Nearly 20 years ago, Lucia moved back to the area after a number of years in New York City and Los Angeles to pursue his acting career. Retired, Lucia – born Charles Oliver Young Jr. – now lives in Youngsville

Lucia was born January 3, 1946, Lucia recalls his mother taking him to a skit at Cub Scouts which sparked an interest in acting. Lucia’s parents, Charles Young and Elizabeth Lucia, are both buried in Warren’s Oakland Cemetery. In his youth, Lucia recalls being a newspaper boy with what was known as the Times Mirror newspaper, now known as the news source you are reading right now, the TImes Observer.

Also giving credit to his acting interest, is the Warren Players group. If there was a play, he wanted to be in it. Lucia spent time starring in high school plays and other productions in the summertime like “Oklahoma.” Lucia said that he had always been interested in all sorts of acting.

“I remember coming home for lunch during school and I’d watch the soaps,” Lucia said.

Pictured is actor Charles “Chip” Lucia, native of and returned resident of Warren who had an acting career in the late 1950s into the early 2000s.

Although he spent much time on soap operas such as One Life to Live, as Tony Harris Lord in 1981-1983; Days of Our Lives as Hart Bennett, in 1985, and Leopold Taub in General Hospital, 1991, Lucia admitted he eventually started to dislike soap operas, as the type of acting has a whole different way compared to other productions. He said that actors had to say words, hit their mark and move on. Lucia enjoyed night-time television; however, acting in movies is what he loved most.

His favorite movie was called “Vice Versa,” where he shared scenes with Judge Rinehold, who audiences may remember from the Beverly Hills Cop films, and a young Fred Savage, who starred as Kevin Arnold in 1980s TV hit “The Wonder Years.” At the same exact time though, there were two other movies with the same theme that took “the stage,” one of them being the movie “Big,” starring Tom Hanks.

In 1963, Lucia went away to a military college, which meant he missed out on his friend’s production of “The Fantasticks.” Then, while attending Erie’s Gannon College (now Gannon University), Lucia got involved in both college theatre and local theatre at the Erie Playhouse.

“In retrospect, the beginning of my career began inadvertently at the playhouse where I finally performed in the Fantasticks,” he said. “I went up cold with the lyrics, there were suddenly 500 people sitting in the audience, but somehow I ad-libbed a stanza and made it rhyme, hit the chorus and got back into it. There was an actor who had to hold a stick to represent a wall, who, in this opening number, was laughing so hard that the stick began to violently shake while he tried to valiantly keep it together.”

The first professional job that Lucia was cast in was as the principal actor in a shoe commercial. While on his way to do the shoot in New York City, he had a motorcycle accident on the West Side highway injuring his knee badly enough that if Lucia had to walk around or simply stand still while doing the commercial, he would have been replaced immediately. But the commercial required him to walk on his hands with his hands inside the shoes. That was something he could and did do.

Lucia appeared in episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise including the characters of Ves Alkar (pictured in this photo), Mabus and Keene.

“I never told my agent about the accident,” he said. “A further irony as per this job, it wasn’t for several years of formal training at Columbia that got me this job but instructions from my old high school gym teacher, Hal Miller, who taught me to walk on my hands. Thanks, Hal. It seems every so often someone up there has been looking out for me.”

After finding out that Columbia University had a graduate program in theater, Lucia remembered that he had to do an audition to get into graduate school but his baseball team was heading to Florida, a trip he refused to miss.

“As much as I loved theatre, baseball always came first,” Lucia said.

This led him to request an early audition. After a 20-minute monologue, Lucia was accepted to Columbia on a partial scholarship, and off he went to join his college teammates in Florida.

Often mentioning that serendipity was a big factor of his career, Lucia said, ” “I lucked out. To do this again today…I was lucky beyond belief.”

He said he got some breaks, while many aspiring actors had to be driven; he felt lucky.

Lucia graduated from Columbia with a Masters in Fine Arts, and stayed to live and work in New York for nine years before moving to Los Angeles, Calif., in the mid 1970s. He once helped start a summer theater locally in a renovated barn in Scandia, known as the “Plowright Playhouse,” which had 100 seats. During that time, Lucia recollects that Warren had a population of around 15,000 people and explained how times were so different back in his day when Warren had industry and theater was different.

Among several roles, many of them as the primary guest star in a show, Lucia said that the Star Trek episodes he worked on are his favorite. Lucia worked with Patrick Stewart and learned that the famous star of stage and screen was a nice guy who was easy to work with. Lucia also found it much different than acting in soap operas. Precision was expected in this show, as compared to the “hit your mark” dialogue with daytime television. He appeared in episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation as Ves Alkar; Star Trek: Voyager as Mabus and Star Trek: Enterprise as Keene. Altogether, Lucia’s acting career boasts of appearances in more than 70 television shows including “Cagney and Lacey,” “Dynasty,” “Nash Bridges,” “TJ Hooker,” “Magnum P.I.” “The Bionic Woman,” and “Jake and the Fatman.” Cinemas include “Tank Girl,” “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle,” and “Society,” among many others.

One of the most famous Hollywood stars he got to work with was Elizabeth Taylor in the film, “Sweet Bird of Youth.” In addition, Lucia met and took over for Ed Harris in a Sam Shepherd piece called “Cowboy Mouth,” a wild one act play with only two characters. While Harris went to shoot a film, Lucia took his place in acting and also played guitar, drums and sang in it.

Admitting that if he had to choose between a baseball or acting career, Lucia said he would have rather chosen baseball, but that wasn’t “in the stars.” He’s been a Dodgers fan for most of his life, ever since they won the World Series in 1955.

While on the west coast, Lucia often got away from the rush of L.A. by backpacking in the Sierras during all four seasons with his pet wolves.

These days Lucia cares for his dog, Luna, enjoys watching the Dodgers, woodworking, journal writing and water color painting. Often seen at the downtown coffee shops, Lucia has plenty of fun stories to tell, so grab a cup of coffee and stay awhile, all while seeing him find the joy in reminiscing as he shares pieces of his life. Lucia remains to be quite the character.

To see more of the roles he played throughout the years, search on www.imdb.com or visit notrecinema.com