When I was five, my family got a television, and it was like a meteorite had landed on the farm. That’s when I knew I wanted to be in show business, but I had to keep it a secret because you couldn’t tell people that. My school had this talent show once every year, and the reality is, I lived my whole life for that show. I secretly prepped all the time; I was the fine-arts department. I started doing it in first or second grade, and every year I came in at least second. I usually sang songs like “The Birds and the Bees” or “Blue Velvet.” I think they would have gone ahead and tarred and feathered me for acting at that point, but singing was okay. I guess I fit in because I was a good enough faker at everything else. By the sixth grade, I was sort of known as that weirdo who sings.

Brad Maule was raised two miles outside the West Texas town of Camp Springs and graduated from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches in 1974. For the past thirteen years, he has played Dr. Anthony Jones on the ABC soap opera General Hospital.