Was saddened to hear that Barbara Billingsley, who played stay at home mom June Cleaver on the iconic television show Leave It To Beaver, passed away today at age 94.
You younglings might remember her as the passenger that translated jive into English in the 1980 Airplane! movie, but.my generation used to see Leave It To Beaver on reruns.
She basically became 'America's Mom' thanks to that June Cleaver role. She was also the last of the surviving women who played the mothers on those 50's family shows such as Harriet Nelson, of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet; Jane Wyatt's Margaret Anderson, of Father Knows Best; and Donna Reed's Donna Stone, of The Donna Reed Show.
Leave It To Beaver started on CBS in 1957, then moved to ABC the next year until it ended its run in 1963 and lived on in syndication.
Another icon of my youth is gone. Rest in Peace, Barbara.
But I have to grudgingly admit that many of them are in my personal DVD collection. When I need a good laugh, I pop the microwave movie butter popcorn, fire up the DVD player and watch them on a regular basis along with the other Black cinema classics such as Carmen Jones,Shaft,Cabin In The Sky and Imitation of Life that are in my movie collection.
So I was surprised to find out he was directing and producing the screen version of Ntozake Shange's classic play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf considering all the Black female directors such as Gina Prince-Bythewood, Julie Dash, and Kasi Lemmons, or screenwriters such as Suzan Lori Parks that I believe would have done a better job with this play than Perry.
Well, he was the one tapped by the studios to do it and the trailer has been released for the movie. For Colored Girls debut has been moved up to a November 5 release date so it can get Oscar consideration.
Okay people, now that you've seen the trailer, are you headed to the theater to support it?
I am, and hear me out on this.
One of the things I and many of my friends gripe about is the lack of quality Black movies to attend. The last quality ones I have gone to the theater and paid hard earned dollars to see were Precious and The Secret Life Of Bees, and I have yet to attend a movie since I moved back to Houston.
Come to think of it, the last movie I watched inside the Houston city limits was Two Can Play That Game.
Hey, don't trip. I like Vivica A. Fox, Morris Chestnut and Anthony Anderson.
But back to my regularly scheduled post.
Now, we know that Hollywood's idea of a quality Black movie is to put stuff like 'Lottery Ticket and other nouveau coonery on the screen when there are reams of novels by Black authors such as Eric Jerome Dickey, the late E. Lynn Harris, the late Bebe Moore Campbell, romance queen Kayla Perrin and others that just beg for and could easily be converted to feature length films.
But in order for those books to be turned into feature films, we probably need to support For Colored Girls with that larger goal in mind.
Yeah, I know the idea of putting your cash in Tyler Perry's pockets makes some of you nauseous. But it's also putting money in Ntozake Shange's pocket as well as the actors who are in this film.
You have to give him props for the cast he assembled for this film. H-town is represented in Tony award winning actress Phylicia Rashad and our homegirl Loretta Devine. There's two other Tony award winners in Anika Noni Rose and Oscar winner Whoopi Goldberg.
Some of my fave actresses are in this film such as Kerry Washington, Thandie Newton, Janet Jackson, Kimberly Elise and even Macy Gray has a role.
So yeah, I'll definitely be at my local multiplex checking out For Colored Girls and I hope you will focus more on the people in the movie rather than the person producing it.
If it turns out to be a slamming movie, I'll definitely give Tyler his props for it.
But let's focus on the big picture, pardon the pun. If you wish to see more quality Black films coming from Hollywood, you have to send that message with your box office dollars before Hollywood hears it.
Had to take a moment to salute the milestone birthday of one of my fave actresses and beauty role models, Diahann Carroll.
Carol Diahann Johnson was born on this day in New York (the Bronx) and as an infant moved to Harlem with her family. One of her high school classmates at the New York Music & Art High School was Billy Dee Williams and has had a long distinguished and trailblazing career in music, film, Broadway, and television.
In 1962 she won the first ever 'Best Actress' Tony Award given to an African American actress for her role in the Broadway musical No Strings. In 1963 she picked up her first Emmy nomination for the police drama Naked City.
In 1975 she picked up an Academy Award Best Actress nomination for the movie Claudine.
But the role just about everyone of my generation remembers her for besides Claudine is her groundbreaking 1968-71 NBC television series Julia.
She played widowed nurse Julia Baker, and picked up a 1968 Golden Globe Award for the role along with her second Emmy Award nomination in 1969. Carroll was the first African American actress to star in a TV show that cast her in a non-stereotypical role.
She joined the cast of Dynasty in 1984 as its first African American cast member and played the glamorous jetsetter Dominique Deveraux, the half sister of Blake Carrington. Dynasty reunited her with her high school classmate, who played her husband Brady Lloyd on the show.
My favorite role of hers besides Julia is A Different World's Marion Gilbert, the glamorous mother of Hillman College diva Whitley Gilbert. The recurring role earned her another Emmy Award nomination in 1989.
She had a recurring role of Aunt Ruthie on the HBO series Soul Food, for which she received two NAACP Image Award nominations
She was recently seen in 2006 on Grey's Anatomy playing Jane Burke, the demanding mother of Dr. Preston Burke.
You can also add author to this multitalented lady's resume thanks to her autobiography entitled 'The Legs Are The Last To Go'.
She's also a breast cancer survivor who has taken a leading role as a spokesperson in the African American community to heighten awareness of the disease.
Happy 75th birthday Diahann Carroll. May you continue to inspire and be a trailblazing role model for our community and age gracefully in the process.
Today is Pamela Suzette Grier's birthday, and I have much love for her as one of my beauty icons.
I'll also be celebrating Pam's birthday by picking up a copy of her autobiography 'Foxy' assuming it's available in my friendly neighborhood bookstore.
Pam is still doing her thing acting and hopefully will do a book tour so I can get her autograph.
While I was in the process of moving last week I heard the sad news about one of my fave beauty icons, legendary singer, actress and civil rights warrior Lena Horne.
She passed away on May 9 in her hometown of New York at age 92 from congestive heart failure.
She started as a 16 year old chorus girl at Harlem's legendary Cotton Club during the Depression and parlayed that into a career spanning 60 years in movies, television, Grammy-winning records, a one-woman Broadway show and untold numbers of nightclub appearances.
In the 1940's she was a trailblazer in having a seven year MGM contract during an era in which that kind of deal was unheard of for African-Americans. But the racism she battled throughout most of her career would result in many of the scenes she shot for films during that era to be cut in prints destined to be shown in the Jim Crow South.
Horne found herself being painfully passed over by non-singing Ava Gardner for the role of Julie in the 1951 movie "Show Boat.' Julie in that movie, FYI, was a mixed-race performer who was passing herself off as white.
During World War II if you walked into African-American sections of military bases, Black GI's had pictures of the glamorous Horne posted all over the place. She reciprocated the love that brothers of that era had for her by traveling to bases along the west coast and in the South to entertain African-American troops.
She was outspoken about the treatment of Black soldiers in the then segregated US military, and quit a January 1945 USO tour when the officers in charge allowed German prisoners at a base in Little Rock, AR to witness her performance but barred African American troops from doing so.
Horne was raised by a suffragist grandmother who was an NAACP member in a free-thinking household. She refused to accept the restrictive conventions and damaging stereotypes of mid-20th-century Hollywood and brushed away attempts to cast her as a Latina.
She was a proud civil rights warrior who took part in civil rights demonstrations. Her civil rights activism and friendship with Paul Robeson and others marked her in McCarthyite eyes as a Communist sympathizer and she was blacklisted for it.
She overcame her own personal stormy weather to become an iconic American performer, a shining example of African-American womanhood, and a beloved shero and icon to millions.
I love me some Queen Latifah as much as my Canadian homegirl does.
Naah, scratch that. I think Renee has me beat when it comes to hailing the Queen.
At any rate, the Queen is about to grace us with a new movie coming out around May 14. It's called Just Right and in addition to her, it stars Common, Paula Patton, Phylicia Rashad and Pam Grier.
The trailer looks interesting, and it's directed by Sanaa Hamri, who directed Something New with Sanaa Lathan.
I'll definitely be at the local multiplex for it when it gets released.
One of the things I love to do I go to my local multiplex and watch my fave movies when they come out. The last one I've had a chance to see was the Lee Daniels directed film 'Precious' and it's making some movie and Black history of its own.
'Precious' was nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Picture.
Lee Daniels became only the second African-American director to garner a Best Director nod (John Singleton was the last for 1991's 'Boyz In The Hood'). 'Precious' also holds the distinction of being the first African-American directed film in the 82 year history of the Oscars to be nominated for Best Picture.
"After 82 years, it's the first film nominated for best picture directed by an African-American," Daniels said. "Isn't that great? It's so exciting."
Lee Daniels wasn't the only one getting Oscar kudos. The movie was based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire, and also earned a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination.
Gabourey Sidibe earned a Best Actress nomination in her debut film, and Mo'Nique is up for Best Supporting Actress for her role in 'Precious' as well.
In addition to 'Precious' six nominations, Morgan Freeman received a Best Actor nomination for playing Nelson Mandela in 'Invictus', and Disney received a Best Animated Feature nomination for 'The Princess And the Frog'
Hmm. Looks like I'll have multiple reasons to watch the Oscars March 7 telecast this year.
Since I have yet to see and I'm still waiting for Seasons 2-6 of A Different World to be sold on DVD, (and for that matter Seasons 2-6 of Living Single), I was glad to hear that TVOne will start broadcasting tonight my favorite show at 10-11 PM Eastern and 1-2 AM Eastern Time.
I own Season One and I've already expressed myself about how I felt about it. (it sucked). I deal with those episodes until the Debbie Allen produced ones start showing up in Season 2.
At any rate, glad to see it's back on the air.
Now if we A Different World fans could get the opportunity to buy the DVD's for our favorite show.
I love actress Kerry Washington so much I wanna be like her when I grow up.
She has the deadly combination of beauty and brains. I especially enjoyed the verbal butt kicking she gave future GOP chair Michael Steele on Bill Maher's HBO show during the closing stages of the victorious Obama presidential campaign.
But seriously though, this sister is a talented actress who I hope I'll get to see walking off the stage with an Oscar in her hands one day.
In the meantime, she's been doing the interview circuit while promoting the Life Is Hot In Cracktown movie which opened June 26 and is in limited release right now.
In the various interviews I'll post snippets of here she's been talking about her character Marybeth, a pre-op transwoman. You can click on the links I have to read the full interviews.
[Laughs] What type of research did you do for the character?
I had an incredible woman named Valerie Spencer, who was my transgender authenticity consultant. [Laughs] She was a girl from the community and an incredible woman. I knew that I was going to need a lot of support on this. So, I worked with her and did a lot of reading, research and watched a lot of movies. I always work that way -- I feel my job in some ways is that of an anthropologist to immerse myself into the world of the character. I knew this world was so different than mine so I had Valerie on set everyday. I believe very strongly in a community of guidance. My job is to respect the community I am portraying.
You definitely look like a woman, but your character, Marybeth, looked like a transgender woman. So what look were you going for?
That's such an interesting question. One of the things I realized in approaching this role was that I actually figured out early on that I was going to learn a lot about being a woman -- period. Because, really, what a trans woman is, is somebody who is a woman but whose biology has betrayed them in someway. For me, I take for granted my identity as a woman. I take for granted my anatomy and physiology. I don't really think about those things. What if actually I was born with my body betraying me in some way? I would think about it differently. I go to the gym four times a week to get rid of my ass but what if instead I was paying thousands of dollars on the black market in hormone therapy to have an ass? [Laughs] I might walk differently, stand differently, dress differently -- I might think about celebrating my identity as a woman in a different way.
Were you concerned at all with getting any flack for playing a transsexual character?
I don’t really think my job as an actress is to be liked. I think my job as an actress is to tell stories about human beings; I felt like that is what was important. I went through similar things on "She Hate Me" -- people are going to say what they are going to say, but I think my work is about honoring humanity. For me, as an artist, I don’t think it's fair for me to say, "I’m going to tell honest stories about this segment of society and not this other segment." I respect other people's decisions to only tell certain stories and only portray certain characters. It might be different if I had kids, it might be different if I was just at a different point in my life, but right now I try not to shy away from things because it might not make people like me -- no matter what I do in life people are not going to like me for one reason or another. [Laughs]
There's a perception that Black people are more homophobic than White people. What's your reaction to that?
I think generalizations of any sort are dangerous. I'll say, if that is the case -- right now it's an American issue. We're dealing with Prop. 8 in California and it's scary, it's really scary. People don’t think about the fact that when Barack Obama's parents had him -- it was illegal for them to be married in several states in this country. So if we start making it okay that certain people can marry and other people can't, it's a slippery slope of civil rights. Who knows who is going to be allowed to marry or not marry next. I’m not interested in moving backward as a society. So whether it's more prevalent or not in the Black community, I think as a whole America is dealing with the issue of homophobia. We got to be really honest about whether we believe in civil rights for all people or not. As Black people we need to remember the moment that we say it's okay to disenfranchise one segment of society, we're opening the door to move backward on ourselves.
This character has sexuality about her, but she is in some rough circumstances. Did you feel sexy playing her?
Wow -- that is such an interesting question. It's always hard for me to watch my own work. Sometimes that's because I’m so in it that it's almost like when I see it, it's like somebody showing yourself video when you're drunk at a party. [Laughs] You're like, "I don't remember any of that!" I had a lot of that with Marybeth. I keep trying to wrap my head around it. It was kind of shocking for me to watch the movie because I was so immersed in it. Sometimes when I work, I do a movie like "Fantastic Four" for example, you are kind of more conscious of the result and what it all looks like. This was one of those movies where I was just in it. There's a lot about the process I don’t really remember. But, I do know when I was playing her I felt very connected to womaness, to what if my identity as a woman was something that was really important to me -- sensually, sexually, physically, emotionally. What if it was something that I could never take for granted any day of the week? I was really connected to women in energy in a different way. She is a woman who makes her living having sex so there is some of that, too. I was connected to my sexuality as commerce. It was complicated.
Washington received some very specific guidance while essaying the part of Marybeth in Cracktown. “I actually worked with an amazing transwoman named Valerie Spencer. Valerie is a phenomenal, incredible woman. I spent so much time with her and she really brought me into the trans community, whether it was going to church or just having dinner or hanging out, and she was with me onset a lot. We got a lot of women from the community to be in the film so whether it was the party scene or the scene where I was on the corner working, a lot of those girls were women that had lent their time to me for the purposes of discovering this character. In terms of the worlds blending, that was just a blast to have them on the set.”
Washington is stunning in the movie, making no special concessions to playing the role with any sense of masculinity. In fact, she makes a beautiful transgendered woman. When I mention this to her, Washington relates how her good looks almost cost her the role. “It was interesting. I have this beautiful email that Buddy wrote me because originally he rejected me. It’s the most beautiful rejection letter I’ve ever received. But he sent me this letter saying, ‘I just don’t think I can do it because I think it’s gonna be really distracting to have this beautiful woman play Marybeth.’”
When I ask her how she changed Giovinazzo’s opinion she responds: “I really encouraged him. He and I both did some research. And the reality is a lot of these girls are gorgeous. That’s just the truth of it. Transwomen are women. There are many of them that you would never know… ever, ever, ever. In playing the role what I realized very quickly in spending time in the transgender community was that these transwomen had much to teach me about being a woman. Many of them are much more of a woman than I will ever be because I take my gender for granted. And I don’t own my female identity in the same way. The real challenge in playing this woman was to be even more of a woman. How do I really swing my hips? It was really fun to go, ‘I am just gonna unabashedly be a woman. What does that feel like?’ I wanted to honor the trans community by embodying the true womanhood of Marybeth because that’s who she is. She’s a woman. Turns out she is more woman than I am.”
When I balk at this suggestion Washington sets me straight.
“Really. Listen in some ways, yeah; I learned things about hair and make-up playing her. Playing Marybeth taught me how to walk in some really high heels. I have a new ability to walk in those platform pumps that I wasn’t going to get in my own life as a woman.”
When I ask Washington how the modern transgendered woman finds those incredible heels in men’s sizes, she giggles, “I think they have special connections with the shoe stores; when the shoes come in and who has first dibs on what. Again, I was like ‘My God, you guys are so much more of a girl than I am. I would never have a direct line to a shoe dealer. How fabulous.’”
From The Advocate Ross von Metzke interview
What drew you to playing Marybeth -- I have to say, that’s a challenging character, and one I think a lot of actors would likely run away from.
It’s one of those really funny, weird, I guess hopefully meant-to-be situations. I had an agent who fell in love with the project. She encouraged me to read it and I read it and was terrified. [Laughs] I sort of have a history of saying that I’m drawn to work that challenges me. I have, unfortunately, said that publicly a lot. So she sent me on this interview and I went to meet with Buddy [Giovinazzo, the director] feeling a bit nervous and ambivalent and not really sure what he wanted to do but knowing that I was really drawn to the writing. He was very honest with me and said that he wasn’t sure that I could do it. He really wanted for Marybeth to be a realistic trans woman and that he didn’t want to distract from the argument -- could this woman really be a trans woman? Having me play the role he thought might cost the film some of its authenticity, which clearly is the most important part of the film.
It’s very clear you’ve done a ton of research -- you speak very eloquently about the topic. Was this a crash-course education for you in trans issues, or were you familiar with the topic before?
It’s interesting -- when I was in high school, I was really, really lucky to be able to join this theater company in New York City ... and it still exists, actually, it’s called Nitestar. It’s affiliated with St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital. The company started really at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. We used to write these very open-ended scenes about safer-sex issues, drug abuse, homosexuality, living with HIV, loosing your virginity -- the full range of issues for teenagers to be working with around sexuality and safer sex. The company became the national model for this kind of theater in education work through the Centers for Disease Control. We used to go to different schools and community centers and perform these open-ended scenes and the audience would interact with these characters at the end of the show. First of all, I got the best training as an actor in those years because you have to know your character so thoroughly to be able to improvise with an audience of 300 after a performance.
But I also became a peer educator -- separate from the theater work, I used to work in the community and at the hospital. So I worked very closely with a lot of people in the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community. It wasn’t as if this was a community completely unknown to me, but the specifics of the transgender experience ... that was very new. I worked with a brilliant and beautiful woman by the name of Valerie Spencer who guided me through a lot of this and who was just fundamental to my ability to play this role. There’s also a great book that I read called Transparent, which is also a book about raising a transgender adolescent, that was really, really vital for me. I’m sort of a person who thrives with research.
Are you the one who lays out all of your paperwork on the floor and starts taking notes? I do [laughs]. And also, Buddy was great in allowing for Valerie to be a part of that process in terms of keeping things authentic. It was a very, very collaborative experience.
Tell me a little about the voice -- because clearly, hearing you on the phone right now and then watching the film, it’s significantly lower. I remember after seeing Transamerica and talking to Felicity Huffman, she said once she found her voice, she couldn’t get out of it because she didn’t know if she could find it again. Right, right, right.
Did that happen with you? I found that it changed a lot, actually, which -- and you’ll see in the film it changes a bit ... just in some of the work that I did, you’ll find that can happen to somebody who uses substances to that level ... there are different levels of awareness. The thing that I would say was similar to that for me, actually, was the walk [laughs]. It’s funny -- I feel like I learned so much about what it is to be a woman playing this character, because I think I take being a woman for granted, so I don’t think about walking in full appreciation and celebration of my femininity. I just don’t. But if I was born without the biological confirmation of what I know I am, I would be much more committed to celebrating my gender in my walk. There were all these ways of standing and walking and being that were more womanly than I had ever experienced in my life. It was great -- it was really amazing to just be a lady, because I’m sort of the result of this post feminist world where so much of what I do and think and feel is at least attempted to be done on a gender-neutral basis.
Absolutely. So he actually ended up writing me the most beautiful rejection letter I have ever received in my life. I forwarded it to my agent and thought, My God. If ever I have to hear no, this is the way to hear it. But it’s that thing -- when you can’t have it, then you really want it. I started doing a little research and started forcing him to do some research about trans women and really looking at these women. We both kind of realized that it’s more than realistic that I could play this role, because there are trans women in the community who are clearly women. What’s challenging about being a trans woman is that you’re born a woman yet there’s a section of one’s biology that betrays that truth. And so there are times when you meet and see trans women who have been graced with the ability to conquer that denial, where you’re just very aware of the truth of their identity as women. So we went for it.
I've been talking about this movie for awhile since Kerry Washington is playing a transwoman in it.
This film is based on the 1993 novel by Buddy Giovinazzi and also stars Evan Ross.
Life Is Hot In Cracktown features four stories that present a gripping and realistic view of an inner city neighborhood devastated by the ravages of crack cocaine. Giovinazzo had been trying to adapt his novel into a feature film for years. Thanks to Kerry Washington's interest in the script, he was able to finally shoot the film in 2008.
While I wasn't happy about the 'Black transwoman hooker' stereotype rearing its ugly head again, I'm curious to see how she plays Marybeth. Kerry likes to portray her characters as accurately as possible, and had LA transactivist Valerie Spencer advising her for this film.
Another installment in my ongoing series of articles on transgender and non-transgender women who have qualities that I admire.
Kim Fields just celebrated her Big 4-0 birthday May 12, and I've loved watching her in whatever acting project ever since her Facts of Life days. The NAACP Image Award winning actress and director is a talented singer, writer and spoken word poet as well.
When that show ended I wondered what happened to her. Kim earned a communications and film degree from Malibu's Pepperdine University in 1990, and not long after that popped up on our TV screens as the divalicious Regine Hunter on Living Single.
Kim's been in the spotlight since she appeared on Sesame Street when she was five. She filmed commercials, most notably one for Mrs. Butterworth's syrup back in the day combined with 1978 guest appearances on Good Times. She also recently became a mother on my birthday in 2007 and sorry fellas, is happily married again.
There's a lot to admire about this talented and politically active lady, and may she continue to have much success in her career.
Another installment in my ongoing series of articles on transgender and non-transgender women who have qualities that I admire.
I loved me some Pam Grier back in the day and still do. I grew up in an era when Blaxploitation era films were flooding the movie theaters after a long melanin free absence of people of color from the silver screen.
I own Coffy and a few other Pam Grier films such as Jackie Brown, and loved her in the L Word.
Pamela Suzette Grier was born in Winston-Salem, NC and was a military brat who traveled around the world with her parents. She eventually ended up in Denver and graduated from East High during her teen years after living in England and Germany. The 5'8" Pam competed in a few beauty pageants to earn money for her college tuition.
She moved to Los Angeles and was discovered while working as a switchboard operator at American International Pictures.
She was called the 'Queen of American International Pictures' as Foxy Brown, Coffy, Sheba Baby, Scream Blacula, Scream and The Big Dollhouse racked up big box office numbers and made her a household name. She was one of the sistahs back in the day that boys and the men of the 70's drooled over (and probably still do).
She's a cousin of NFL Hall of Famer Rosey Grier and once dated Hall of Fame baller and historian Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and comedian Richard Pryor.
The cool thing about many of Pam's films back in the day was that many of her characters were good girls who were wronged, and ended up kicking ass and taking names while fighting for justice.
When the Blaxploitation film genre wound down, Pam's career went on hiatus for a while until the late 80s. She started getting supporting film roles and making guest television role appearances on shows such as The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
One memorable one for me was when she played a transwoman in the 1996 movie Escape From LA before getting the Jackie Brown role the next year that put her back on the Hollywood 'A' list. She was also a cast member in the highly acclaimed cable series Linc's and of course, you L Word fans recognize her as Kit Porter and from her recurring role on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Pam has had her share of hard knocks as well. While filming one picture in the Philippines she contracted a rare tropical disease that left her bald and temporarily blind for a month.
She had a more serious health crisis in 1988 when she was diagnosed with cancer and was given 18 months to live, but she beat it.
As you can see this tough sister is still surviving and thriving today. Although this talented actress has yet to win any of the numerous awards she's been nominated for, she's number one in many of her fans hearts. .
I'm an unabashed Trekkie and fan of anything Star Trek related.
Since the word got out that Star Trek was about to get a reimagined makeover by director JJ Abrams, one of the questions crossing the minds of Black Trekkies was who was going to play Nichelle Nichols' classic role of Lt. Nyota Uhura?
It's not an insignificant question. Nichelle Nichols' role in the original series had historic significance to the point that when she considered quitting after the first season, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. himself urged her not to.
The appearance of this smart, sexy sistah on our nation's 60's era TV screens inspired a Chicago girl named Dr. Mae Jemison to become an astronaut and later make history as the first African-American woman launched into space. It also inspired a New York girl named Caryn Johnson AKA Whoopi Goldberg to become an actress and eventually play a character on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Even Nichols herself worked for NASA not only recruiting African-Americans for the space program, but inspiring kids in my era to consider math and science careers as an ambassador for NASA's space program.
The person with the pressure of stepping into Nichelle's boots for this reimagined movie is Zoe Saldana. I'm a fan of hers from several movies over the years from Drumline to Pirates of the Caribbean.
When Zoe talked about her meeting with Nichelle Nichols, she is well aware of the fact that for African descended people, Lt. Uhura is more than just a movie role.
"I was able to sit down with her, and she told me the whole story of how Uhura came to be and where they were going with her character. It all fell into place the moment she walked into the door and auditioned for the part. She named the character herself ... and she felt as an artist, she was going to make the part big."
It's going to be interesting to wrap my mind around seeing her in this role but I'm curious to see how she's going to pull it off.
Nichelle Nichols agrees with me as well. She stated in a recent interview, "I'd love to wait and see what she brings to it so that I can understand, get to see who and what Uhura was like. "I would like to see what Nyota Uhura had that qualified her to go on that first five-year mission where no man or woman had gone before."
Hopefully they gave Nichelle a cameo role in the new Star Trek film, which hits your local multiplex on May 8.
As a writer I love shows that are well written and have great acting. I stumbled across just such another show on HBO with the The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency.
The six episode show and the pilot movie is based on the series of ten novels by author Alexander McCall Smith and is shot entirely on location in Botswana. The HBO show stars Grammy award winner Jill Scott in the lead role as Precious Ramotswe and Tony Award winner Anika Noni Rose as Grace Makutsi, her awkward but very efficient secretary.
As the owner of the only woman owned detective agency in Botswana's capital of Gaborone, Precious has realized the achievement of her dream. She's kept busy solving various cases while also dealing with the problems and foibles of her clients lives as well.
It's also shined a spotlight on one of the more successful nations in sub-Saharan Africa. Botswana has been politically stable since independence in 1966, well run, prosperous and managed to avoid the drama that has plagued other emerging African democracies. The show has given us a chance to see the beautiful countryside and the wonderful nation as well.
It's enjoyable television, and I'm planning to catch up on the episodes I missed.
Another installment in my ongoing series of articles on transgender and non-transgender women who have qualities that I admire.
When I was a kid, Must See TV was the show 'Julia' featuring trailblazing Tony and Emmy award winning actress Diahann Carroll.
She was born Carol Diahann Johnson in the Bronx, New York on July 17, 1935 and as an infant moved to Harlem's Washington Heights neighborhood. She attended Music and Arts High School with one of her classmates being actor/artist Billy Dee Williams.
One of her first roles was in the 1954 movie Carmen Jones playing a friend to Dorothy Dandridge's Carmen. In 1962 she became the first African-American actress to win a Tony award for her role of Barbara Woodruff in the musical No Strings and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for the 1974 movie Claudine.
Those of you who grew up in the 80's and 90's remember her playing Dominique Deveraux on ABC's Dynasty and its The Colby's spinoff and for the recurring role as Whitley's mother Marion Gilbert on A Different World for which she received an Emmy award nomination in 1989. She also had roles in the 1991 movie The Five Heartbeats and the 1997 movie Eve's Bayou.
Folks who watch Grey's Anatomy will see her as Jane Burke, the demanding mother of Dr. Preston Burke.
She's also a breast cancer survivor and has become a spokesperson and tireless advocate in fighting the disease in our community.
But one of the things that I have always loved about Diahann Carroll is to me, if you look up the words 'class' and 'sophistication' in the dictionary, you'd probably see a picture of her pop up.
She's got it going on, no matter what decade you stick her in. Best of all she just carries herself with class and sophistication at all times. It's been interesting to me since I've admired her for a long time to see her evolve and gracefully age.
She's an example to me like Lena Horne and my mom of the timeless beauty of Black women. And that's a legacy of class, style, elegance and sophistication that I work diligently at being worthy of.
