I cautiously walked through, thinking that at any moment I would be shot in both knees and taken out for my subterfuge. But no. In fact, a young African American girl spotted me all by my lonesome and said, “Miss Lewis, may I help you?”
Again, merry fucking Christmas in these streets.
I said, “Yes, yes, yes, baby. Ooh, yes, baby. Please, help me find my seat. The Democratic National Committee sent me this ticket at the last minute. How do I get there?”
Well, lo and be-fucking-hold, if the seat wasn’t all the hell the way at the top of the stadium, behind the podium where my new president would be speaking. I conjured the tears and they came swiftly.
I said, “Ooh, girl . . . please, girl, I can’t sit all the way up here. I’m terrified of heights and sure to be mobbed. Ooh, you know how famous I am and important to my people. Help me, girl. Help me, if you can.”
Well, bless her heart. She did. Sistergirl had an all-access pass and I had my teased hair. As far as I was concerned, the sky was the limit!
The young woman said, “Now, Miss Lewis, I can try to get you down on the floor, but I don’t know if this is gonna work.”
I said, “Lead the way, baby.” Something I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone to do, but in desperate times you leave your alpha self behind.
At the entrance to the VIP area all the way down on the floor, we came upon a large white woman with a sheriff’s badge on. Scariest woman I’d ever seen in my life. My knees buckled. I was reduced to Little Jenny Lewis. I stood humbly behind the girl as she told the sheriff my tale of woe. When the sheriff’s eyes shifted over to me, I blurted out, “I’m with the Jesse Jackson people.”
She knew I was lying, but she also knew me from television. Thank God. With a vigorous wave of her wand, which I was grateful didn’t hit me or fuck with my teased hair, she said, “All right, y’all go on.”
And there my lying ass was free to run amok and find myself a good seat before being discovered. I saw that the seats were sectioned off with names of states—Illinois was front and center. Now, being a sneaky little manipulator most of my life, I knew not to sit down front. I wasn’t that stupid. So I walked back about a dozen rows in the Illinois section. It wasn’t five minutes before another volunteer with ten thousand buttons on his ass stood in front of me.
“Ma’am, are you a delegate?”
I said, “Oh, yes. Yes, I am. I’m Michelle Obama’s oldest college friend.”
He looked at me as if to say, “Lady, I ain’t seen you at none of the parties. You ain’t no delegate,” but he said, “All righty then.” But I knew he knew I was lying.
I sat there, imagining a SWAT team carrying my un-ticketed ass out of the stadium. Instead, God showed mercy when I spotted Jesse Jackson Jr. in the front row, shaking hands with everyone and being the politician that he is. Having never met him, I went down and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. He turned around and immediately said, “My favorite actress.”
We embraced, and as we did, I whispered in his ear, “I sneaked down here, and I know they’re getting ready to throw me out.”
He pulled back, held me by both shoulders, and said, “No, they’re not. Sit down.”
There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. I witnessed Barack Hussein Obama accept the nomination, front and center, twenty feet from the podium sitting between Jesse Jackson Jr. and Spike Lee.
I was close enough that Michelle Obama actually made eye contact with me. I waved and blew a kiss to my “old college friend.” Merry fucking Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Rosh Hashanah, Kwanzaa, and Fourth of July, bitches.
The evening was life changing, and I assure you, after all that conniving, I sat there with great humility and reverence for that historical moment. When the ceremony was over, once again, I knew not to try to get in the departing crowd. I stayed seated and wept. I sat there weeping with gratitude for Harriet, Sojourner, Frederick, Nat Turner, Emmett Till, Dr. King, Malcolm, Bethune, and the men, women, and children who took the hoses and the dogs on the front lines of the ’60s.
When I raised up my head, a young black man in an orange vest with a bald head was standing in front of me. I was about to say, “You’re too late to arrest me, fool.” Thank God I didn’t, because he leaned down and without words, put his head on my shoulder, and sobbed like a baby.
What a night. What a night . . . what a night.
With newfound inspiration from one of the greatest speeches I had ever witnessed, I made my way out of the stadium and boarded one of the two buses left. When I stepped onto the bus, I was immediately recognized and applauded by a bus full of black people. All right, there were three white folks, too. God bless them. After the applause died down, in perfect comic timing, as only Jenifer Lewis could, I shouted, “Well, I guess we don’t have to sit in the back of the fucking bus tonight!” I walked down the center aisle giving high-fives and black power signs and hugging and kissing. Then I realized that the only seat left was in the very back of the goddamn bus. Everybody laughed at my crazy ass.
That night, I lay in Brian’s guest room and thought, “My God, my God . . . it’s a new day.”
Eubie! wasn’t the only “black” show in DC that winter of 1981. Sophisticated Ladies, a musical based on the works of the masterful Duke Ellington, was at the Kennedy Center before heading for Broadway. This meant that every night the casts of both shows would gather at a club called One Step Down. It was wonderful to hang out with Gregory Hines again and the beautiful Amazons Judith Jamison and Phyllis Hyman, who were all starring in the show.
In DC, the reviewers again singled me out. But, when would I get my big break?
Back in New York City, I resumed classes at the LeTang Studio. Lonnie McNeil, a brilliant dancer and choreographer, told me, “If you want to be famous, Jenifer, you need to pull back and not be so damn good.”
This was a theme I’d heard before. About a year earlier, when I’d been turned down for a major Broadway role, the director said, “Jenifer, I just can’t see anyone else when you’re on stage.” What was I supposed to do? Be less? Idiots!
My mood plummeted. I was on unemployment, hanging out every night at Possible 20, drinking Black Russians, smoking a little pot, and regretting each Virginia Slims while trying to figure out my relationship with Thomas.
JOURNAL ENTRY: I can’t take this sick ass way of living. Struggling so hard to get out of this funk.
But I couldn’t pull myself up. In March, I missed the opportunity to sing for the great Cy Coleman because I’d awakened from a drunken stupor too late to make the audition. I knew I was truly fucking up because I had never missed an audition before. My professionalism and discipline were my greatest assets. I did not understand what was going on. I wanted to blame anyone, everyone else. I could not see that it was full-out self-sabotage.
I got myself together enough to be cast in Sister Aimee, a gospel-infused musical, which debuted off-Broadway at the Gene Frankel Theater. The show told the story of Aimee Semple McPherson’s rise to cult status as the first successful radio evangelist. It was directed by David Holdgrive, with book, music, and lyrics by Worth Gardner. I played Louise Messnick, a young woman stricken with crippling arthritis whom Sister Aimee cures miraculously through the laying-on of hands. The show was warmly received, and I got my first review in the New York Times:
Miss Jennifer Lewis . . . is what is sometimes called a shouter, but the shouting has intelligence and style. Her “Glory Train” is a joy.
People, there is one “n” in my name. Remember that. Anyway, even though John Corry, the Times critic, misspelled Jenifer, I was thrilled. A favorable review in the Times was a huge accomplishment.
Sister Aimee played only on the weekends. While it was running, I started rehearsals for another off-Broadway musical named El Bravo at the Entermedia Theater on 2nd Avenue. El Bravo transplanted the Robin Hood legend to the barrio of East Harlem. It was directed by Patricia Birch, the much-admired choreographer who had been nominated for numero
us Tony Awards, including for Grease.
I played two roles: a police officer and a ventriloquist with a dummy named Madge (again I point you to Streisand in Funny Girl: “Can you skate?”).
Although El Bravo was trashed by the critics and ran only forty-eight performances, the show is memorable to me for many reasons. My castmates included Vanessa Bell. She was so pretty and talented and has remained a friend through the years. She later appeared as Eddie Murphy’s arranged bride in Coming to America. I also became close with the lovely and graceful Starr Danais and Olga Merediz, who sang my favorite song in the show, “Funeral, Funeral, Animal.” The music director’s name was Louis St. Louis and I, being Jenifer Lewis from St. Louis, hit it off with him right away.
It was during rehearsals for El Bravo that I met Quitman Fludd. He always used his full name. In noting it I want to honor his grandeur, splendor, and beauty: Quitman Daniel Fludd III. Something happened in rehearsal, and we both laughed. When two people laugh at the same ignorant shit, they are instantly bonded. They want to play together, laugh together, sing together. And boy did we sing! He was a soprano and I was a baritone. He was feminine, I was not (sexy and fabulous, yes, but never a “lady,” as it were).
Quitman was a new kind of person for me. He was an only child and he had been well loved. He had grown up a talented Southern gay black boy in the ’50s. He couldn’t wait to get out of Nashville and become a dance major at Juilliard. He used to recite a poem, “Incident,” by Countee Cullen, to illustrate what it had been like in the Jim Crow South.
Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now, I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.”
I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That’s all that I remember.
At only sixteen, Quitman danced in the original Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! and later in the Broadway production of On the 20th Century. In the mid-’70s, he understudied Ben Vereen in the original version of Pippin.
Quitman was beautiful—tall, fit, perfect teeth, mustache. You could tell he was a dancer: he walked on air, chest out like an ostrich. I had never known anyone who gave himself so many facials, always while wearing a pink shower cap to hold his hair back. Quitman was refined, bourgeois, and elegant. He was always groomed to the T. He was perhaps ten years older than me and was fascinated by my youth, drive, and naiveté. He thought I was the cat’s meow.
We spoke every morning. When I’d pick up the phone and there was no answer to my hello, I knew it was Quitman on the other end of the line. Neither of us would speak. For minutes at a time. Then one of us would crack up. We did this every morning for years. We were innocent! We had a pure relationship and truly knew who the other was.
Let me tell y’all what me and this fool used to do. Sometimes I would show up at his apartment devastated that I didn’t get a part. I would bust in, totally fucked up over one thing or another—usually it was a man or a lost audition. I would sit by his window on the forty-fourth floor of the Manhattan Plaza with the string tied tight on my white hoodie in full makeup and, yes, black mascara running down my face. Gesturing, flailing my hands about, posturing, sobbing, jumping up, pointing out the window, blaming anybody but myself for what had happened.
Quitman would let me go on and on and on. Then he would sweetly say, “Let me get you a tissue,” but instead he would come back with a white towel wrapped around his head, reflecting my white hoodie and my madness to myself. He would then proceed to reenact the entire scene ver-fucking-batim. As I watched him imitating me, this man with a photographic memory and a sense of humor to boot would make me damn near pee myself. After he’d gotten a cold towel for me to wipe that shit off my eyes and blow my nose, he would gently push me out of the door and whisper, “I’ll see you in a month.”
This son-of-a-bitch I loved. Had Quitman not been gay, he is the only man I would have ever actually married.
Within a couple of months of our becoming friends, Quitman started writing my first one-woman show. He wrote lyrics that were so true and spoke to our lives. “Now that you’re a star in the big time, do you ever think of you and me . . .”
During this time, Thomas was on the road as stage manager for Your Arms Too Short to Box with God, and our relationship was off-again, on-again. While he was away for a few months, I basically put a turnstile at my door as I rotated through Phil, Rudy, Pascale, Perry, Ken, and Tyrell.
I briefly allowed Perry to move in with me, which was a fiasco that lasted only a couple of weeks. I kicked him out in a fit of rage. As Perry left through the apartment door, I grabbed his T-shirt, tearing off the back and leaving the front of the shirt molded to his perfectly formed chest muscles. It was hot, like Marlon Brando’s T-shirt in Streetcar. We did it against the wall in the hallway just outside my door. Then I put him on the elevator, saying kindly, “Please go now.” When Thomas came back to town for a break, things got messy and I confused my lovers’ names during sex. “Thom and Perry”—sounds like a cartoon.
When I wasn’t juggling men, I was rehearsing for a two-city gig with Baggy Pants. A few years earlier, I had taken a sabbatical from college to tour with this truck-and-van production that was among the last vaudeville-burlesque musical revues. Baggy Pants had been making the rounds of dinner theaters since the early ’70s. It was conceived and directed by Will B. Able, an actual vaudevillian, with assistance from his wife, Graziella Able, who, as I mentioned, became one of my mother figures.
I would often find myself sitting at the feet of and listening to women older and ever so much wiser than me. I took to Graziella immediately. I believe she was in her early fifties and was still kicking her foot over her head and slamming it down to the floor in a split. She was co-producer of the show, and she made sure we were as sharp as the Rockettes when we pranced around Will in our beaded bras and feathered hats. God bless Graziella—she taught me how to kick above my head. Graziella had danced with the Swiss Opera Ballet and as a can-can dancer at the Moulin Rouge in Paris. I learned from the best!
Both Grazi and Will became parental figures for me and were utterly compassionate and gentle when I’d go off about one thing or another. The fact is many parents don’t, or can’t, give you everything you need.
Mine couldn’t. So I went in search of substitutes. I often advise young people in this situation to understand there are probably people around every corner who will take them under their wing and help them on their way. But you have to ask.
Baggy Pants remains one of the most important experiences of my career. It was my first professional gig, and more important, it earned me an Actors’ Equity Association union card, which gave me benefits. Working with Will and Graziella meant that I was involved with the heritage of American musical comedy as a whole. They had worked with the greats of vaudeville, Broadway, and Hollywood. I sopped up every bit of style and wisdom from them that I could.
I was nineteen years old, and so much about the experience was new, including castmate jealousy. When we opened in Louisville, Kentucky, the local paper singled out my performance as noteworthy. Some of the other dancers were jealous, and I heard one say loudly enough for me to hear: “Well, I don’t think she was that good.”
The words sent me into a rage. I snatched the poor girl who uttered those words out of her seat by her collar. Her feet were off the floor as I held her against the wall. I growled at her through clenched teeth: “If I could give you my voice, I would. But I can’t. So, please stop messing with me!” Then I threw her across the room.
Will was so disappointed in me. This man whom I respected so much, who had chosen me to do a solo after the great newspaper review, came to me and said,
“Jenifer, I want you to listen very carefully to me. I’ve been in this business a long time. You’re going to have to get rid of that chip on your shoulder. Your talent won’t mean a thing if people don’t want to work with you.” I felt horrible, but I had absolutely no idea how to get rid of my uncontrollable anger. Of course, I apologized profusely, as there was just no fucking excuse.
Now that I was more experienced and mature, I was excited to work with Will and Graziella again and show them I had grown and really knew my stuff. We ran a few weeks at a dinner theater in Westchester, New York, which was a convenient train ride from Grand Central Station. At my first rehearsal, I found out that Will was very sick. In fact, he had shortened the show by cutting two of his numbers.
After Westchester, Baggy Pants went to St. Louis for a two-week run. I couldn’t wait to see all my family and friends. There was a big barbecue, and all of Kinloch turned out for the show at the Barn Dinner Theatre.
After the second performance, Will was rushed to Barnes-Jewish Hospital. We all were unclear about what was wrong with him. Before I entered Will’s room, Mama, who worked as a nurses’ aide at the county hospital in Clayton, made me put on a mask, gloves, and robe. This alone frightened me, but then, when she said, “You cover up good before you go in there because they don’t know what this disease is,” my fear became dread. A few days later Will died of an extreme type of pneumonia. He was only fifty-seven years old. I mourned this great entertainer and mentor.
When I got back to New York, Quitman and I got serious about writing my show, which I decided to name Who Is Jenifer Lewis? HOT! I know, what the hell does that mean? At the time, I had no clue as to who I was or what I stood for. “Hot mess!” would have been more appropriate.
By mid-November, Thomas and I were back together, and he invited me to Jamaica with him. I really could not afford the trip, but after Gregory Hines loaned me $500, I was able to track down several gypsies who owed me money. Altogether, I came up with about $1,000, which I spent at Bloomingdale’s on sunglasses, a swimsuit, and some short-shorts. Quitman asked, “Why are you putting yourself in debt for a man who doesn’t love you for who you are?” I had no answer.
The Mother of Black Hollywood Page 8
