SPECIAL: Black Lives Matter

When members of a society wish to secure that society’s rich heritage, they cherish their arts and respect their artists. The esteem with which we regard the multiple cultures offered in our country enhances our possibilities for healthy survival and continued social development. — Maya Angelou

Pay attention to those last three words: continued social development. Not too long ago I read Twitter feeds from two highest-ranking government officials that stated the movement Black Lives Matter was using the recent deaths of Black citizens at the hands of the police as the justification for the violent citizen demonstrations that followed. That was not the way the news, reports that I avidly follow, reported it and I found those statements troubling. I still am troubled. Our democracy is threatened as never before by the arrival of the pandemic COVID-19 and by our century and a half problem of race relations. I was born only 58 years after the end of the Civil War; only 58 years after the 13^th amendment of the Constitution ending slavery was ratified; only 58 years after the birth of the aforementioned race problem.

What has this got to do with my Cinema Trek? To find out let’s sit down at my Moviola and rewind to Mason City, Iowa in the late 1920’s, when I was somewhere between my 4^th and 5^th birthdays. My parents moved into the duplex at 4 North Jefferson. My uncle, who owned the building, lived in the other half of the duplex facing West State Street. He also owned the lot on Jefferson north of the duplex. That lot had a small one-story home, which the Cabell family rented — Mr. and Mrs. Cabell, their son Hubert and their daughter Phyllis. The Cabell’s were Negro or colored, the terms used back then. Mason City had few Negro families. In Central School, which I attended, the only Negro I remember is Archie Simmons, who was a grade ahead of me. Hubert and Phyllis went to Washington School, but not for any reason of segregation. That school had been closer to where they had been living when they started school and they continued on there since it was only 7 blocks from where they currently lived, compared to Central School’s distance of 5 blocks. What is the point of all this? Hubert was 2 or 3 years older than me, and Phyllis was a year older and until we moved 5 years later, Hubert and Phyllis were my playmates.

To further answer my question: Art takes many forms: Painting; Photography; Sculpture; the Performing Arts. It should come as no surprise that my leaning is to the final one, and more specifically to Theatre Performing that has progressed from the ancient Greek stages (and possibly even before) into our movie theatres and onto our television screens. It was an evolution that brought the culture of theatre via television into our homes.

I directed my first television film in 1961, but it wasn’t until 21 months later in 1963, when I directed my 14^th television film, AGE OF CONSENT (https://senensky.com/age-of-consent/) on EAST SIDE WEST SIDE that there was an actor of color in the cast. That actor was the wonderful Cicely Tyson, playing one of the staff in George C. Scott’s social worker office. Although she didn’t look it, Cicely was 38 years old at the time. She had been acting professionally in New York for 12 years (after a successful time as a fashion model) but her acting roles were usually minor, often receiving no screen credit. EAST SIDE WEST SIDE was her first steady screen acting job providing a full season’s employment.

At the end of the 1^st season’s filming James Aubrey, the head of programming at CBS (and known as the “Cobra”) offered George C. Scott a renewal of the series if he would replace Cicely with a white actress. George to his credit refused the offer. I learned something new on this production. Cicely in 1963 was at the forefront of a “Black is Beautiful” movement. No more straightening of hair, she wore hers clipped short. She was a shining example that Black was beautiful.

It was later that season in early 1964 that I directed NEVER TROUBLE TROUBLE TILL TROUBLE TROUBLES YOU (https://senensky.com/never-trouble-trouble-till-trouble-troubles/) on BREAKING POINT. Executive producer George Lefferts had told me during the summer when I directed my first episode in the series, that he had accepted ABC’s offer to develop and produce BREAKING POINT only if he would be allowed to do some scripts on verboten subjects not usually permitted on the network. When I returned, George was no longer actively associated with the series, so I didn’t have an opportunity to ask if a story about Black characters had been on his list. Once I read the script I was about to direct, I was sure it had been.

The lead character in TROUBLE, Rosie, was a young Black boxer who had been accused of throwing a fight. He vehemently denied the charge and sought psychiatric help. He was involved romantically with Sara.

Those Beautiful Blacks were Terry Carter and Diana Sands. One day when film editor Dan Nathan was preparing the clip that would appear as a preview at the end of the previous week’s episode, he included part of the love scene. One of the other editors on the series was in the room at the time, and as the lovers separated after they kissed, he gasped, “They’re colored!” That was the point. It was a story about people. Seeing a story with black characters behaving just like white people was a very unusual occurrence in any of our theatre – stage, screen and now television! However our story did not ignore there were differences in growing up Black. Rosie’s father, a boxer and a tank artist, had made a profession of throwing fights. In a flashback of Rosie as a child, that’s Rosie’s father on the floor of the boxing ring.

The father was Joel Fluellen; young Rosie was 8-year old Mark Dymally.

Three years later in January, 1967, I directed my first STAR TREK, THIS SIDE OF PARADISE (https://senensky.com/this-side-of-paradise/) and worked with Nichelle Nichols for the first time. What an interesting and remarkable career! Nichelle as a teenager sang with Duke Ellington. Her breakthrough success came in 1966 when she was cast as Lieutenant Uhura in STAR TREK, The Original Series. But at the end of filming the first season, Nichelle asked Gene Roddenberry to release her from her contract. I’m sure it was because of the limitation of her supporting role. Then she met Martin Luther King, Jr., who said he was a fan of the show, it was the only show on television he and his wife allowed his children to stay up and watch. When he learned of her intent to leave, he said, “You can’t do that. Don’t you understand that for the first time, we are seen as we should be seen. You don’t have a black role. You have an equal role.” Nichelle changed her plans and notified Roddenberry that she would remain with the series. Here’s the final sequence from BREAD AND CIRCUSES, an episode where the planet’s gladiator battles (like the Roman ones on earth) were being fought on television.

And here I want to make a personal observation. STAR TREK certainly brought Nichelle the success and fame that is the goal of all actors. But I think her playing of the role of Uhura made such a strong impression on both producers and audience, as it did for Leonard Nimoy in his portrayal of Spock, that it might have limited the perception of the range of her talent

Nichelle was the first Black woman to achieve that success in television; but she was not the first Black performer to do this. In 1965, Bill Cosby was cast alongside Robert Culp in I SPY, the first weekly dramatic television series to feature an African-American in a starring role. I directed an episode of I SPY, but I will wait to talk about Cosby when I directed him later.

The dam hadn’t broken when it came to casting Black actors in continuing supporting roles on series, but it had cracked. In 1967 I directed THE TRAIN on MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE with Greg Morris, one of the members of the Mission: Impossible team. I directed a couple of IRONSIDES with Don Mitchell, one of the trio backing up the wheelchair-bound Raymond Burr. Later in 1972 I directed a couple of episodes of THE ROOKIES with George Stanford Brown, one of the three blue-clad cops. Although George Stanford Brown fared somewhat better when it came to screen time, the major advantage for these actors was the weekly paycheck.

In 1968 I directed my first episode of THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE’S FATHER with Bill Bixby, the amazing 6-year old Brandon Cruz, the scene-stealing Miyoshi Umeki and a surprise guest star.

Yes, that was Cicely Tyson guest starring in GUESS WHO’S COMING FOR LUNCH (https://senensky.com/guess-whos-coming-for-lunch/) and yes, it was Cicely Tyson having graduated to guest starring roles on high-rated television shows. Her role was definitely not minor and I’m sure her salary was much larger than it had been back in George C. Scott’s office. And if today the opening of that door would not produce so much as a raised eyebrow, for television fifty-two years ago — it was BOLD!

If your curiosity leads you to wanting to know how the two spent the rest of their “gracious and charming evening”, you’ll just have to visit my website.

The sixties, a decade of civil unrest, had reached an apex on April 4, 1968, when Martin Luther King was assassinated as he stood on the balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. One of the earliest shows to address this topic was INSIGHT, presenting THE DEATH OF SIMON JACKSON (https://senensky.com/the-death-of-simon-jackson/), an outspoken drama by Robert Goodwin, one of the first Blacks to write for national television.

A final word about Robert Goodwin’s script! In its brief twenty-seven minutes he presented the portrait of a young black man estranged by white society, wavering between responding militantly or peacefully. And finally at the end he mirrored the real life deaths of Dr. King, Malcolm X and Medgar Evers. A truly daunting accomplishment, but it aired on INSIGHT, a Paulist Production, overseen and produced by the Paulist Priest Father Ellwood Keiser, an anthology series that explored moral dilemmas and was given free to independent television stations. No networks involved! No sponsors to contend with!

In 1969 I again directed Bill Cosby, this time in THE BILL COSBY SHOW. Most people are aware of THE COSBY SHOW, the popular sit-com about the Huxtable family that ran on NBC from 1984-1992. But this was the preceding show (1969-1970) that Stephen Bowie on his CLASSIC TV HISTORY BLOG called: “…a forgotten but far superior series  …It doesn’t look or feel like any other situation comedy from the time.”

To which I add the comedy in Cosby’s show ranged from the almost Buster Keatonish when he picked up his date on the way to chaperone a school dance…

…to a simple funny situation in another episode when his brother Brian, who had had a fight with his wife, arrived and interrupted a date he was having. The date left. Brian moved in; they went to bed. Then late in the night the doorbell rang …

What choice roles for those three Black supporting actors!

In 1970 when I directed DEAD WITNESS TO A KILLING on DAN AUGUST (https://senensky.com/dead-witness-to-a-killing/) there was an interrogation scene and I don’t remember any specific description in the script of the person being interrogated.

Things had really changed. Roles written as white characters could be cast with an actor of color and the limitations on portraying gay characters had apparently widened.

In 1973 after I directed my first episode of THE WALTONS, Lorimar booked me to stay on and direct A DREAM FOR CHRISTMAS (https://senensky.com/a-dream-for-christmas-part-i/), a two-hour television movie-pilot. When I received the script, I immediately sat down and read it. The project was an attempt to launch a groundbreaking series, a black family version of THE WALTONS. The story was about a black minister who in the 1950’s moves with his family from Sweet Clover, Arkansas, to Los Angeles, where he had been hired by a church to be its new pastor. When he arrives he finds the church is in financial difficulties and is soon to be torn down to make way for a shopping center. Further, there is no money for the new minister’s salary. To help out financially the minister’s mother gets a job as a housekeeper with a white upper class Beverly Hills family, and thereon a lot of the script was spent in the Beverly Hills family home with sequences that I felt were stereotypical situation comedy. A further complication — the script was by a writer well entrenched at Lorimar, having written eight scripts for THE WALTONS. Since I had only directed one episode, I was well aware that seeking the kind of changes I would want would be treading on thinner than thin ice.

Just then Walter Coblenz walked in. Walter and I had worked together a decade before when he was a second assistant director. Since that time he had risen in the ranks and become a producer. He had recently produced a movie-for-television for Lorimar, THE BLUE KNIGHT starring William Holden. Walter told me he had just been assigned as the line producer for A DREAM FOR CHRISTMAS. And then he said, “We have to do something about this script. Why don’t we bring in Max Hodge to do a rewrite.” I was stunned! This couldn’t be happening.

I had known Max Hodge since 1947 when we were classmates at the Pasadena Playhouse School of the Theatre. After leaving the Playhouse I had directed a production in Mason City of A STRIPED SACK FOR PENNY CANDY, the play Max wrote for his thesis at the Playhouse. There followed a fifteen-year lapse in our contact. He had returned to Detroit, where he wrote-produced-directed Oldsmobile industrial stage musicals for General Motors, while I was on the journey I have been describing. In 1963 Max left General Motors and returned to the west coast, prepared to storm the gates of Hollywood. I was by that time fairly well established as a working member of the Directors Guild of America and I was able to help him. He wrote and sold his first script for DR. KILDARE. More assignments followed. He was the associate producer on THE GIRL FROM UNCLE. He was one of my closest friends. I heartily endorsed Walter’s suggestion to bring him in to rewrite our current script.

I don’t know what transpired between Walter and the powers at Lorimar, but Max was hired and the two of us set about revising A DREAM FOR CHRISTMAS. We screened THE HOMECOMING, the original two-hour movie written by Earl Hamner that spawned THE WALTONS. Our goal was to create the charm and drama of that family in the Douglas family of our teleplay. We would replace the trials of the depression years that the Waltons faced with the difficulties our Douglas family faced when it moved from the rural south to a big sprawling city in the west. And all of our Douglas family and the many people with whom they would be associated would be of color and would be real. Our working format was simple. I would be in one office, and I would plot and outline the sequences. Max, in an adjoining office, would write the sequences. And we each were a check on the other’s work. We completed our first draft in twelve days.

When I viewed THE HOMECOMING, I was impressed with the sequence where John-Boy and his six siblings trudged through the snow on their way to school. I decided I wanted to see our four siblings when they walked to school their first day, experiencing the frightening but wondrous city of Los Angeles.

Charles Washburn, the second assistant director on the show was a black man. I had known Charles when he was a DGA apprentice on STAR TREK. At my request he took Max Hodge and me to a Sunday morning service in a black Baptist church. I was fascinated by the vocal responses of the members of the congregation to the minister’s sermon, of the conversation between minister and parishioners that took place constantly. When we returned to the studio, Max added congregation responses to our church service scenes, and I encouraged more responses from the cast when I filmed.

The script was 113-pages long. There were close to twenty-five locations to be found in southwest Los Angeles, where our story took place – except for one location, the building and office for the man who was going to tear down the church to build his shopping center. It had to be an impressive building in an affluent area, a building that would have been standing in Los Angeles in the 1950’s. We found it in the Bunker Hill section of downtown Los Angeles. That was where Rev. Will Douglas went to meet the man holding the mortgage on the church, to plea for its survival.

I wanted to keep the business in the original script of Grandma Bessie’s going to do houseclening in Beverly Hills, but I wanted to treat it differently. Both Sarah Douglas (the mother) and Grandma Bessie, against Will’s wishes, made arrangements to work as housekeepers in some Beverly Hills homes. But I definitely wasn’t going to show Sarah and Grandma working as maids. Los Angeles, as late as the early fifties, still had the Red Car, a trolley line with cars running all the way from Pasadena to Long Beach and all stops in between. When I was a student at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1947-48, I remember riding the Red Car from Pasadena to Santa Monica. By the time I returned to Los Angeles in 1954, the Red Car was gone, but the production staff of our show told me that there was a company that had restored some Red Cars, mounted them on tires, and these cars were for rent. All I would have to do when filming was prevent the tires from showing. Which is what I did. I filmed Sara and Grandma joining the platoon of Black ladies boarding the Red Car on their way to do housecleaning and then on their way home at the end of the day.

A dead end with Mr. Briggs! His wife and mother working to support the family!

Will starts looking for a job. No success! Then an event in the family changes Will’s mind and he heads back to see Mr. Briggs again.

Our scouting trips in southwest Los Angeles probably took us to every church in the area. When we finally found the one we wanted, the minister of the church told us that his church had serious financial difficulties, and the money they would be making because of our filming was going to solve their problems. That kind of miracle didn’t happen for Will’s church. It took perseverance and persistent effort by Will as he set out to meet and ingratiate himself with possible members in the community –- all of this with a deadline of Christmas morning.

84 year-old Clarence Muse, the white bearded elder seated in the rear, told me he had come to Hollywood in 1929 to continue his acting career in films. He was 40 years old and had his own theatre company, which toured the country performing the classics; but to be cast in film, he said he had to learn to speak the demeaning stereotypical way negro characters were being presented.

Our exploration is almost over. What we’ve viewed is an infinitely tiny fraction of the television relating to race that I was involved in over the period of a decade. It was also happening on many other fronts, but what effect has it had on the problem? There has been progress. We’ve had our first Black president and now have our first Black woman nominee for vice-president. But the battle must continue, so listen again to Maya Angelou.

When members of a society wish to secure that society’s rich heritage, they cherish their arts and respect their artists. The esteem with which we regard the multiple cultures offered in our country enhances our possibilities for healthy survival and continued social development. — Maya Angelou

Art, freedom and creativity will change society faster than politics. — Victor Pinchuk

I know that art copies life. I like to believe that life can copy art. Let the battle continue.

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The journey continues