Buddy Youngreen is everywhere | Mormon Times

Buddy Youngreen is everywhere | Mormon Times
OREM, Utah — Of course Erwin Paul "Buddy" Youngreen isn't actually everywhere, but it certainly seems like he is.

One minute the 71-year-old theater icon is directing the American Fork/Highland Arts Councils' production of "The Music Man" for a packed house that included international visitors and an appearance from the award-winning American Fork High School Marching Band.

The next he's in Hawaii delivering a fireside about the Joseph and Emma Smith story. (He speaks 50-100 times a year all over the world about the Smiths.)

After that he's headed off on a cruise for some rare downtime with a gospel music group he enjoys.

For the past 50 years, he's been an actor, producer, director, playwright, historian and author. He's been involved with more than 200 live productions either as an actor or director.

He was head yell leader and the BYU Cosmo in 1961-62 (and still has the bad back to prove it).

He taught acting at the Pasadena Playhouse in Southern California and suggested the Sundance Theater to Robert Redford where he wrote and directed for several seasons. For four years, he directed shows at the Pink Garter in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

He brought Lorne Greene to Utah for the Salt Lake Saga in 1986.

He's studied the life of Joseph and Emma for 40 years, organized the first-ever family reunion between the disparate factions and has been unofficially adopted into the Smith family as well as named their CEO for 33 years.

He proofread the lesson manuals about Joseph Smith for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Now he's hard at work trying to get the Joseph and Emma love story made into a major motion picture.

He's a father of two, grandfather of eight. He's the high priest group leader in the Geneva Heights 3rd Ward in Orem.

"You might say I've been everywhere," Youngreen said in a sit-down interview with Mormon Times. "I love it all, but my preference? It's directing."

Born in Chicago and raised in California, Youngreen discovered he liked being in plays in elementary school. In junior high, he was writing and recording little radio shows that were broadcast throughout the school.

By the time he hit high school, he knew he had to be involved in theater.

"I quickly learned that if you're going to get into this business, you get in the stream and you go where it takes you," Youngreen said. "It isn't the goal so much as the path you traveled. You do one production and it leads to another."

In junior college, he was taken under the wing of Burnett Ferguson — a drama teacher and institute teacher — who not only introduced and baptized him into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but pushed him to attend BYU on a drama scholarship.

"As I listened to him teach, I knew he was telling the truth," Youngreen recalls. Youngreen today is the only member of his family who is a Mormon. He's also the only Youngreen to be welcomed into the Smith family.

"I'm not related to Emma and Joseph Smith. I was smitten in the '60s with the idea of their story. When I wasn't busy I'd go read at the Huntington Library about the Smith family. I gathered all of these old photographs and all this information."

Eventually he wrote "Reflections of Emma: Joseph Smith's Wife" and "Joseph and Emma: A Love Story" and started working to bring the Smith family together. They'd been divided for 126 years before Youngreen brought them to the same place in 1972.

"They are good people. Emma was a good woman. She adopted her second husband's illegitimate son. We had vilified Emma and her children because we assumed things," Youngreen said. He tells of one instance when a local church leader came in and removed Emma's portrait from the wall of the Relief Society room, an act that made him determined to learn more about Emma and Joseph.

"People had vilified Joseph. I knew all of the salacious rumors and gossip before I ever studied Joseph and decided a man who's dead at 38 couldn't possibly have done all those things."

J. Samuel Park, a longtime friend of Youngreen's and a former mission president, said he always had Youngreen speak to his missionaries. "He can move people. He's got a tremendous spirit. He's got a very strong testimony. He's a magnificent communicator. Buddy always has time to help."

Park said Buddy's enthusiasm, creativity and dedication to the project is legendary.

"He's kind of a no-nonsense director, extremely detailed and meticulous. He puts in a lot of time," he said.

Though Youngreen's resume is full and list of accomplishments long, he has plenty he still wants to do.

"I've just gotta live long enough to do it all," he said.