If you are looking for boastful bravado, George Hamilton is not your man. At 72, this tanned, silver-haired favorite son of Palm Beach maintains an amusingly self-deprecating attitude about his six-decade-long show business career.

"I always do things that are a little bit above my head, y’know? I went to Hollywood when I had no clue what acting was, and I learned on the job," he says. "Some say I still have a lot to learn, and maybe they’re right."

The latest over-his-head project of Hamilton’s is starring in the stage musical La Cage aux Folles, playing the gay emcee of a St. Tropez night club which features his longtime lover as the drag show’s headliner.

The revival of the 1983 Jerry Herman-Harvey Fierstein musical brings its glitz, glitter and attitude to the Kravis Center for a week, beginning on Tuesday.

Directions, invite a friend, nearby dining

Hamilton is particularly delighted to be bringing it here, coming back to play before the Palm Beach set.

Well, maybe not coming back. "I never really went away from the hometown crowd," he says. "I’ve always been in touch with them. There are a few guys that meet and we hang out in particular places and we have our lunch, which consists of memories of the old days and a couple of Bloody Marys."

Not that Hamilton would willingly divulge what his favorite local hangouts are. "I try to keep them private," he explains. "Because the minute you mention them, the people you don’t want to see show up.

"I just remember Palm Beach as a place where I grew up on the beach, I would lie down and felt totally renewed by it in three days. It used to be three days, it’s more like three weeks now," he says. "I went back to the beach that I grew up on the other day and fell asleep. I woke up and for a moment I honestly felt like I was 17 or 18 years old."

In fact, Hamilton still owns a condo here, though he is ready to sell it, if he can. "I had it only for one reason, my little boy who just turned 12 went to school last year at St. Ann’s. He’s now in Admiral Farragut Naval Academy in Tampa," he notes. "One thing I wanted to be sure is that I could see him go to school in the morning and pick him up at the end of the day. So I got a condo so I could actually see him and participate in his life."

I should learn to dance

With his son, George Thomas, packed off to school, Hamilton was free to tour in La Cage. He says he accepted the gig, as he does most things, on the spur of the moment.

"Then I went to New York and thought, ‘Well, maybe I ought to learn to sing.’ And ‘Maybe I ought to learn to dance.’ And then I started rehearsing and I realized that there’s some real heavyweight talent and some fine Broadway performers in this cast. The learning arc all of sudden became very steep. So I started putting in the hours I did when I was doing Dancing With the Stars and boom!, I ripped an Achilles (tendon)."

His doctor recommended immediate surgery, cautioning that if Hamilton ruptured the tendon any further it would mean a leg cast for six months at the least. "I said, ‘I’m not a quitter. I want to go forward.’ "

Continue he did, though relying on his costar Christopher Sieber for most of the onstage mobility. "I started faking it, saying to the other guy, ‘Look, I am not the dancer in this show. You’re the dancer. We’ll just switch it right over to you.’ So I’m kind of the old fool that gets through it."

Torn tendon or not, Hamilton insists that La Cage is as difficult as anything he has ever attempted professionally. "This is a real test of endurance," he says. "I love comedy and I love a farce. If I had any real claim it would be to be a farceur. I’d like to have been a Peter Sellers- type character, but they never really let me do that at the studio."

Hamilton headed out to Hollywood as a teenager, near the tail end of the studio system. He went, he now says, "just on a lark because I’d won an award in school in Florida for best actor in the state. Knowing so many people in Palm Beach that were from South America, I sort of adopted this swarthy, South American quality. You’ve got to remember that Palm Beach was becoming this very romantic, very sophisticated place.

"So I just adopted the mannerisms I saw of the people that were there. And in Hollywood, they believed it. They believed I was a multimillionaire from a family living this lifestyle and I was dabbling in films."

Highs and lows

Well trained or not, Hamilton was soon an MGM sensation. "Initially they had me with Robert Mitchum (in 1960′s Home From the Hill) playing the tormented youth, a kind of James Dean role. But then, they put me in Where the Boys Are, an insipid picture that changed the whole feeling for Fort Lauderdale to the point that they had to call out National Guard."

Asked to name his best work on film, Hamilton considers the question and says, "I would think Your Cheatin’ Heart was an interesting performance because I played Hank Williams, the way I think Hank Williams was. I played Evel Knievel in some weird way, a bit like he was. Moments of The Godfather (Part ). I certainly think Home From the Hill was an interesting performance. I loved doing Zorro, the Gay Blade. I got nominated (for a Golden Globe) and it was a very complex role. I played several roles in it. I loved playing Dracula (in Love at First Bite), because I thought he was just a wonderful old-fashioned gentleman who had one problem – he needed a little blood."

On the other side of the coin, one film sticks out in Hamilton’s mind. "There was a terrible movie made at the lowest point of my career ever. It was called The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington. I thought this was just the most god-awful thing I’ve ever done."

Still, Hamilton is not complaining. "I had such an extraordinary life that if I pushed my hand all in now, I would have had it better than most. So I feel good about that, which kind of brings me to the play that I’m doing," he says. "Because it is about – as much as it has the overtone of a gay anthem – it’s very much about living in the moment. About being who you are, being faithful to whom you are and all we know is now."

He dedicates his performance to his gay half-brother Bill, who died of AIDS. "You have to live in the moment. People who don’t are foolish. The song The Best of Times (is Now) says it all. A lot of our dreams of America being strong forever after the second world war have gone down. And America’s got to get its act together again. It’s not going to come just from might, it’s going to come from right. You’ve got to do the right things by the right people and it’s got to start at home. I’m deeply rooted in simple values that we are missing all of a sudden."

If Hamilton has a philosophy to impart, it would be the power of positive thinking. "We all have these little demons in our heads, saying you can’t do this, you can’t do that. And you have to have a little chat with them and back them off," he advises. "Sometimes it’s as easy as starting the day by saying, ‘That thought is not going to be in my mind today.’ The minute you have a negative thought, you can replace it with a positive one. But you have to do it real quick."

Still loves the sun

And don’t believe the tabloids, which insisted last year that Hamilton’s preoccupation with a perpetual tan resulted in a skin cancer scare. He bats the suggestion aside. "Well, I don’t believe that tanning does take a toll like it’s been put out there. The sun is meant to be of help to you. I don’t use an SPF (sunscreen), but I don’t stay in the sun all day like I used to. But I’ve been lucky enough with the genetics and I love the sun. I make it a habit every day to be out in the sun for a few minutes."

As to his love life, Hamilton is pleased to report, "I’ve been going with a girl for five years who is a doctor. No dummy, I. My doctor said I’d probably end up sick in bed with a nurse. I said I preferred a doctor, and I’m going out with her. She’s a German doctor, she lives in Düsseldorf, and we commute back and forth every month or two. But it’s hard now, because I’m stuck in this tour.

"I think there’s a sense of romance and a sense of being practical about that. If you know the qualities you’re looking for, you don’t have to keep experimenting every night looking for them. That was fun, it accompanied a martini perfectly. But now, I can’t stay up that late having that martini and I prefer being with somebody that I’ve really built a relationship with."

And Hamilton scoffs at the notion of retiring. "I don’t understand retirement. I’ve seen too many people in the business give up and soon they’re gone.

"I think we’re meant to be like a bellows. The more movement, the more you do, the younger you are or will remain. And our sex lives are terribly important. If you don’t have one, other things start to go. It gives you a great excuse if you decide to cheat. It’s for medicinal reasons."

Finally, George, why should we come see you in La Cage aux Folles?

"Just to see if I’m still standing. And to see if I’ve got that tan back."

‘LA CAGE AUX FOLLES’: Starring George Hamilton

Tuesday-Sunday at the Kravis Center, West Palm Beach. Info: (561) 832-7469.