The Mother of Black Hollywood

by Jenifer Lewis

  It felt exciting to become part of the black Broadway community. There was always the show after the show, and I soon found myself hanging out with towering figures of the theater—the likes of Hinton Battle, Ethel Beatty, Nell Carter (who at first was not having my young, Afro-wearing ass!), Armelia McQueen, Vivian Reed, Ken Page, Marion Ramsey, André De Shields, and on and on. Initially I would “eggshell” around these grand idols, but usually within ten minutes I’d have them all laughing.

  We “gypsies,” meaning anyone who has been on Broadway, especially in the chorus, had our own world, our own language. “Chile, you peed all over that stage!” meant your performance was incredible. And if you were truly extraordinary, well then, “Girl, you turned that shit out!” We spoke only of show business, quoting old movies, singing in piano bars, and telling jokes. I felt embraced, a rightful part of the crowd even though one or two dismissed me as just the newest sweet young thang. Believe me, I have never been sweet and there was not a damn thang young about my talent.

  Case in point: I understudied Alaina Reed (remember Olivia from Sesame Street?) on two spirited Blake songs: “Roll, Jordan, Roll” and “My Handy Man Ain’t Handy No More.” When Alaina was out for a few performances, I took the stage in her role. Later, she returned to backstage gossip that I had gotten standing ovations singing “her” songs. She didn’t speak to me for a week! Now, up to this point Alaina had been cool; she had even invited me to her place in Harlem for collards and cornbread. So my feelings were hurt. Okay, not that hurt, but y’all, this was not All About Eve! I wasn’t trying to take her part. Okay, maybe I was. So sue me.

  Making that steady Broadway money in Eubie! allowed me to leave Mark and Bobby’s place and move into my first apartment. In mid-September I rented a cute studio in the La Premiere, a new building on the corner of 55th Street and Broadway. It was a great location, right in the heart of the theater district with the Applejack Diner conveniently located a few steps around the corner (we are talking ten-minute delivery, y’all). Rent was $450 per month. I loved telling people that I lived in a “luxury high-rise,” but failed to mention I was on the lowest floor in the smallest apartment. It was fun to take my friends to the rooftop, where there was an incredible panoramic view. You could look down on the Winter Garden Theatre, Times Square, and the Hudson River, and to the north was a partial view of my beloved Central Park. Nobody could tell me I wasn’t right where I was supposed to be.

  But let’s not forget that New York City can be a nasty two-faced monster, too. It will serve you diamonds with dirt, caviar with shit, pleasure with pain. I learned this firsthand after I’d been living in the city a few years and the New York Times crowned me the “reigning queen of high camp cabaret” for my one-woman show, How I Spent My Summer Vacation, which was selling out every night at Don’t Tell Mama, the hottest cabaret in Manhattan.

  As a result of the show’s success, I was selected by the New York Daily News to be a Wingo Girl. There I was in a full-page picture, cheesing it up in my Vacation costume of a white bikini, fishnets, and white sunglasses.

  Nearly one million New Yorkers bought the Daily News that day. I awoke around noon to the phone ringing and John, the doorman, buzzing up to say Western Union was coming up with a telegram and that there were two bouquets waiting for me at the front desk. I opened the door smiling, as I took the telegram. I had worked hard to make Vacation a success and felt on top of the world.

  I lit a scented candle that I kept on the bed stand next to my open Bible and went into my small bathroom to run a steaming aromatherapy bath. As I bent over to tap two drops of essential peppermint oil into the water, my little Maltese, Genta, jumped up and bumped my elbow, causing me to dump in half the bottle. I was quickly overwhelmed by peppermint fumes in the thick steam, and when I opened the bathroom door, the pungent fog filled my entire little studio apartment.

  Just then, John buzzed again to say a delivery guy had a package for me. “Okay, send him up.”

  I opened the door to a young man holding an envelope with “Don’t Tell Mama” in childish handwriting across the front. He looked quickly to his left and right and within seconds was inside my apartment holding a kitchen knife to my throat.

  As I stood in paralysis, the cloud of peppermint fumes took quick effect on the man, causing him to wince and blink, clearly taken aback as his senses were invaded.

  “What do you want?”

  “You know what I want.”

  Genta started jumping up happily on him.

  “Put the dog in the bathroom.”

  “Do you mind if I cut the water off?”

  “Yeah, cut if off.”

  I did so and then closed the door, leaving Genta in the bathroom, worrying she would become sick from the smell. By now, the peppermint fumes were overpowering the room. He put the wooden-handled knife back at my throat and led me to the window.

  “Are you expecting anybody?”

  “My boyfriend is on his way over.”

  “Close the blinds.”

  As I reached for the blinds, like so many assault victims, I thought, Is this really happening to ME? Dear God, what have I done to deserve this? I couldn’t think of a thing I had done to warrant this moment. Then all the stuff I had been reading about past life regression kicked in and suddenly the image was clear as day for me. In a previous life, I had cut off this boy’s head in one swoosh with a medieval sword. Now his soul had returned to take revenge.

  Shock descended and everything went into slow motion as I closed the blinds.

  “Take your clothes off.”

  I did so, feeling as though I were moving through cement.

  “Get on the bed. On your back.”

  I followed his directions and then watched as he pushed his dark polyester pants down his legs to his shoes.

  He lay down on top of me, putting his head on my shoulder and holding the knife in his left hand. In an almost gentle way, he slowly rocked back and forth. Not rough. Not urgent. He struggled quietly to get his huge penis hard. We both seemed to be miscast actors in a horrible movie scene. He seemed unsure, as if he was new at this. The thick peppermint aroma surrounding us was almost calming. When I turned my head to the right, I saw our reflection in the mirror next to the bed. The young man almost seemed to have forgotten me as he tugged at his limp flesh. In the mirror, I saw his left hand relax briefly, silently dropping the knife on the bedspread.

  My right arm was free, and I put my hand around the knife handle without him realizing it. As I raised my arm to plunge the knife into the man’s back, the stainless-steel blade flashed the glare of the candle flame at my eye. I stopped my hand in midair. It was like the reflected candle sparked deep knowledge in my soul. Suddenly I was clear that violence was not the answer; I wanted to see neither my blood nor his on my bedspread.

  I dropped the knife on the bed and undertook the greatest performance of my life. In a low, even tone, I asked, “What is your name?”

  “James.”

  “Can I tell you something, James?”

  “What?”

  “You smell that medicine?”

  He raised up on his hands, blinking his eyes against the invasive scent.

  “Yeah, what is that?”

  “I’m sick, and that’s the medicine I have to soak in every day.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  I paraphrased something my mother had said to me about a friend’s illness: “It’s a disease, and they don’t know what it is. I was raped.”

  “You were raped? Where?”

  “Down over on 10th Avenue.”

  “What were you doing on 10th Avenue?”

  “Walking my dog.”

  This was believable to him. He looked me in the eyes for the first time.

  “Look, if you go inside of me you are going to get sick. Let me get you off. I have Vaseline in the bathroom.”

  “Uh, yeah. Okay.”

  He rolled off me. I got up and started toward the bathroom.
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  “Stop.”

  I thought, Damn. He’s snapped and this is it. But when I turned around, the young man was sitting on the bed with his head in his hands. Crying. He looked at me.

  “Put your clothes back on.”

  I quickly complied as he continued to speak.

  “I shouldn’t be doing this shit! Especially to a sister. They locked me up for some shit I didn’t do! I just got out.”

  Suddenly I saw how skinny, fragile, and vulnerable this kid was. I realized I could probably kick his ass. Instead I sat down next to him and put my arm around his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry that happened to you, James. You see this Bible? I have this here to help me through hard times. I will help you, James. Let me give you my number, and you can call me.”

  I walked to the kitchenette and got a paper and pencil. From the nightclub, I had $400 in tens and twenties on the counter. He easily could have taken it, but he wasn’t looking for money. He was looking to hurt because he had been hurt. I well understood emotional pain. I gave him the paper with a telephone number on it.

  “You should go, James. My boyfriend is coming. G’on now. I won’t tell. I won’t.”

  James looked at my piano and spoke like a little boy.

  “You play piano?”

  “Yeah, but you gotta go now.”

  “I’m sorry. I know you are gonna tell, but I just want you to know I am sorry.”

  He was not evil. He was just fucked up.

  He left, and I stood still for a moment, then quickly opened the bathroom door. As Genta jumped into my arms, I fell to my knees and fainted.

  When I came to, I thanked God for my life. Sweet Bobby came over immediately and that afternoon he and Mark took me to the stationhouse to report the assault. The detective said, “Miss Lewis, you will suffer some emotional stress over this. But keep this in the front of your mind, only one in three million women can talk her way out of rape, especially once the door closes.

  When I called Thomas, my boyfriend at the time, he couldn’t handle it. “Don’t walk me through it.”

  I couldn’t tell Mama or my siblings. I was too far from home and knew they’d be worried sick. The next day I fled to Boston. I was sure Temi and June, two friends about twenty years my senior, would give me the love and security I needed. I knew and trusted those divas. They had had so much therapy over the years, they knew exactly how to help me heal. I was tormented by “what ifs.” June said, “You have a right to your thoughts. Have them all, feel them all, so you can get up and keep going.”

  They dragged me to a lake in Brookline, and I found solace in the beauty of New England in the fall. There’s nothing like the bond between women during a crisis. They comforted me and reminded me of my own power. After a couple of days I felt better, although I continued to look over my shoulder for months. But the show must go on. My beloved New York, despite it all, was still my city.

  I had been performing in Eubie! for several months, when one late September day, I arrived at the Ambassador at half-hour and saw Gregory Hines and all the other cast members standing around the call board looking gloomy. They told me the show was closing October 7th, just two weeks away. I was so young and new to showbiz that I didn’t realize that Broadway shows even closed. “Excuse me? We’re closing? Well, now what do we do?” I remember how Maurice Hines just looked at me. Clearly, he couldn’t believe my naiveté. Here were the great Hines brothers, and I was standing there with my big Afro wondering, “What do we do now? Where’s the next show?”

  The female lead in Eubie! was Terry Burrell. She and her sister Deborah Burrell, both extremely talented performers, were about my age, and I became close friends with them. I heard Terry say, “Me and my sister Debbie, we’re doing a club act.” I knew what that was, and I asked them, “Can I do it, too?” Terry said, “Why don’t you open for us?” I didn’t really know what that meant, but as long as there was a stage, I was ready. Thus I entered the world of cabaret in New York City. Terry and Debbie had a gig at the Bushes, a tiny nightclub, where I sat at a little white piano and sang Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me” and two other songs. The Burrell sisters were fabulous, but on the first night I realized I wanted to be the star, not an opening act. I was the opening act only twice more—for the singing group Gallagher and stand-up comic Jackie Mason. After that I made a rule—nobody goes on after Jenifer Lewis (said with humility, of course).

  I did the Bushes for a few weeks, but with no other major gig in the wings, I began to fret as my finances dwindled. A gypsy friend suggested I check with the Actors Fund, a charitable organization that would give a few bucks to an out-of-work actor like me. The folks at the Fund were real nice and hardly asked any questions. I walked out of the office with $40 that would at least cover my food for the next week or so. But I was wishing it was $4,000.

  Walking back home through Times Square, my attention was caught by a handful of people crowded around a small makeshift, cardboard table. The eyes of the crowd followed the quick hands of a short brother in a backwards cap as he shuffled three cards around the table in a lightning-fast round of Three Card Monte. He was talking fast, encouraging the onlookers, “Find the black queen and win 10 to 1!”

  This is my chance! I was sure I could turn my $40 into $400 in just a few moments. Pushing my way through to the table, I watched two rounds, feeling smug because both times I correctly guessed which of the three cards was the black queen. The next round started. The brother switched the cards back and forth on the table really fast and shouted: “Place your bets, my people! We payin’ 10 to 1!”

  With the most confidence I had ever felt in my entire mothafuckin’ life, I put my two twenties on the middle card. Within five seconds, I was as broke as I had been a half hour earlier. Y’all, I never gambled again!

  I took my last couple of dollars to get some fruit at a bodega on the corner of 55th and Broadway, when who do I bump into but Gregory Hines. “Hey, did you audition for my new show? It’s called Comin’ Uptown.” He gave me the address. “Tell the choreographer I sent you.” I ran the short block to my apartment and put on a wig I had stolen from the “Oriental Blues” number in Eubie! (Ten years later I would be on the cover of the Los Angeles Times arts section wearing that same wig—and it was crooked!)

  It took me just ten minutes to put on mascara and some red lips and power-walk to the rehearsal space off Broadway. As the lyric from A Chorus Line goes: I went “up a steep and very narrow stairway” in my flowing polyester red top and black tights to audition for Comin’ Uptown. It was an outfit my black-ish character Ruby Johnson would have loved (but I was forty pounds lighter then!).

  Once again, I belted out my stock audition number—“Everything’s Coming Up Roses.” The choreographer then asked me, “Can you dance?” As I’ve said, I have never been a great dancer. But like Streisand in the audition scene in Funny Girl where she is asked “Can you skate?,” I said, “Absolutely!” If it might get me the job, then hell, yeah I will go for it.

  In that moment, everything fell into place: the cheerleading at Kinloch High, the study of dynamics and Feldenkrais in college, and the vaudeville moves I had learned while touring with Baggy Pants. I drew back, and pow, my highest kick into a fantastic battement into a grand layout. I don’t think I impressed the director, Philip Rose, but Michael Peters, the choreographer, went nuts! Yes, that Michael Peters—the choreographer who would go on to win a Tony for Dreamgirls, but who is perhaps most famous for his genius work on the music videos for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and “Beat It.”

  I got the job, my second Broadway show in just six months of arriving in New York City. Comin’ Uptown was a musical update of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Gregory Hines played Scrooge, reimagined as a Harlem slumlord. I played one of the Salvation Army Trio, which also included Debbie Burrell and Deborah Bridges. Loretta Devine was making her second Broadway appearance, too. This was also the show where I became close with Shirley Black-Brown, a former Ailey d
ancer, who played Bob Cratchit’s daughter. The show opened at the Winter Garden Theatre in December 1979, but ran for fewer than fifty performances.

  FOUR

  DICK DIVA

  Like most successful Broadway shows, Eubie! spawned a national touring company. I got cast in the upcoming six-month tour just two days after Comin’ Uptown closed.

  The day before I departed for the tour, Ken, a journalist friend, came over for a little “afternoon delight.” Right after he left, Perry called and said he was leaving town and wanted to see me. Dear, delicious Perry! We had been lovers since my sophomore year at Webster (during my breakups from Miguel, of course). Perry had moved to New York City to pursue a show business career.

  I recall the first time I saw Perry as I stepped out of my dorm room on the all-girls floor where I lived. I knew immediately that he had to be a dancer because of his long, shapely physique. Perry had trained with the great Katherine Dunham at her studio in East St. Louis. When I saw him, a freshman, wandering around looking lost, I had only one thought: Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly. Fans of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire might have called my dorm room the “Tarantula Arms”!

  That afternoon, Perry and I began a pattern of loving up on each other between relationships that would continue for several decades. We made love the entire night before I arose at dawn to fly to Los Angeles for the start of the Eubie! national tour.

  I landed in LA with a terrible cold. Linda Saputo, a Webster friend whose outstanding talents had taken her to Hollywood, picked me up at the airport and drove me straight to the theater. My cold was really bad, so on the recommendation of Kelly, the company manager, that afternoon I went to an acupuncturist named Mrs. Chen. It seemed she porcupined my ass, but damn if those ten thousand needles didn’t eliminate most of my cold symptoms. After she removed the last needle, she looked into my eyes, squinted, and spoke harshly in her thick Chinese accent.