Dynomite!: Good Times, Bad Times, Our Times--A Memoir Page 10

  I did not have an agent or a manager. With contracts having to be dealt with, I needed someone who knew about the legal side. A friend recommended Jerry Kushnick, the New York lawyer for Ben Vereen, who had starred on Broadway in Jesus Christ Superstar and Pippin. Kushnick also had recently gained notoriety for winning a major case for Terry Knight, the former manager of Grand Funk Railroad, against that rock group. Jerry agreed to take me on. Louie the cook was relieved he didn’t have to spend any more of his valuable time on my career!

  Jerry told me I should also get an agent. I suggested Lou Johnson, who I was already working with on the college tour. He said I needed a far more powerful force in the business and approached ICM (International Creative Management) in New York, even though ICM had seen me perform many times on stage and had never expressed any interest in representing me. But now I was on a TV series; they saw dollar signs and signed me as a client.

  I was not an actor and never said I was. While in New York I did a few TV commercials (Ballantine beer, Sears sneakers), but the only acting I had done were tiny roles earlier that year as a gang member in Gordon’s War, directed by Ossie Davis, and as a street hood in Badge 373, a gritty cop thriller directed by Howard Koch.

  Casting folks would see me at the Improv and usually reject me, saying, “You don’t sound black.” After working for years to get rid of my ghetto New York accent, ghettoese was exactly what they wanted for their films. On stage I would try to put on an exaggerated black accent. But after playing so many downtown clubs in front of white audiences who did not want to hear ghettoese, keeping that accent was getting tougher and tougher for me. The Badge 373 filmmakers first saw me at the Improv and had the same problem—they did not think I came across as “black enough.”

  When I went to audition, I stopped in a store at a subway station on my way and bought a blue denim floppy hat. I figured that maybe if I wore that hat, after stomping on it and dirtying it up a bit, I would look more urban, more street. It worked. The casting people suddenly thought I was perfect and I got the role—getting kicked in the head in an alley by Robert Duvall.

  My few lines in Badge 373 ended up still being dubbed by someone who sounded “blacker.” But from then on I considered that blue hat my good luck charm.

  Naturally, the Good Times folks, from Lear to Manings, wanted trained actors. Esther had made her New York stage debut in 1962 and was enormously respected. For three years John Amos had been Gordy the weatherman on the Mary Tyler Moore Show—one of my favorite sitcoms of all time. Ja’Net had made her Broadway debut in the original production of Golden Boy with Sammy Davis Jr. Whoever played the Evans family’s youngest son Michael, whether Ralph or Laurence, would also be a legit actor. Manings later said they had great difficulty finding a true actor to play J. J. When I was first suggested, he rejected me, saying, “No, he’s a stand-up comic. . . . I prefer to work with actors whom I would bend.”

  At the first reading for the first show they realized that I might not bend.

  The cast, writers, and producers sat around a table, and the actors read aloud the script for the pilot. After various lines the writers would punch them up with “ha, ha, ha.” I wondered what they were laughing about. I didn’t hear any jokes. At one point I stopped, turned to Lear sitting next to me, and said, “This isn’t funny.”

  After we were done but before anyone left the table, I spoke up: “That was terrible. We have to do this over.”

  When I go on stage, I want devastating laughter—total devastation—until the minute I walk off. I want to always be the funniest I can be. When I did a joke at the Improv and one of my comic friends didn’t think it worked, he told me. That is one reason comics are always miserable—there is always somebody who doesn’t think you’re funny and doesn’t mind telling you. You get used to it. Or maybe someone would say, “You know what would be better?” and suggest a change. You listened and didn’t take it too personally. Because if it’s better, it’s better.

  Manings took me to the side and told me that in television you do not do what I just did.

  “Look, I appreciate your input,” he said, “but a lot of people have worked very hard on this. If you have a problem with what people have written, come to me or the story editors, Norman Paul and Jack Elinson, and tell us how you feel. But don’t voice it like you did. That’s not good.”

  He was trying to be nice. What he could have said was, “Just read the words, asshole!”

  After two weeks of rehearsal with us Fishburne assumed he had the gig. On the day we were set to begin taping for the first time, he showed up ready to go. So too did Ralph. His contract situation had been sorted out, and he was now playing Michael Evans. Laurence was crushed. Many years down the road I would see Laurence at the gym we would go to in LA, and we wondered how his life might have been different if he had been on our show. He would definitely not have been able to land a role in Francis Ford Coppola’s epic Apocalypse Now when he was fourteen years old. He may have thought not being Michael Evans was a blow to his career at the time, but perhaps that was the best thing that could have happened to him.

  As we taped, at night I worked with Landesberg on getting more jokes into the script. The next day I would go to Ralph and Bern Nadette, who won the role of Thelma, and say, “How about we try this?” I showed them what we had come up with.

  “What are you talking about?” they said, being the professionals that they were. “We have a script. No one told us about any changes.”

  Lear and Elinson came down together to have a talk with me. “We love the idea of you putting in new things,” they said, “but try to give our stuff a little chance before you make these changes.”

  From then on I operated by sneak attack. Before we taped I ran my ideas by the stage manager, Buddy, and one of the cameramen, Vito, who hoped to write, produce, and direct someday. Sometimes they said, “Nah.” Sometimes they said, “That’s alright.” Sometimes they said, “Hey, that’s funny!” Then, as the tape rolled, I would throw in “funny.”

  The other people on stage would be surprised and maybe not happy, but the live studio audience would laugh. After the first run-through, Lear would ask me not to repeat what I had done. “You’re doing something different from the rest of the cast!”

  “Yeah, I’m trying to be funny!”

  “That’s not the point,” he said, as the argument escalated.

  “Did it get a big laugh, Norman?”

  “Everything does not have to be a laugh. Sometimes there are just moments.”

  “I don’t want ‘moments,’” I told him, “I want jokes. I want laughs.” Other cast members wanted acting “moments.” That was fine with me. Just give me the jokes!

  “We have messages we want to get across too,” Lear said.

  “If I wanted to deliver messages, I’d work for Western Union,” I shot back.

  Lear hated to hear that. I would win when I got a laugh, but he had me eating crow when something I tried did not work.

  “This is the kind of thing that can tear a cast apart, tear a show apart,” he would lay on me. “This is the kind of thing that might make writers not want to write for you.” But the writers did want to write for me—because they knew I could deliver laughs.

  Manings recognized that I was a different cat. He later said, “He did the first show. He heard the first laugh. He played the audience from then on in. When the show was over, I said, ‘O.K., hell of a nice show, friends. Now we’re going to stay and do it without the audience.’ They said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Because I can’t edit anything because (he looked at me) you’re always looking out there (toward the audience).’ So I said, ‘I’m going to sit here and when you (meaning me) say the joke looking at the actor, I’m going to go, ‘Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.’ He said, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you wanted singles. I’m sorry I hit homeruns.’ But he took off. I thought the young kid would take off. And he took off.”

  The first directors had problems too, but not with me. Perry Rose
mond was hired to direct the pilot. But Esther wanted a friend of hers, Donald McKayle, to direct. McKayle was a pioneering black modern dance choreographer and stage director. Lear agreed to have them direct together. Donny directed us like a stage play, Perry as a TV production. That was doomed to fail.

  After a rehearsal we would all sit down and get notes, critiques on our performances. At one such early session, Perry was there, of course. On the table in front of him was his briefcase, open and overflowing with the shooting script and other pertinent papers. Also there was John Rich, who directed nearly every episode of All in the Family its first few seasons. Seemingly he was present just to observe and consult.

  Lear popped his head in. “Hey, Perry, I need to talk to you for a second.” Perry walked out of the room.

  Within a minute Lear’s secretary came in, gathered up Perry’s papers, put them in his briefcase, and left with them. We never saw him again.

  That’s show business, folks.

  Rich took over as director. Even though he was officially credited on only the second episode, he oversaw the shows credited to McKayle. After just a few episodes McKayle was axed. That ticked Esther off. Accepting Rich as director was even harder for her and others in the cast because they despised him. He was in your face and brutally honest. That is probably why I loved him.

  When a cameraman complained that he could not get in the right position for a particular shot, Rich spoke through the PA system, “Hold on a minute.”

  He came down from the booth, walked to that camera, and moved it into the correct position. He looked at the cameraman, saying, “Got it now, asshole?”

  When I would throw in a line that worked, he would say, “That’s brilliant, man. I love that. Let’s keep that in.”

  When one would not work, he would say, “Where did that come from?”

  “I made that up.”

  “Well, fuckin’ take that out! It sucks!”

  You knew exactly where you stood with John Rich.

  During a rehearsal for the first show—Lear loved having rehearsals—I threw in a word out of the blue.

  JAMES

  Well baby, I got ’til 5 o’clock to get us 72 dollars. I don’t know but one way to get it.

  FLORIDA

  James, don’t you dare go into that closet!

  THELMA

  What’s he gonna do, mama?

  FLORIDA

  He’s getting his pool cue.

  J. J.

  Dyn-o-mite!

  It was not in the original script.

  But no one on the staff reacted.

  “Hold it,” said Rich. “Stop!”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, anticipating him telling me to “fuckin’ take that out.”

  “I like that ‘dyn-o-mite’ thing,” he said.

  “What about it?”

  “I think we got something here,” he went on. “Here’s what I want you to do.” He demonstrated how to say the word, emphasis on the “O” and with a huge smile. When we ran the script again, he also put an iso (isolation) camera just on me, to focus on the word even more.

  I asked him, “Are people going to go for this?”

  He said, “It’s gonna be great.”

  He was right. When I said “Dyn-o-mite!” at the taping, the studio audience howled with laughter.

  For the second episode, which he codirected, Rich made “Dyn-o-mite!” the exclamation that ended the show. The audience loved it.

  At first Esther did not mind, given the alternative. J. J. was a bit of a petty shoplifter in the early shows. He would have something in hand and be asked where he got it. He would answer with a sly smile, “I found it!” A stern Florida would say something to the effect of “I want that bought, not found.” That was originally going to be J. J.’s catchphrase—“I found it!” But Esther did not want Florida’s son to be a thief. She objected to the producers and writers, so that character point and catchphrase quickly disappeared from future scripts. I suppose for her, “Dyn-o-mite” was at least better than “I found it!”

  Lear did not like it at all. He and Rich argued fiercely about that one word.

  “You mean in the middle of an episode we’re going to stop and have someone stand there and yell ‘dyn-o-mite’?” said Lear. “It’s a non sequitur. And it means absolutely nothing. It doesn’t contribute to the story. It’s asinine.”

  Rich answered, “It’ll work.”

  “Say it with energy!” he told me. “A year from now, people are going to be yelling ‘dyn-o-mite’ out of cars, on the street, and wherever they see you.”

  I never said it on the third and fifth episodes, and the word is buried in the fourth episode. John fought to get it back in. There was such a rumble about that one word that, after I said it twice on the seventh episode—and by then Esther was adamantly against it—a writer’s rule was instituted that J. J. could only say “dyn-o-mite” once per show.

  I had no opinion on the subject. In fact, it may surprise some to know, I was more in agreement with Lear! I didn’t know what the point of saying “dyn-o-mite” was either. Having a catchphrase, like Flip Wilson’s “Here come da judge” or “the devil made me do it,” never entered my mind. Little did I realize at the time how one word could change your life. “Dyn-o-mite” sure changed mine.

  Rich was also responsible for me wearing my lucky blue hat on the show. I wore it at the readings and rehearsals, but when the time came to tape the first episode, I combed out my hair and put on the Afro Sheen.

  “Hey, where’s that hat?” Rich asked.

  “In my dressing room. Why?”

  “No, no, no. That hat is going to be you, baby. We need that hat for your character. I want you to wear that hat all the time. You put that hat on and make it happen!”

  Esther complained about the hat.

  “How come he’s wearing a hat inside? What’s the point?”

  John answered, “It’s for the character. He’s wearing it.” He wasn’t concerned about hurting someone’s feelings. He was there to help create a hit TV show. As far as I am concerned, Rich stepped up to the plate twice and hit a home run each time. That’s an unbelievable batting average not only in baseball but also in comedy.

  All of this happened within the first couple weeks in the life of Good Times in late 1973. When I told a crew member I was planning on going back to New York after the initial episodes, he said, “I think you’re going to be here for a while. You might as well get used to LA.” But New Yorkers never think they are going to live in LA. There was a classic Mort Sahl joke about a New Yorker who lived in LA for eight years and went into a liquor store to buy beer. The clerk asked, “Do you want a six-pack or a twelve-pack?” The customer said, “I’ll just take two cans. I’ll be going back to New York soon.”

  Good Times was a mid-season replacement, premiering at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, February 8, 1974. If the series failed to attract a sizable audience in thirteen episodes, we would be gone and I would be back in New York.

  Days after the premiere aired William Hickey of the Plain Dealer newspaper in Cleveland wrote, “Jimmie Walker, who plays the teenage son, just might end up stealing the show. His portrayal of a loosey-goosey, light-fingered adolescent was priceless.” Vernon Scott of UPI called me “that toothpick of a walking sight gag . . . maybe the funniest thing to happen to television in years.”

  I did not see any of that coming. I was as surprised as anyone that my character became the breakout star. J. J. was just funny and silly. But the audience decides who they will like and who they won’t, what character they will be attracted to and what character they will choose to ignore. The TV public loved J. J. He was especially popular with younger kids, and that was a demographic the network wanted. The same thing happened the very same year on Happy Days: Ronnie Howard as Richie Cunningham was the star, but it was Henry Winkler as Fonzie who unexpectedly grabbed hold of American pop culture.

  Because I wasn’t given any guidance on how to play the character, I wen
t with my own instincts. I based J. J. on my favorite character from one of my favorite sitcoms, Art Carney’s Ed Norton in The Honeymooners . He too was tall and skinny and goofy—and wore a similar hat! When J. J., at six-foot-two and 130 pounds, flailed around with his thin arms and legs? That was a bastardization of Ed Norton.

  Newsweek said of J. J.: “His beanpole body suggests a vitamin deficiency, his Silly Putty face flaps around a set of buck teeth that could have come from a joke store.” TV Guide wrote, “He has the neck movement of an automatic sprinkler, and the bulb-eyed glare of an aggravated emu, all supported by a physique that resembles an inverted 6-foot tuning fork.” Much of that could also have been written about Ed Norton. I even added the rhythm of how Norton spoke. At one point Manings and Lear said, “You have to blacken it up a little!” So I once again put on my ghettoese accent.

  I was the person out there, and I certainly blended in my own unique flavor, but Carney’s character was the foundation in the back of my mind. That is one reason I found it peculiar when my portrayal of J. J. was later demonized for “cooning it up” and being a racist, demeaning throwback to black comic actor Stepin Fetchit. Before me, Redd Foxx and Flip Wilson had been accused of the same for what they did on TV, and later Sherman Helmsley with The Jeffersons would too. Worse than being not funny enough or not black enough, we were assailed for being too funny and too black! But the fact is that J. J. was based on a white comic character, not a black one.

  Good Times ended up as the seventeenth highest-rated series of the year and was renewed for a full complement of twenty-four episodes to begin that fall. “Dyn-o-mite!” swept the country. Everyone from Sammy Davis Jr. to opera star Beverly Sills repeated it on TV shows, and everywhere I walked the word echoed behind me.