For a Shakespearean stage and film actor who once considered TV situation comedies evil, this is radical stuff.
Jenkins, an ex-Daytonian, is the same guy who played the bigoted factory boss on ABC's acclaimed 1991-93 family drama Homefront .
In movies he has played a no-nonsense Air Force major in Air America , Meg Ryan's father in Courage Under Fire , a grizzled miner in Matewan and a prison executioner in The Last Dance .
`Yeah, I put Sharon Stone to death,' Jenkins says with a laugh. `Now I'm doing comedy. You never know what's gonna happen - you just never know.'
Jenkins was born in New Boston, Ohio, and came to Dayton as an eighth-grader. As a kid, he saw Basil Rathbone perform at the Victory Theatre and got an adrenaline rush. He wanted to be up on that stage, too.
After graduating from Wilbur Wright High School in 1958, he went to Antioch College in Yellow Springs, where he got a solid foundation as an actor and performed Shakespeare at the Antioch Amphitheatre.
He left Antioch a few credits short of his degree to leap headlong onto the stage. And he became a founding member of the prestigious Actor's Theatre in Louisville, Ky., where he performed for 15 years.
`I've been very lucky to keep playing character parts,' he said in a call from his Los Angeles home. `I've played everybody's dad.'
The epitome of a dedicated actor, Jenkins was so serious about his craft that he wouldn't even go to lunch, preferring to eat on the set `so I wouldn't break my concentration.' And, like many stage actors, he pooh-poohed that symbol of creative rot, television.
`When I was young, series television was just the most evil thing I could imagine,' he recalls. `It was antithetical to what I thought art was about.'
Unfortunately for art, actors have to put food on the table. That generally means television, and Jenkins' gritty role on Homefront defined his career. He also played a recurring role on Kevin Spacey's drama series Wiseguy .
Jenkins' film career is thriving. He is a stern judge in I Am Sam , which stars Sean Penn and has drawn talk about possibly getting an Academy Award nomination. (It is scheduled to open in Dayton in January.) Jenkins will play a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Sum of All Parts , a thriller with Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman.
Jenkins was intrigued when he heard about auditions for NBC's Scrubs , which focuses on the bizarre experiences of three medical interns played by Zach Braff, Donald Faison and Sarah Chalke.
Trying to corral these rowdies are Jenkins' character, Dr. Kelso, the director of medicine, along with the abrasive Dr. Perry Cox and jaded nurse Carla Espinosa. What impressed Jenkins is the production team: the same young award-winners who crank out The West Wing .
Looking for a challenge, Jenkins decided to read for the part of Dr. Kelso. He took a few lines from the pilot episode and ran with them. `Kelso tells the intern not to put this lady on the list for a kidney transplant,' he recalls. `As he puts it, `If they have insurance, you treat them! If they don't, you show them the door!'
`I simply took Kelso's side: I read it deadly serious. And they laughed. It was just the edge they were looking for.'
Now he admits, `I must say I find it a challenge every time I go to work. Last week on Scrubs , for example, I had to play a guitar and sing. And the challenge is that you don't have three weeks to rehearse. It's like, `Go get your guitar, we're shooting it this afternoon.' It's immediate pressure.'
The cast seems to respond well to the pressure. Scrubs (9:30 p.m. Tuesdays on NBC) has solid Nielsen ratings and looks like a shoo-in for a second season. It's also a nominee as best new comedy series in the People's Choice Awards , to be televised Jan. 13.
Divorced for many years, Jenkins has watched two of his three sons follow him into show business.
Dan Jenkins won a Tony Award nomination for the lead role of Huck in the 1985 Broadway musical Big River and co-starred in the sitcom Going to Extremes . Another son is an apprentice production electrician.
After 40 years of shuttling from coast to coast, Jenkins now has a cozy deal that most actors would die for: He lives with an Australian shepherd named Pal in a Los Angeles condo just two blocks from work.
`We shoot in an old hospital - I could walk to work if I wanted to,' he said. `We don't have to obey the usual rules, so everybody brings their dogs to work. Pal comes with me if I don't have to work too hard that day.'
* Tom Hopkins is a free-lance writer based in Springboro. [BOX] How to watch
* What: Scrubs.
* When: 9:30 p.m. Tuesdays.
* Where: NBC (channels 5 and 22)
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