John Stamos admitted he didn’t know what a ‘street urchin’ was when he auditioned for General Hospital during an interview on Tuesday on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on NBC.
The 60-year-old actor who played Blackie Parrish from 1982 to 1984 on the soap opera revealed that he had to go to the library to look it up.
John was on the NBC talk show to promote his newly released memoir If You Would Have Told Me.
He ran out and high fived some members of the audience when he first arrived and then shared how he prepared for his audition on General Hospital. John said they told him that they wanted a ‘street urchin’ from New York.
‘I’ve never been to New York,’ said the California native. ‘I didn’t know what a street urchin was.’
New memoir: John Stamos admitted he didn’t know what a ‘street urchin’ was when he auditioned for General Hospital during an interview on Tuesday on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
John said he went to the library to look up what a street urchin was and then set about devising a ‘walk’ for his character Blackie. He said he drove around Hollywood then decided Santa Monica Boulevard looked like New York and got out wearing his mother’s leather jacket and sporting his feathered hair.
The actor then got up on the show and showed Jimmy his walk, which he said he sort of modeled after John Travolta.
‘And that got you the role?’ asked Jimmy, who was accused of creating a ‘toxic work environment’ last month in an article.
‘No, they said stop moving around so much just do the lines,’ John quipped.
Jimmy asked how he went from being on General Hospital to playing with The Beach Boys.
John said his friend was in the band and told him to go to meet them before the encore when they were playing at a baseball stadium in San Diego.
‘I walked down to the field, and I was just on General Hospital, and I heard all this screaming and I go, what is that?’ John said. ‘ They go, oh, it’s for me! And all these cheerleaders started chasing me around the diamond. Like an idiot, I’m, like, running the bases.’
‘They were running after you?’ Jimmy asked.
Soap star: The 60-year-old actor played Blackie Parrish from 1982 to 1984 on General Hospital
Fan favorite: John ran out and high fived some members of the audience when he first arrived and then shared how he prepared for his audition on General Hospital
The host: ‘And that got you the role?’ asked Jimmy, who was accused of creating a ‘toxic work environment’ last month in an article
New book: John was on the NBC talk show to promote his newly released memoir If You Would Have Told Me
‘Yeah! And they were catching me, because I wasn’t a very good runner,’ John said. ‘And skinny legs, these Jordache jeans, feathered hair. I look like I have a dead crow on my head, and I’m running, and I look up, I’m on a Jumbotron. Then there’s backstage, and then I ran in, and they slammed the door, and these girls were screaming at me. And all the Beach Boys turned and looked at me like, ”who’s that weirdo”.’
John said Mike Love asked if the girls scream for him like that all the time and after finding out they did, ordered John to the stage.
‘I played Barbara Ann and it was beautiful,’ John said.
John said initially writing a memoir was the last thing on his mind, but his life changed when he became a father at 55 and when his fellow Full House co-star Bob Saget died suddenly in 2022 of head trauma at age 65.
‘I decided to write the two hardest chapters,’ John said. ‘The first chapter was it’s terrible. My lowest point where I got a DUI and my five stages of grief there were like sex, drugs, alcohol. And then I wrote the second hardest, which I thought was the Bob Saget chapter, and by then my five stages of grief were health, therapy and family and I tried to figure out how I got there but it was a good journey. ‘
John said writing the book helped him cope. He revealed that he shared other stories in the book that he wanted to be relatable to people, such as how he had been bullied growing up.
Life changed: John said initially writing a memoir was the last thing on his mind, but his life changed when he became a father at 55 and when his fellow Full House co-star Bob Saget died suddenly in 2022 of head trauma at age 65
John also recalled his last dinner that he had with Bob before he died. He said he had no idea that would be the last time he would see his friend.
‘We looked at each other, and what did we do to get these beautiful wives, and it was just such a beautiful night, and you know, you’re always in a hurry in life, right?,’ John said. ‘ You know, I gotta go do this, I gotta do that. We stayed, and when something like that happens, you kind of want to remember everything. What did we eat? What did we do? And we ordered some cake, and we had some coffee, and we stayed longer than we normally would have, you know? And so, if you have a chance, if you’re with someone you love, someone you care about, stay a little longer, have the cake, have some coffee.’
‘It was a beautiful night, and you know, it’s hard without him,’ John said as his voice cracked with emotion.
John and actress Caitlin McHugh, 37, have been married since 2018 and they have a five-year-old son together.
