever known and hope to someday spend time in a production room with him again. It seemed as though are creativity and talents combined was unmatchable.

ABOUT ME:
Let's start in 1969:
When I was in 6th grade at Winston Churchill Elementary my teacher Mrs. Schloff had all of the students in the class write a book titled My Life Story. It was to tell who we are, about our family, pets, and what we wanted to do in life. I wrote that when I grew up I wanted to be an announcer, and a famous magician... I still have the book, and what I hoped for as a child. Well, maybe everything except that famous part.

Growing up in Royal Oak Michigan the son of NBC-Detroit TV personality Hugh Copland I started acting as a child in television and theatre with an extreme interest in magic. I was the youngest magician to perform at the 1st Annual Oakland Mall Magic Week in 1971, and also appeared doing magic on Detroit's Oopsy the Clown television show. As a teenager, I became active in community and high school theatre graduating from Clarence M. Kimball High in 1976 with thespian honors while performing in a professional touring production of Jesus Christ Superstar.

During the early years as a young struggling professional actor, I waited tables, was a new car porter, property manager, shipping & receiveing manager, trolley tour guide, suit salesman, fast food manager, cleaning man, delivered pizza, and drove a taxi. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but as an actor, I figured I could do just about anything... just act the part. All that true life experience and aspiration eventually led to a career in stand-up comedy and broadcasting using the name Guy Austin with my own morning radio shows in Mississippi, Alaska, and Alabama.

In 1998, I became the morning news anchor for the Mississippi News Network providing news to over 70 stations across the state. In 2005 I resigned from the network and moved to Michigan to marry my high school sweetheart Diana. Since then, I've retained my real last name, appeared in three movies (Dark Fields/The Rain, Demoted, Up In The Air, and Hasidic Dreams), a Nike commercial, the music video "One Trillion Dollars" for the band Anti-Flag, am doing voice over for film, and radio & television commercials, have had supporting roles in several theatre productions, and am performing comedy & magic in clubs, and for corporate and private events.

Book me for your next event and let me make your entertainment worries disappear! MagicGuyComedy.com

Visit my Voice Over site MotorCityVoiceOver.com

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