Old Black Men & Me

Morgan Freeman turns 72 today and I was thinking about how sexy he is. Whoever thought I'd think somebody over 70 was sexy? Oh well. Brains do it for me every time, whatever age.

Morgan came to rehearsal for the Image Awards to run through a segment in tribute to Sidney Poitier. First written as "Sidney Poitier defined Black Cinema in the '60s." Somebody insisted it be changed to "Sidney Poitier defined African-American Cinema in the '60s." I tried to point out that there was no 'african-america cinema' in the '60s...to no avail. In comes Morgan and the first thing out of his mouth was "I'm not saying this, there was no African-American Cinema in the '60s, it was Black." Vindicated, I threw my arms around him and planted a big whacking smack on his cheek while explaining that was what I had written in the beginning. He grinned, others looked sheepish. I laughed out loud.

Sidney P is also a sexy old man. He's also one of the few thousand celebrities who is exactly who he seems from afra--Elegant, gracious, professional. Maybe de Passe has had me write a dozen tributes to him over the years, and they all stick in my mind, but this day for the "2005 Black Movie Awards," he came in and asked me if I'd take a look at the acceptance speech he'd written. Ok, I have written with and for two of the most important screenwriters in our world--Suzanne de Passe ("Lady Sings the Blues") and Lonne Elder ("Sounder") but I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven at the possibility of so much as crossing a T on anything by SIDNEY POITIER. To tell you the truth, I did'nt do more than that--but all that mattered was he had asked me! Later on that day, we'd run his lines at the Teleprompter and I told him, "Valdez (stage manager) is about to come get you, and I'd give you a kiss for luck on that speech, but it would mess up your make-up." He smiled and said "Yes, and it would also leave me all atwitter"...and then he chuckled and walked away with that big rangy stride. Well, I was no more good. I just stood and laughed as well.

For the past couple of months, I've been spending my time with a bunch of really old men and one lady. Four of the remaining Tuskegee Airmen and the widow of another. We are opening an exhibit at the California African American Museum called "Tuskegee: Journey to Flight" and I am writing and producing five videos as part of the installation. Mitch Higganbotham, Elbert Hudson, Maysie Herrington and Ted Lumpkin are in their late 80s. Claude Davis will be 90 in a few months. Most of them brought photos of themselves in their Tuskegee gear or photos or pictures from the era that I'm using for B roll, looking dashing. But the stories they told of those times gave me chills. Now, I'm officially a card-carrying Civil Rights too-young-to-drink-old-enough to-get-knocked-in-the-head Protest Marcher and consider myself something of a historian, but most histories fail to include such antics as what happened when six young men in uniform--during War Time-- walked in the front door of a doctor's office, sat down in the waiting room and were accosted by the yelling receptionist who said to get out of there and come in through the back door. They did, only to sit in the same freaking place they were sitting in when she made them exit. Huh? What?? *#@!&*

It's been 60+ years since those days but the people and all they endured should not be forgotten. What I did was to flirt gently with the men because while they were remembering those racist, difficult and war-torn days, I wanted them to remember some of the fun as well-- those dashing young men in their flying machines. You could tell by the twinkle, they got it.... Never discount the power of ribbons, medals and citations....Brains and heroism...there's no clock on that brand of alluring.---Ruth Adkins Robinson