Actor William Sanderson looks warily at success, bloody good fun on HBO : GoMemphis.com

Memphis-born actor William Sanderson knows something about the diabolical forces and addictions that plague the residents of small-town Bon Temps, La., in his hit vampire series, "True Blood," which returns at 8 p.m. Sunday for a second season of bloodsucking, shapeshifting, devil-exorcising and lots and lots of HBO's signature R-rated whoopee-making.

"It always involved drinking," Sanderson, 65, said of the off-screen demons that used to destabilize his life and career. "You know, there are actors who sit around and make themselves into outlaws. I would get the roles mixed up with myself. But nobody's been given more second chances than I have.

"I'm still just a journeyman trying to claw my way to the middle," said the 1962 graduate of Central High School, in a phone interview from his Burbank, Calif., home. "I'm that athlete sitting on the bench in 10th grade at Central, hoping you're ready when the coach puts you in."

Sanderson is a distinctive actor with a sly, deadpan delivery, a hard-to-disguise Southern accent and a non-pretty boy pan that has made him ideal for character roles in Westerns, comedies, crime stories, rural dramas ("Coal Miner's Daughter") and what would prove to be cult films (he was the toy maker in "Blade Runner," and the lead psycho in the must-see race-baiting 1977 shocker, "Fight for Your Life").

Currently, Sanderson plays the recurring supporting role of beleaguered Sheriff Bud Dearborne in "True Blood," a sort of combination "Dark Shadows" and "Black Snake Moan" focusing on the problematic romance between waitress Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) and a "mainstreaming" vampire (Stephen Moyer) whose human life ended just after the Civil War.

Presented as something of an allegory for issues of gay and immigrant identity (vampire-human marriage and a Vampire Rights Amendment are hot-button political

issues), "True Blood" takes place after vampires have "come out of the coffin," revealing their presence to the shocked world. While progressive vampires survive by drinking a synthetic commercial blood substitute called Tru Blood, sinister traditionalists prefer the Old World practice of hunting and draining human victims.

Sanderson was weaselly hotel proprietor E.B. Farnum in 36 episodes of an earlier HBO series, "Deadwood," which ended its three-season run in 2006. "True Blood" may not be as critically acclaimed as that Western program, but it's more popular.

The DVD box set collecting the first season's 12 episodes sold more than 500,000 copies during its first week of release in mid-May and remains a top seller. So do the Sookie Stackhouse mystery novels by Tunica County native and Rhodes College graduate Charlaine Harris that inspired the cable television program; the ninth and latest, "Dead and Gone," is near the top of The New York Times hardback best-seller list.

Soft-spoken, self-deprecating and Southern-gentleman polite, Sanderson says his own personality sometimes worked against him in show business: "Laziness, shyness, timidity -- it's hard to knock down walls when you're built like that."

As a boy, he used to deliver The Commercial Appeal, so he's self-conscious when being interviewed by the hometown newspaper: "I'm anxious because I don't want to sound like a schmuck."

Sanderson attended Bellevue Baptist Church as a boy and played youth baseball. A true Memphis booster, he loves talking about his days as a scenery painter-turned-actor at Circuit Playhouse, his old friends at Snowden Junior High School and the local sports and entertainment heroes he followed or encountered as a youth, including Tiger basketball players Forrest Arnold and Win Wilfong, baseball great Tim McCarver and, of course, Elvis.

Sanderson ingratiated himself with Red West and other Elvis cronies, and even played in some of the famous Presley touch-football games.

"I decided I was kind of like the stalker," Sanderson said of his interaction with the King. "I'd hang around the (Graceland) gates like other people. I drove down to Walls, Miss., once just to see him drive out of the gate (of his ranch) in one of those El Dorados.

"I'd say I was a friend of George Klein's so I could get into the Memphian (a defunct movie theater) and watch movies with them. Elvis was very gracious. I got to hear Elvis play the piano in Graceland, he played 'Blueberry Hill,' 'Don't Be Cruel.' I got his autograph once on the back of some Julius Lewis stationery," he said, referring to a famous old Memphis department store chain.

Like Elvis, "I used to go to the WDIA shows, and we (white kids) didn't have any trouble," Sanderson said. "Bobby 'Blue' Bland, Rufus Thomas -- and then there were all those Sun records. It was a great time to be a kid."

Not everything was rosy, however.

"I was a little reckless as a teenager," Sanderson said. He was arrested in junior high for "joyriding, I guess you could call it, or taking cars that didn't belong to us. I went to see my probation officer, I said, 'Mr. Churchill, will this jeopardize my dreams?' And he said, 'If people had to answer for what they did as kids, we wouldn't have any doctors or lawyers.'"

Sanderson earned a law degree in 1971 from what was then called Memphis State University but -- to his father's distress -- gave up what would have been a so-called respectable career to pursue acting.

"I cannot explain except to say the heart has its reasons, and what those reasons are is a mystery," Sanderson explained, or didn't explain. "Probably I was lazy. Practicing law is probably hard work, gathering facts. I like to work hard for a while."

He moved to New York, where he studied acting with the famous William Hickey, and auditioned for roles. "They definitely thought I was a total idiot, and I played idiots for years. I didn't shave, I didn't dress right. When I did Shakespeare in New York, my teacher said it sounded like Tennessee Williams. But I guess I kind of like my accent."

On the other hand, there's always a market in Hollywood for idiocy. Sanderson frequently was cast as what might be referred to euphemistically as simple characters, achieving his greatest popular fame for his regular role as a seemingly moronic but mysterious backwoodsman on the sitcom "Newhart," which aired on CBS from 1982 to 1990. Accompanied by two other yokels, Sanderson introduced himself each week with this catchphrase: "Hi, I'm Larry, this is my brother, Darryl, and this is my other brother, Darryl."

Sanderson said his career -- including roles in "Last Man Standing" with Bruce Willis, the made-in-Memphis John Grisham adaptation, "The Client" and "Lone Wolf McQuade" with Chuck Norris -- has mixed "successes with disappointments, but may I say probably more disappointments than successes. Like Susan Sarandon said, acting is fun from 'Action!' to 'Cut!' but the other part, trying to get the job, the waiting, it's hard. You take a lot of rejection, and somebody has to pay for that. But the rewards are getting to work with fascinating people like Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Angelina Jolie ..."

Now, Sanderson's home life and career seem as sturdy as they've ever been. He has been married for 16 years to Sharon Sanderson and he's happy to report his 28-year-old son, Andrew, is not an actor. (He operates The Blade Runner, a Raleigh, N.C., lawn-and-gutter service.)

"The Bill Sanderson I know is probably not the Bill Sanderson people in the '70s knew," said Sharon Sanderson, who met her future husband by chance in Las Vegas, where they both were on vacation.

In February 2008, Sanderson received a Distinguished Alumnus award from the University of Memphis. "True Blood" was in the middle of its first season at the time, meaning that Sheriff Dearborne was not only trying to cope with his town's first resident vampire but also on the hunt for a serial strangler.

"Every year, you wonder if they're going to kill you off," Sanderson said of his roles in "Deadwood" and now "True Blood." "I'm always insecure and not confident in the work. But they're paying me good money, notwithstanding that I sit around a lot. As a graybeard or a geezer, I'm just happy to have a semi-regular job. And (the sheriff) is normal, and I've never played many normal people. He even shaves."

John Beifuss: 529-2394