Jon Vater

Jonathan Andrew Vater was born on August 19th, 1967 in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Three months later, to the day, he landed in New London, Connecticut where his parents (an American sailor and a young British-Irish lass) were reunited. Eventually moving to his father's birthplace in Northern Kentucky (just south of Cincinnati, Ohio), Jon was raised in Southgate and Ft. Thomas, Kentucky. Though his parents divorced in 1972, he and his mother remained in their new homeland. Having entertained family and friends with countless presentations of songs from various musicals, particularly The Sound of Music, Jon began to develop his voice as the years pressed on. After a stint in the mid-1990s as a wedding singer and occasional nightclub performer, he discovered the stage and soon dove into various productions such as Godspell (Herb), The Sound of Music (as Captain Von Trapp and later Max Detweiler), Guys and Dolls (Sky Masterson), Jesus Christ Superstar (Caiaphas), 1776 (Edward Rutledge), Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Pharaoh), 9 to 5: The Musical (Franklin Hart) and many others. Through musical theatre, he discovered a love of acting in general and proceeded to comedic and dramatic non-musical shows like Love, Sex and the IRS (Mr. Jansen), Chapter Two (Leo Schneider), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Brick Pollit), Misery (Paul Sheldon), The Miracle Worker (Captain Keller) and more. For his extensive work on Cincinnati-area stages, Jon has won multiple local awards for comic roles, dramatic parts and musical theatre performances. His "Outstanding Vocal Performance" award (one of only two bestowed during the event) at the Southwest Regional OCTAfest (Ohio Community Theatre Association) for his rendition of "Good Old Girl" from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas stands out as his most memorable moment, awards-wise. Taking a chance on another medium, he auditioned for and won a supporting role in a proposed television sitcom pilot called Posers. He played the exasperated attorney of the show's featured character, who cannot believe that his client (who is winning a wrongful termination suit) would rather take a management role in the company in lieu of a fat cash settlement. Though the project went through various permutations and was not picked up (and his scene was cut in the process), he continued to look for further work of that kind. He did proceed with various video projects and was thrilled to once again audition for the director of Posers when he was preparing an upcoming independent feature film. The film, Our Scripted Life, concerned a young soap opera actor who tries to mount a movie for himself and a beloved female coworker of his to star in with the hopes that it will lead to romance between them. Jon was cast as one of a crazed assortment in a rural farm family who appear midway through the film. Slightly younger than the role in question, he underwent daily age makeup and hair graying (though not as much as might have been required only a few years prior!) A movie lover from childhood to the present, he was once a prolific imdb.com user commentor with 800 reviews under his belt until he segued to the world of bloggers in 2009, when he introduced the popular vintage entertainment site Poseidon's Underworld. Through that long-running blog, he has paid tribute to countless less-remembered stars and movies, many with a campy tinge associated with them, and provided many examples of cinematic and television beefcake to an audience hungry for such. It has also afforded him the pleasure of having been contacted by various entertainers, some of whom he'd written about and some not. He has also developed a wacky fictional family, The Holtmessers (Jerrold, Lorabeth and Misty), whose confessional videos during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 have become a Facebook and YouTube attraction for many fans.