An abbreviated biography of Jim Waddell

I am from Missouri. I have the great advantage of a rural upbringing and still recall those joyous days though it seems a thousand years ago. My first wages were earned in the seventh year of my schooling when I discovered that several of the girls in my class were willing to pay 50 cents each for poems I composed on subjects of their choice. I purchased candy with that fortune and those same little girls used their coyness to talk me out of it. I think they knew what they were doing all along.

Shortly afterwards, I determined to become America's favorite author. I did not realize that meant performing as Mark Twain. I do not profess being the reincarnation of Mark Twain although I had an eccentric acquaintance once that suggested I travel to the University of Transcendental Meditation in Fairfield, Iowa, and have that title conferred upon me by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. We did journey there together but for a different purpose. That is a separate topic entirely.

I do share some common background with the author in an off-hand and accidental sort of way. He was born in Florida, Missouri. I was born in Louisiana, Missouri. Both villages are approximately thirty miles from Hannibal. We each grew up in sight of the Mississippi river. Each of us have worked as printers, lecturers, steamboat men, newspaper reporters and magazine contributors. We each have been monetarily massacred by what certainly appeared to be a good idea at the time.

I began my acting career around 1971 in a small attraction that boasted a facsimile of an old western town. I developed and participated in a mock bank robbery replete with characters being shot off buildings and punctuated with a lynching in honor of the last desperado standing. In those days people still admired and appreciated lynching but they are different now, or say they are.

I spent sixteen years of my life in a nineteenth century theme park where I performed before an aggregate of millions. I enacted lead roles in three separate outdoor amphitheaters, have done a number of stage productions and performed on network and cable television. For the last decade, I have resided in the historic district of Hannibal half a block from Mark Twain's boyhood home and have spent that time studying his notes, writings, lecture transcripts and related historical events in order to hone my presentation.

 

 

Cave Hollow Theater is located inside the Mark Twain Cave & Campground Complex which is situated in a wooded valley abutting the Mississippi River just one mile south of Hannibal on Highway 79, Missouri's first scenic byway. Next to the theater is Candles Aglow where artisans create beautiful hand-carved candles and the Rock Shop which handles a wide variety of fossils and semi-precious stones. Across the way is the world-renowned Mark Twain Cave, a vast labyrinth of underground passages made famous in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer".

Also adjacent is Cameron Cave, Missouri's newest show cave.

New Twain Show for 2006! Click Here!

Hannibal Links