In the back room of a Logan Square art gallery, Victor Lundin takes the mike for a couple of songs. He’s already spent a full day meeting fans and signing autographs at a Star Trek convention in Rosemont, where he’s known for being the TV show’s first Klingon. Tonight Lundin’s playing a different role–“singing spokesperson” for the Child Welfare League of America.
“We’re gonna do ‘La Esperanza,’” Lundin says. “It’s in Spanish and English.” He dedicates the song to Arturo Hernandez, author of the book Peace in the Streets: Breaking the Cycle of Gang Violence. “The one word missing in the lives of gangs is the word hope.
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As a kid growing up in Chicago, Lundin says, he’d always wanted to be an actor. “I saw people up on the screen and I said, ‘Someday I’m gonna work with you’–people like John Wayne and Lucille Ball.”
Torn between Italy and Hollywood, he decided to flip a coin. Heads he’d go to Italy, tails to California. “It came up heads, but I said, ‘Nah, I’ll follow my heart to Hollywood’–in spite of the coin.
He also started appearing next to his big-screen idols, even, he says, giving Lucille Ball voice lessons. “I’d actually go to her house on Roxbury Drive next to Jack Gleason,” he says. “But I couldn’t teach her anything. She was such a heavy smoker–she was like a basso profundo.”
He’s a regular on the Star Trek circuit. “I like doing the conventions,” he says, “’cause I have a chance to interface with the people. If you listen to people they tell you a lot. If you’re here to display your ego and just sign autographs, you don’t learn anything.” In Baltimore, a fan put him in touch with the Child Welfare League, and now Lundin’s planning to donate a portion of the proceeds from his latest CD, Loyalty. He notes the songs make “important statements” about social issues.
Between numbers, he reflects, “I love to sing, I love to act–whatever comes along. That’s my purpose. I want to be able to say what I think needs to be said–without preaching. I don’t say, ‘Don’t buy guns. Don’t do this.’ This is my opinion, and if you accept it, fine. You’re not supposed to sing at my age. They say, ‘It’s over.’ And I say, ‘Bull.’ Does that sound like an old guy?”
