On Steve Guttenberg’s acting resume, he’s played a trouble-making rookie cop with a heart of gold (“Police Academy”), a robotics scientist (“Short Circuit”) and a carefree bachelor who becomes a reluctant parent (“Three Men and a Baby”).
But in “Kidnapped By a Killer: The Heather Robinson Story,” Guttenberg goes completely against type in playing John Edward Robinson, an actual serial killer/rapist/kidnapper/con man currently serving time on death row in Kansas for murder.
For this Lifetime TV movie, set to air on Saturday, June 7, the former Massapequa resident underwent a transformation that not only made him look thicker around the middle but also gave him a stiff and shuffling gait, reflecting the mobility issues the real Robinson had while getting around with a cane.
It was a transformation Guttenberg prepared for by doing deep research on a sociopath whose reign of killing lasted from 1984 to 2000 and claimed at least eight victims that authorities knew of. For the 66-year-old thespian, the horrors Robinson committed provided its psychological challenges.
“I read as much as I could about John, the incident and his life,” Guttenberg recalled. “It’s pretty horrific—he’s a terrible human being. The fact that he would murder people, chop up women and put them in barrels in his backyard. It is somewhat hard to believe that a human being is living on this Earth like that.”
He added, “When I was doing the research, all this truly bothered me a great deal. When you read anything horrible—something that is just so catastrophic—if you have any feelings, you need to wash out a little bit. So that’s what I did. After doing my research, I did some things that made me feel better as a human being like reading Robert Frost.”
As if Robinson’s wanton murdering wasn’t enough, the added twist to his actions was that after luring Lisa Stasi and her four-month-old daughter Tiffany from a Kansas City homeless woman’s shelter in 1985, he murdered the single mom.
He then gave the baby to his brother and sister-in-law, who had been unable to adopt a child. The killer lied, took $5,500 from them for legal fees and informed the couple that the baby’s mother had killed herself.
The truth was revealed 15 years later in 2000 when Robinson was arrested for more recent murders, by which time Tiffany, now named Heather, was a teenager learning her life had been a lie up to this point.
Rachel Stubington’s portrayal of this living victim gives this ripped-from-the-headlines story something extra. It also gave Guttenberg additional food for thought about what informed the makeup of this depraved narcissist.
“Far be it from me, an actor trying to research a part, to try and understand why that person is that way,” he said. “But I did my best to understand what his intentions were. It’s insanity, but I thought to myself that there is something in him that creates this illusion that what he’s doing is the right thing. And that’s what was interesting about the part—trying to figure out why he does what he does. It was a story and a character that was so abhorrent that it made great sense to attempt it. And I think I succeeded.”
For many actors, the idea of playing an antagonist feeds into the traditional notion that characters falling on the nefarious side of the coin tend to be more challenging than a lead character wearing a white hat. It’s a notion Guttenberg doesn’t necessarily see in the same light.
“I think all roles are interesting and your job as an actor is to make that particular moment or person interesting,” he said. “And to make that particular film interesting to watch, whether you’re doing a movie like this, which is a real horror. Or if you’re doing a real family film about three men who find a baby—you’re trying to make the film interesting either way.”
Given the preponderance of nice guy roles he’s played, Guttenberg dug in, relishing the chance to play against people’s expectations.
“I wanted to disappear into this guy,” he explained. “Because I’m so well-known, you expect something from me. That’s what happens when you’re an actor, work a lot and everyone gets pigeon-holed into a certain archetype, because of your physical appearance. But there are those lucky moments when you can play all different types of roles, especially if you’re a Shakespearian actor or you do the classics—you can do all different types. For me, it was getting his walk down and working on his walk. And also how he presents himself to the world, which was important to me. That’s what I worked on first.”
Now that Guttenberg tackled the distasteful, yet challenging task of portraying a serial killer, his creative dance card will find him working with Seth McFarlane and Mark Wahlberg on an animated version of “Ted” and getting cast in Rachael Israel’s “Floaters,” a film about a Jewish sleepover camp.
But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t think about the travails Heather Robinson had to endure.
“I felt for Heather and how this poor woman was going through life thinking her mom and dad were her mom and dad and that her uncle was her uncle,” Guttenberg said softly. “And it wasn’t that way. It must have been extremely difficult for her to manage through life. I don’t know much about her now, but I hope that she’s living a good life. She deserves it.”
“Kidnapped By a Killer: The Heather Robinson Story” will premiere on Lifetime on Saturday, June 7. Check local listings for airtime.
