Then, in January 1977, a kind of slow-burning whiplash hit the country. His miniseries Roots, based on Alex Haley's best-selling book, premiered on TV every night. Haley traces her black family's roots back to Africa and the arduous voyage to America. It seemed like everyone across the country was glued to the show. Black viewers cried. The show was reportedly so realistic and graphic that some people required medical treatment. And white audiences began talking about black people and slavery like never before.
My family was fascinated by the caged slave fiddler in Roots, played by Louis Gossett Jr., who died Friday at the age of 87. Gossett was one of a small group of black actors who emerged in the 1960s and managed to persevere. From theater to TV to movies. He won an Oscar for playing a drill sergeant in “An Officer and a Gentleman.” He was also my cousin.
My grandfathers, Julius Haygood and Eddie B. Ray, were brother and sister. Eddie Bee had a daughter named Helen, Lou's mother. After Aunt Bertha heard about Lou's death, she spoke to me on the phone and she told me a story about how they played together as children in Georgia. Although Gossett grew up in Brooklyn, he frequently visited his family in the South. “I remember one time we were near a hornet's nest. Lou said to me, 'Why don't the hornets catch you?' I told him he could outrun them. He said he could outrun them too. Well, they came after us. And they only got him. ” She laughed at the memory.
Lou, who had a career on Broadway before transitioning to screens big and small, inspired me to give acting a try. And soon I drifted into — as many actors like to say — community theater. I had a small role in “A Tale of Alabama.” After that, he played major roles in Neil Simon's plays and Ronnie Elder's plays. I got some decent reviews. I started watching brand movies. Then came the pleas from the family. “Get together with Cousin Lou, damn it! He's family!” California seemed a long way from Columbus. I went to New York City instead. I want to enter the world of theater from the East Coast! If I do that, I might be able to connect with Lou. I failed in New York City and ended up working in retail.
But every time Lou appeared in a TV movie or movie, I made an effort to catch it. Among them were many films: “A Raisin in the Sun”, “The Landlord”, “Travels With My Aunt”, “The River Niger”, “The Deep” and many others. My brother and brother-in-law went to LA Lou to congratulate him and provide temporary accommodation. After my retail career fell apart, I found my career in journalism and book writing.
Over the years, I exchanged a few notes with Lou and sent him some of my books. When I started working on a piece about black history in Hollywood, I wanted to visit Lou. Aunt Bertha gave me her phone number. “Hey, I mean,” he said when I contacted him, “how's it going?” There's no formality at all. I told him about my book project. “I lived it,” he said. He moved to Georgia from California and lived just over 32 miles outside of Atlanta. I asked him for hotel recommendations. “I'm in the forest. You're staying at my house.”
It was in 2020 that I traveled to meet him. It was certainly a house in the forest, but it was very big and it was my first time to have a house with a pool. He suggested swimming. I begged. Aunt Bertha called me. They remembered about the wasp attack. Then, after he took a nap, his stories started spilling out. Well, one night my mother was at a play. She came back behind the stage and she came up to me and slapped me. difficult. Then she said, 'Don't ever talk to a woman like that again! ”
He talked about James Edwards, Billy Dee Williams, Harry Belafonte, Eartha Kitt, and Sidney Poitier. He talked about traveling in Europe in the 1970s and being treated with the kind of respect he rarely received in America. He talked about the Broadway and film version of A Raisin in the Sun. “Sydney and Claudia and Ruby fought about who this play was really about,” he said of the other cast members. “They wanted to surpass each other,” he said of nightclubs that drew black actors into the world of 1960s Hollywood. For black artists, it may have been very cold. He talked about playing with Jimmy Dean and John Cassavetes. He said of “Roots”, “It was so special that I had no choice but to do it.” He praised Hollywood liberals for standing by black actors, saying, “Lou Wasserman, Orson Welles, Talulah Bankhead, these guys fought for us.”
One evening we were having dinner at a restaurant in Atlanta. On my way back to his home, I passed by the studio where he was rehearsing for the movie musical version of The Color Purple, scheduled for release in 2023, and stopped at a store. It was a calm Georgian night. And I watched him walk out with a cool, jazzy step, like he was ready to take on Hollywood again.
Former Post reporter Will Haygood is a visiting scholar at the University of Miami in Ohio. His latest book is Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World.