Like Father, Like Son

MainLineMagazine May/June 2007

Weatherman Dave Roberts calls for sunny days ahead for his Villanova-bred TV star son David Boreanaz

By Samantha Melamed

When David Boreanaz begins speaking about his Main Line youth, you quickly realize that this is a man who doesn't hold much back.
The words stream out : Old-wealth mentality. Country club living. Izod. Cliquey. Hamptonesque.

"You aren't going to get any sugarcoating from me, sweetheart," admits the 37-year-old actor who stars on Fox's top-rated Bones as Special Agent Seeley Booth, a jaded but socially adept former Army sniper. In fact, David's edgy attitude, intenze gaze and brooding looks have made him a natural for dark, mercurial characters like Booth - not to mention his breakout role of Angel, first on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and later on his own spin-off series.

But this Hollywood bad boy is a family man at heart, carrying on the values he learned from his fater, 6ABC's beloved weatherman Dave Roberts, and his mother, Patti. Sure, his life appears far from average: his face is on buses and billboards, and his wife is none other that formar Howard Stern bombshell and Playboy Playmate Jaime Bergman. But David insists he and Jaime, (she's now in real estate), and their 5-year-old son Jaden, prefer the quiet life these days. His over-the-top Father's Day plans: "They'll let me sleep and kick back and do whatever I want to do. Father's Day and Mother's Day are really an everyday thing here in our household. It's really an appreciation of each other."
That sentiment reaches throughout the entire Boreanaz clan, as well.

The actor, his parents and his siblings are as close as ever, and David still loves to head to the east coast, hop on the R5, and visit his parents in the same Villanova house they've occupied since moving to the area in 1978.
"David is great," Pattis says of her son. "He's not any different than when he went out there in 1991 He's the same kid that left here."

For David, the Main Line brings back memories of being the new kid in town after his family arrived from Buffalo, NY, in the but-toned-up '80s-"It would be a great pilot for Hollywood, called 'Main Line,'" he laughs. But it also was a "gracious and kind" community full of happy memories for him: Playing sports at Malvern Prep, getting VIP access at the Vet with his dad, attending World Series games and cheering Villanova basketball to the NCAA championship in 1985. ("They were they lowest-seeded team ever to win," he says. "I remember it vividly.")

The community on the Main Line and throughout greater Philadelphia readily embraced Dave Roberts, and the entire Boreanaz brood grew to know public life here. "They were exposed to the public eye early because I've been in television for a number of years," the ever-understated Roberts notes of his more than 50-year career. "They saw that early on in life - the attention, people coming up to you, the notoriety. We tried to get them to understand that my job was no different than any other job, that everyone has responsibilities in life."
Consequently, David says, he never felt compelled to follow in his father's path, though he has always been inspired by his dad's "drive, his respectfulness and his humble attitude."
"My dad encouraged us to do what we wanted to do. He never discouraged us to do what we wanted to do. He never discouraged me from anything," David recalls. "He always said he would be there for me whether I wanted to be a doctor, or go work in the Peace Corps, or anything. He wanted me to do what makes me happy. He always encouraged us to go for it, and I'm the same way with my kid. I try to steer him responsibly but never to pressure him."

Of course, David - along with his two older sisters - ended up in the entertainment industry nonetheless. "I just fell into the business," he admits. (The well-worn story goes that David went to Los Angeles to find work behind the camera, but was "discovered" while walking his dog.)

But one way in which David never followed his father was in taking a stage name. "My first agent said, 'Maybe you should change your name.' And that was it," he says. "I went on to the next person."
Fifty years back , when Dave Roberts got his start, it was a different business. "When I started in television you could not use unusual names, ethnic names. You came into the job, they gave ou a new name or they gave the job to someones else," Dave says. But he kept the name Boreanaz legally and passed it on to his children, telling them the story of the old Italian neighborhood man who reminded him years earlier to preserve his identiy : "He said to me, 'What are you ashamed of your name? That's not you. Never be ashamed of your name.'" When Dave and Patti's oldest daughter Bo, a set dresser, became the first of the children to earn a television credit, she went by just one name: Boreanaz. "It was her message to me, her way of saying, 'You weren't able to do it, but I did it for you and for the family.' I was very touched by that. And then when David got into the business there was never any doubt. He said, 'No way dad : This is the name I'm using.'"
Dave and Patti say they feel proud to have passed not only the name but also their family traditions on to their children and grand-children. Whenever possible, the whole far flung crew converges for holiday, to bake special bread for Easter or to share Christmas. And Dave says he finds that his son has grown to take after him in a few ways: the two share the same intense focus and the same sense of humor. And, he admits, they can both get pretty cranky when tired.
"All the good things come from his mother," Dave laughs.

For this part, David describes his family as loving and supportive.
"When I'm down," he says, "my father is able to talk to me and to pick me up."
And now he's trying to set the same example for his son. "Jaime and I spend time with Jaden on a daily basis," he says. "We're very traditional, and we love to do the same things that I used to do with my parents. Whether it's going to a sporting event or traveling or going to restaurants, he's out with us all the time. We're a very close-knit family."
And with his career in overdrive these days, that's important. "I've been fortunate," he reflects, "since I started working nine years ago, starting with Buffy and then my spin-off Angel and finally this current show, Bones. I've done some films that have been seen, and some films that haven't been seen, but that's in the cards."

Now, David says, "I'm at a stage in my life where I'm entering my leading man phase and taking leading man roles. I'm a leading man, and that's the kind of roles that I'm going to be getting for the next eight years or so."
If the sucess of Bones is any indication, he's on that track.
But if not, his dad had another idea.

"I would like somewhere down the line to write, and David is a very good writer," Dave muses. "He wrote a script a while back and I kind of helped him with that. The two of us working together, I found that very, very enjoyable and rewarding. That's what I would love to do: work together with David again."