It is hard to fathom that we will no longer be able to call on his wisdom, his humor, his loyalty and his moral strength to guide us in the choices that are yet to be made and the battles that are yet to be fought. But how fortunate we were to have him as long as we did.” – Harry Belafonte.
“I want so badly someday to have his dignity - a little of it anyway. I know what a man is because of Ossie." – Burt Reynolds.
We don’t have many residual regrets where show-biz is concerned, but one of them is we never quite got ‘round to meeting Mr. Davis.
He did speak one summer on our college campus and we recall being absolutely mesmerized by his moral authority, quite charisma, distinguished demeanor, wry humor, justified social anger and honorable humanity – and he had a velvet voice even Olivier would’ve envied.
“People didn’t really know what a treasure this guy was. If you have a quintessential human being to use as an example for youngsters to emulate, then he was it. He was wonderfully well-gifted.” – Sidney Poitier.
“Art has a deep responsibility – social, cultural and otherwise. And that the basic motivation for the creation of art is to meet those responsibilities … But I inspire you, I beg you: to keep your humanity in the forefront of all that you do …” So sayeth
Tho it’s been a few years since his last appearance on The Great White Way
twas just announced he’s returning next year in
Mind you, being an entirely different sorta actor (in both temperament, talent and intensity), we’d wager audiences would be best advised not to anticipate Mr. Washington approaching the Promethean tragic grandeur James Earl Jones
captured in his original Tony Award Best Actor winning portrayal (the second after his titanic, never-to-be-forgotten Jack Jefferson in The Great White Hope.
Still, the one production we wished we coulda witnessed was the theatrical reunion between Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett when they teamed up as the star-crossed married couple in the Pasadena Playhouse version a coupla years ago.
Still, one would do well not to underestimate both Mr. Washington's commitment and ability to meet the enormous challenge the part of the fantastically-frustrated Troy Maxon represents.
(Oh, und the box-office sure as shootin'
ain’t gonna suffer one durn bit, either, you betcha Broadwayin' bippie) …
The First of the Two Actors We’ve Been Most Impressed By This Last Decade Department:
If you wanna extraordinary example of Jeffrey Wright’s ENORMOUS range
simply contrast his brilliant Tony and Emmy Award winning characterization of Belize
vis-à-vis “Angels in America”
and then throw in his 360 degree turn as Felix Leiter in both
and “Quantum of Solace” –
which doesn’t even compass the breadth and depth of his other screen
stage,
and teevee accomplishments.
It’s a sad, damning indictment on the lop-sided values still poisonously prevalent in Hollyweird that someone (ala the vapid dolls like those kute kiddies Damon and Pitt) receive millions more and pick of the scripts
when neither are nowhere anywhere near
in the same talented or versatile league.
File that under the More Things Change, The More They Refuse to Change Department.
Still, it’s a reality anyone of color is confronted with and hasta accept without paralyzing rancor (which isn’t the same thing as saying they’re not fully cognizant of precisely what The Game is – and remains no matter the generational shift).
True, there’s been monumental movement forward compared to what El Sid had to face in the 60s
and mayhap those who come after will actually encounter that mythical “post-racial” era.
Till then, those artists now creatively sculpting their legacy will just haveta profoundly perserverate
with their transcendent talent (not transitory looks) being their consummate calling card …
Second Most Influential Contemporary Actor Department:
“I play characters. I don`t think I really have a persona per se.
I don`t play the same guy every time.
I show up, you don`t know what I`m gonna do. I like it that way.
I've intentionally tried to do it that way.
I think that`s what`s interesting”.
Then came
"I certainly believe that being in contact with one`s spirit and nurturing one`s spirit is as important as nurturing one`s body and mind. We are three-dimensional beings: body, mind, spirit.”
Although we’d been aware of his work long before this (copping a Tony Award in August Wilson’s “Two Trains Running” on Broadway) as well as various noteworthy guest-starring stints (“The Equalizer”) but for some reason seeing him in this made an incredibly deep impression on us.
It wasn’t simply his poise or magnetism so much as the authoritative INTELLIGENCE he brought to Morpheus, the intellectual commitment and metaphysical insight that was incredibly thrilling to witness –
a man of color inhabiting a character beyond “color”, effortlessly handling the Wachowski Bros.’ intricate dialogue with an ease, fluency, sly humor and foundational flair that bespoke an egalitarian evolution of both opportunity, artistry and creative consummation unthinkable back when El Sid was still the symbolic Atlas of those residually starving for respectful – to say nothing and everything of imaginative – images of themselves.
"I think of myself as being a relatively intelligent man who is open to a lot of different things
and I think that questioning our purpose in life
and the meaning of existence is something that we all go through at some point".
Our other Philadelphia Son has an absolutely BRILLIANT stroke of genius inspiration towards the end when the director off-stage asks him to do something with a chess board – we guarantee
Born James Arthur Johnson, early on in his career he decided to reinvent himself starting with his own brand of self-christening.
“Those were the days when a black actor had to know how to do just about everything, had to tell a few lies here and there and even had to come up with a name that was sort of, you know, exotic. I went through quite a few names myself. I was ‘James West’ for awhile, then ‘Roy Johnson’ and then quite a few others.
“Then I came up with this Raymond St. Jacques, and everybody thought I was this island somewhere. The fact is, I just wanted a real long name – something that would look impressive in programs and fill up the screen if I ever got into a movie. Raymond St. Jacques is actually a French boy I knew years ago. Now he’s a milkman in New Haven. So that ought to clear up all the questions about my name.”
Among other accomplishments, he was the first black actor to have a regular role in a teevee series (alongsyde Clint afore he acquired his Squint).
[ Yo, Eric, note Our Fair Lady Janet wayyyy over to the right, as well as in the film after the ad below! That's when our intense infatuation ignited before blooming into a full-fledged affair of admiration - years before we finally met her! ]
“You have to realize that no matter how many black actors you see in movies or on tv, they’re not the ones who control the industry. It’s time, I think, for us to get in on some of the control. So I’ve started my own company, and I have plans to produce films but to distribute them and eventually open up a chain of movie houses. That’s how you get control.
“None of the things that I do – the way I live, the clothes, the cars – is for show. If there’s any flamboyance in them, the flamboyance is me. It’s the way I am, and I’ve always been this way – even when I had to worry about paying the bills. What I mean is there’s nothing artificial about me – there’s no Hollywood press agent guiding and building some kind of image, you see?"
His finest and most dynamic appearance was in the trail-blazing (far more than the original “Shaft”)
superbly directed with kinetic energy and exceptional style by
“I just want everybody to see this because they’re really going to be bowled over by this one. It’s going to be big … really big. And it’ll be a chance for people to know about the work of Chester Himes
who wrote the original novel. He’s a great writer – very popular in Europe, but not so well known here at home in the States.
“I do all these things because I enjoy doing them and I’m not really hung up on this business of ‘stardom’. I play it for whatever it’s worth; for whatever fun I can have with it. That’s it – fun. The whole thing is just one big fun game, and I don’t take much of it very seriously. That’s how you keep your perspective, you know.
“You look at yourself every morning when you shave, and what do you see? You see the same fellow who was running around looking for parts to play. You look at yourself and you know that something could happen tonight or tomorrow and you just might be running around looking for those parts. So you ask yourself, ‘What have I really got?’
“And the answer is: you’ve got a few more dollars to have a little more fun – to drink imported champagne instead of cheap wine, to walk into a store and buy a crazy jacket with lots of fringe, to phone your Mom back in New Haven and be able to tell her, ‘Well, old girl, I want you to take the next plane out to California so I can take you to Disneyland this weekend’.”
Now (then) we had a'lotta fun interviewing Mr. St. Jacques in Hollywood (his first comment as we entered his office: “Damn, you got big eyes!” “Family trait,” we quipped ). It was quite an engaging conversation that demonstrated both his candid appraisal of the industry and his conscious place within it bereft of illusions.
His strong presence and authority remains as remarkable as it is irreplaceable.
If this is merely the high-octane preview for him doing the long-delayed film version,
he may well cop another Academy nomination from his Broadway triumph:
As to that, his recent Best Actor Tony Award hasta be the first time two actors have been accoladed with the theatre’s highest trophy for the same play insofar as James Earl Jones
blazed the exact distinctive trail in the original Broadway production in 1983. Oh, und speaking of the illustrious
remember this?
Well, the truly tantalizing news announced yesterday was it’s gonna be resurrected in New York this fall with Vanessa Redgrave
opposite
We can already hear those high-priced scalpers pricing the tickets for their Swiss bank accounts …
I can't allow this thread to exist without mentioning one of my favorite actors of all time
Brock Peters. Outside of things like Star Trek or To Kill A Mockingbird or "high profile" material, he was one of the few actors I've seen whos never once turned in a bad performance. His deep voice and his shocking ability to annunciate words with such clarity made him one of the best underrated actors of his generation.
...and it also helps he was the voice behind the ultimate incarnation of cosmic evil...
Indeed, Mr. Peters (a true gentleman off as well as talented on-screen) is well-worth the remembrance and praise, Le – and he’s included earlier on in this retrospective with a particularly thoughtful ode from Sir M.
Sad to say, however, you’re a galaxy off and WAYYYYYY far away on another subject.
Gee, how wunnerful to discover you’re as divinely human as the rest of us (garsh, that faux-pas is gonna wreck absolute havoc on your rep!!!)
Actually, neo - Brock Peters played Darth Vader in the Star Wars Radio Dramas - along side Billy Dee Williams, Mark Hamill, John Lithgow and Perry King - all penned by writer Brian Daley and under the direction of a much younger John Philip Madden.
Denzel is terrific. But I wonder if he hasn't fallen into a kind of reverse of the Sidney Poitier trap. Didn't he once say that he took care not to be seen kissing Julia Roberts in THE PELICAN BRIEF? The implication was that it would be politically incorrect for a black male star to be seen romancing a white woman. The problem was not old-fashioned white racism but rather the negative effect upon black women's self-esteem. His motives may be commendable, but this is still a significant limitation on his potential range.
There's no implication or ambiguity in this, John. Denzel has stated that his most loyal audience is black women, and he knows that a black-white on-screen romance is something they simply don't want to see him in.
In a way, it's a throwback to the old, Big Studio days, when the moguls and executives kept and cast their stars within carefully calculated acting ranges and milieux. They weren't about to tinker with success, and neither is Denzel, who seems very loyal to his fans.
“Tell you what you got to do to compete. What you got to do to compete is compete.
Then he traded the gridiron for the cinematic one:
He next had an effective appearance playing the deadly spy-former childhood buddy of The Cos on
Following which director Robert Aldrich ingeniously cast him
in
His most memorable and finest spotlight was in Jack Cardiff’s tingling, hands-down exceptional
He then worked with action master John Sturges in
and opposite Gene Hackman post-“Bonnie and Clyde” in
Which then culminated
with his ivory and ebony coupling with Raquel Welch
in
Mr. Brown’s compelling combination of ruggedness and never-stated but subtle sensitivity found its highwater mark
opposite Jacqueline Bisset in
“A liberal is arrogant enough to think he can do you a half-assed favor. He is superior enough to think he can give you something that you don't deserve. A liberal will cut off your leg so he can hand you a crutch."
The little-seen
offered another effective outing for his particular brand of low-key but nevertheless sincere empathy.
And he was smack-dab in the middle of the Blaxploitation period, also.
Incidentally, his all-stops out incendiary love scene with Stella Stevens makes his reasonably chaste interlude with Miss Welch seem like it was in a convent!
“You cannot get me to be disloyal to a friend. You just can't do it. Loyalty is a part of what I live by. I didn't say I was going to be loyal to my friend because he was right.
I'm going to be loyal to my friend because he's my friend."
With Harvey Keitel in “Fingers”
Al Pacino in “On Any Sunday”,
and in “Mars Attacks!”.
“It's the biggest crutch we can ever have: I'm a victim because of what white folks did. I was a slave. I didn't get a fair shot when I went for the job that they didn't give to me. I look and say, 'Look how you look, you ___________. I wouldn't hire you myself. So let's deal with the fundamentals, man. Get yourself together and then we can fight the battle.
“To leave at twenty-nine years old, MVP, having won the championship in '64 and played for it in '65. To go into the movies and break the color barrier and be in a sex scene with Raquel Welch. To get to be in The Dirty Dozen with some great actors. To make more money in one year than you damn near made in nine years of football. Everything about it was ingenious."
Rousing Moments in the Theater Department:
Anyone who ever saw this pivotal sequence in a movie house hasta recall how the audience went wild when Mr. Brown made his dash for freedom; it remains probably his seminal celluloid signature moment.
“I'm not interested in trying to work on people's perceptions. I am who I am, and if you don't take the time to learn about that, then your perception is going to be your problem ...
Your acknowledgment of Mr. Freeman's artistry was heartening to witness.
However, as others are well aware (but no one came forward to acknowledge - but that's no surprise) we've been waging virtually a one-matrix appreciation re him for quite some tyme.
Hope the vignettes testifying to his versatility herein expand your own admiration for one of the major actors of this day.