In October of my first year, my father’s girlfriend called me with the news he was in the hospital. He hadn’t been taking his blood pressure meds and came home from work with a really bad headache, which wasn’t like him. She took him to the hospital, where they learned he had a brain aneurysm. I didn’t know what a brain aneurysm was—I now understand that he was having a stroke—but it was brain stuff and sounded serious enough that I tried to get there. Kate Burton was one of the few students with a car. When she heard my dad was in the hospital, she offered me a ride to his hospital in the Bronx. She dropped me off and I found my way to his room. I remember he was very lethargic—I don’t know if it was from the meds or the aneurysm. One eye was half-shut. We talked a little bit, and I spent the night somewhere down the hall in the hospital. Then I had to return to campus the next day. Before I left I said, “Dad, I’m getting ready to go. Give me a kiss.”
“No, not today,” he answered. “Some other time.”
“You’re really not going to give me a kiss?”
“Nah,” he said—not mean, but real cool-like.
“You seriously aren’t going to give me a kiss?”
“Maybe tomorrow….”
I was a little hurt. It wasn’t like we were super-duper close, and especially given our history, I didn’t have to ask him. He died two days later.
Daddy’s funeral was held in a funeral home in New York. I remember going into a very small chapel, walking forward through the pews and seeing my father laying there looking all stiff and puffed up with formaldehyde or whatever they use, his hands propped up on each other on his chest—not in a position I’d ever seen him in before. I guess there’s no way to make the dead look natural. As I looked at his body, a part of me was detached—“Wow! Look at you.” That part of me wasn’t sad and found it all very interesting. I remember wandering into the rooms with other dead people in them and getting spooked. I was thinking, “Whoo! Let me get out of here and back to the room where my dad is.”
Another part of me sensed mortality. Finality. That part of me felt sad. I remember thinking, I didn’t have years with you or the relationship I wanted or dreamed of with you, I had the relationship that I had. I knew you, spent some time around you, had some interaction with you, and my mother never spoke ill of you, but I longed for more. Yet all my disappointments aside, I was grateful for him. Despite all I did not get from him, I got life from him. All that’s particular and singular and unique about me—half of it came from him, from his genes. And the family I did get from him—D’nette, Grandmom Brownie, Aunt Golden, my uncle Jerry, my sister Jean and her sister Lynn—all of that was because of him. Now he was gone.
While I was sitting there, my aunt Helen, Uncle Jerry’s wife, tapped me on the shoulder from her seat in the pew behind me.
“Angela, this is your sister Lisa.”
I turned around and looked into the eyes of this sweet-faced sixteen-year-old girl. I remember reaching my hand out, shaking her hand. “Hello, Lisa. You’re so pretty!”
When I turned back around, I looked at my father in the casket, eyes closed. “Well, aren’t you something else? This is some extra drama. Whoa! I have another sister I didn’t know about, and she’s sixteen and I’m twenty-one!”
My sister Jean was sitting next to me. She was just learning about Lisa at age thirty-three. She was visibly upset and shaken. “Oh, my God, this is so terrible! How does this happen that people die and you’re meeting siblings at funerals. This is just over the top! This is not supposed to happen! This is so inappropriate!”
Lisa may have been a secret to us, but somebody knew about her; she didn’t get from North Carolina to New York on her own.
During the funeral they played my father’s favorite song, “Danny Boy,” an Irish song I imagine he loved because his name was Daniel Benjamin Bassett. That has to be one of the saddest dirges that has ever been written. It is so sad. So beautiful. I cried. It really took me there. Life and death were hitting me in the face at once. My father and I had both been trying to create a father-daughter relationship. But if you don’t have the tools and you don’t have the time, you just don’t make it. We didn’t make it. Now there was no chance of reclaiming our relationship. I was stuck with: my dad put his tongue in my mouth, my dad didn’t kiss me to say goodbye and then he died. And now I’m meeting my younger sister at the funeral. You can’t do that to someone! Thank God I was an actor and could use all these emotions and experiences in my characters. I had grown to expect a lot of drama and foolishness. It didn’t bother me.
While I was a student, as far as I’m aware, not many of the male students were romantically interested in me. Some guy from the other side of town kind of liked me. He was much older—he had to be in his forties—and I was trying to be cool and deal with him. But he wanted to get me involved in stuff I didn’t want to be involved in. You had to run for your life! One particular situation whose details I will keep to myself involved a massage, a piece of material (he was making swimsuits), some scissors—then out came the Polaroid camera. I shouted, “Put that down! I’m going to be somebody one day, I cannot be in these kinds of situations.”
During my last year of school, Charles Dutton and I started dating. I needed one roommate to fill out my three-bedroom, three-bathroom apartment on Dwight Street in New Haven. The apartment was really nice—big, long, spread out, quiet and you didn’t feel up on top of each other. It was also near campus. I wanted to keep it. I think Charles was a little reluctant at first; he already liked me. But he acquiesced, moved in and everything was copasetic.
I thought Charles was a fascinating person. He was about twenty-nine or thirty and street-smart. Before coming to Yale he served an eight-year stint in prison for fatally stabbing someone during a fight. While he was locked up, he read A Day of Absence by Douglas Turner Ward, one of Negro Ensemble’s founders, whom I had met. It changed his life; he started doing theater while in prison. When he got out, he applied and was accepted to Yale. I admired Charles as an actor. He was—is—phenomenal, very powerful, compelling. He is a mesmerizing performer; you can’t take your eyes off him when he is onstage. His performance begs you to watch. You want to see his character develop and unwrap itself, layer upon layer upon layer. I admired his instinctual ability—his approach seemed to be more intuitive than technical. He was certainly learning the technique from his studies but didn’t always know how to break a script down into iambic pentameter—unstressed, stressed, unstressed, stressed. That didn’t matter. He could get up onstage and speak as if he knew exactly how to break it down. He knew how to perform Shakespeare in iambic pentameter from somewhere deep in his core. That married with his passion, and usually his audience would eat it up. Some of our other classmates were brilliant students, but when they got up to perform they didn’t have that richness. Their performances were dry compared to what he was able to do. He was definitely the best actor in our class.
Doing scenes with Charles was amazing. I have always enjoyed working with somebody who is very, very good at what they do: I am drawn to them, attracted to them, appreciate them. He and I could relate as actors. On top of that he could be very sweet. He would just talk and laugh—he has tremendous charisma. He can get you on board and excited about anything. I remember wishing I could engage people to the degree he could. He could be talking about a jelly jar and people would look at him like he was talking about a vase from the Ming dynasty. He would weave spells and have people enraptured. Maybe it was witchcraft on a level. I remember watching him, knowing what he was talking about and wanting to say, “It ain’t all that—it’s a jelly jar. He’s got you caught up! Talkin’ ’bout a Mason jar….” Observing him was when I really understood the meaning of the term “confidence man”—he had a tremendous amount of assuredness when he talked about his ideas. He could make you go along with him. I remember thinking it was a gift and wishing I had it. (Then again, since what he was talking about wasn’t always quite true, it might have been a little l
ike lying.)
Men seemed to respect Charles, whether students or male teachers. He didn’t take no mess off of no one. Somewhere along the way, he had earned the nickname Roc. Charles would cuss people out one day and be, “talk to the hand” without saying it. The other students would ask me, “What’s wrong with Charles? Is he okay? Is he all right?” I’d say, “Yeah, he’s fine. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with him.” But everyone would be concerned about how he felt, was he upset? The next day Charles would smile easy, light up the world and draw people back in. “Hey man!” It was amazing to watch him. I could never dissect how he did it.
I don’t exactly remember when my admiration for Charles turned into romantic attraction. He was talented, charismatic and sweet; he was intimidating; he was a protector; he trained as a boxer and was physically fit. I don’t like bad boys, but I do like a man with a little spice. I’m not one for bland food; overall, I like interesting people—interesting and attractive, naturally attractive.
One night he came home to our apartment while I was on the couch taking a nap.
“Hey, girl, why don’t you get on up and go to bed?”
“Whaaat?”
I starting working my feminine wiles. It wasn’t too hard. You know, you act cold, he warms you up, you fall into his arms. Next thing you know, you’re kissing and it’s on. Now you’re a couple. Now you’re together. Now you need another roommate.
My relationship with Charles had its ups and downs. In private, he was very, very sweet—baby talk, that kind of thing. He would call his mother every week. When I would complain about the phone bill, he’d say, “When I was in prison, I couldn’t call.” What could I say to that? He also loved animals—puppies, birds, fish, parakeets. One of our classmates bought a little white pit bull, Radar. Roc loved that dog; she had a built-in dog walker. He would get the dog and go jogging, groom him, walk around with him. Animals seemed to relax him. Maybe with animals you ain’t gotta talk and explain yourself like you do when human beings are upset with you. It was truly a case of man’s best friend. Today I hear he has a farm—goats and a lion—somewhere back home in Maryland. So he had this interesting duality about him—bad boy, don’t take no mess, real dangerous; yet very gentle by and large.
Of course, in addition to his plus side, there were certain things about Charles I didn’t much care for—“What? You’re betting on pit-bull fights!” I didn’t know about all that. And he had a Don Juan complex. There was another little girl in the class below us who found him attractive, as well. I remember fussin’ with him about the time and smiles and positive energy he gave her—and whatever else might have been going on. They were awfully friendly over in corners whispering and talking. I don’t know if he was trying to make me jealous but I was. And, on top of that, she was white. I couldn’t stand it, I couldn’t stand her! I turned into a green-eyed-monster girl—I was jealous as hell. Of course, he assured me they were just friends—friendly friends. But in my mind it was more than friendly talk. Everyone knew we were definitely roommates, living together, going together or whatever. Yet my intuition—my woman’s intuition, my actor’s intuition—said something wasn’t right. “If she was just friendly, then I would sense that. But I sense more,” I would tell him. One time we were giving a party at our apartment. The phone rang and Charles and I picked up at the same time.
“What you doing?” the woman asked.
“Oh, Angela’s having a party,” Charles answered.
“Well, how long is it gonna last?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Will you come over?”
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, I’m about to take a bath.”
When they hung up I called him on it. In private. I ain’t crazy like that: I ain’t gonna fight in public.
“Oh, I’m the one who’s having the party. Now it’s my party!”
“Angela, you always imagining things. I knew you were on the phone. That’s why I said what I said.”
My head was tight and about to explode. I had my great-granddad in mind as my frame of reference for what a good man was like. I loved Charles but didn’t think he was as cool as Granddad. I knew our relationship would end one day.
I know there were things Charles wished were different about me, too. On top of complaining about my jealousy and insecurity, he would tell me that I tried to be “perfect”: I prayed; I went to church; I sang in the choir; I put my money in the Bible. The Bible was by the bed and the money was in the Bible. I figured that was the safest place for it—safer than putting it in your sock drawer, your underwear drawer or under your mattress. My thought was, “Lord, it’s in your hands. Lord, multiply it!”
Eventually my nemesis classmate and I were cast in a play together—the one where I’m the black mom and she’s the white daughter. When we had to work with each other, see each other, be up on each other, sense each other and see each other for who we were, we were cool. We liked each other. We talked once in the library.
“I was mad at you,” I told her.
“I was upset that you were mad at me.”
“Well, I was mad because I thought you and he were up to something. Maybe I was afraid of you.”
Something might have been going on between her and Charles, or he may have been trying to make it seem like something was going on when nothing was happening. Whatever. The way I thought about it, none of it was forever—it wasn’t like either of us was going to be with Charles permanently. Yet we had become two women at odds and had gotten all pulled out of shape over this thing. When we finally talked, we realized, “Oh, you’re feeling like that?” That’s when I asked myself, Is it worth it? I realized she was cool and that we were more alike than not alike. I reflected on how I had gotten to this place where I was in graduate school trying to learn and grow, yet during part of my day I was just agitated whenever I saw her. I had enough to worry about just trying to get through school, yet I had allowed this one person to a-gi-tate, ir-ri-tate the hell out of me. Because of this guy. Over this man. After we talked I got past all of the bullshit that was making me insecure and maybe her insecure, too. From that point on we had a mutual-admiration society. We made peace, embraced each other, healed, grew to like each other and worked together well. I appreciated her as an actress. After that experience I realized that women are just wonderful, and it’s not worth having a man in the middle.
While all this was happening, my classmates and I were preparing for the “League” auditions at Julliard in New York. All the drama schools—back then, it was Yale, Carnegie Mellon, Julliard, NYU, ACT, there are more now—would present their graduating class and invite casting directors and agents to see them. During our last year, we worked with a couple of partners on our scenes. I recall I had three—one with Charles, one with Sabrina and another with Elly Koslo. I think we performed versatile Shakespeare contemporary avant-garde. The setup for the Leagues was real simple: you’d go from scene to scene to scene. In total, there might be an hour of Yale’s Class of ’83 presenting itself. After you performed you could walk down the hall and look at a preliminary list of agencies who were interested in setting up an appointment to meet you; maybe they have a project they’re working on and want you to audition. But the real goal was to get an agent. Back then, actors were moving to New York to do theater—very few people were moving to L.A. That’s what actors did after drama school. There wasn’t a lot of television filmed in New York, except for The Cosby Show, soap operas and industrial films. So the goal was to find an apartment, an agent and go on auditions. The Leagues helped you make the transition.
After the Leagues were over, we went back to school and waited for a more detailed list of students the agents were interested in interviewing. Some might want to meet you right away; others might want to see you a little later. I think I had about three or four people interested in seeing me. That wasn’t a lot, but some classmates didn’t receive any requests. One girl in our class—Sabrina Le Beauf—just blossomed.
She became the star of our class, the star of the Leagues with around seventeen requests. (Later, she played Sondra Huxtable on The Cosby Show.) So I took the train back down to New York to meet these agents, from the big muckety-muck agencies to the smaller boutiques. I went to Associated Artists, a small agency, last. I remember one of the agents, Louis Ambrosio, remarking, “Oh, we didn’t think you were coming. We almost forgot about you.”
“Well, good thing you didn’t do that,” I replied. I was young, I was cocky, I was graduating from Yale. We talked and I guess they liked me. I ended up signing with the agency, which later became Ambrosio Mortimer.
Everyone—my mother, my auntie and uncle—came up to my drama school graduation. It was an exciting day, full of possibilities. I have a picture of myself somewhere, looking very young, idealistic and fresh-faced. I was also happy because I had received a scholarship to cover my grad school expenses. So I only had undergraduate school loans to contend with, which was a grand total of about four thousand dollars. Of course, that seemed like a lot at the time. (When I had signed for the thousand-dollar loans each fall, I thought, “Gosh, how am I ever going to pay this back?”) Now I told myself, It needs to be whatever it needs to be and I’m easily going to be able to pay it back. I even took out a little extra loan because I knew I was moving to New York and wanted to have enough to cover rent. And I had some graduation money my family gave me.
Friends: A Love Story Page 7
