In Black America; Black Actor Roger E. Mosley

Background Music Oh, look at that! Look at that! Oh, fond of memories! You know, Thomas, I can't believe that he used to be your backup. Well, Dorsey was three years behind me at the Academy. He had to learn from somebody. Uh-huh. How come you ain't to play as a quarter back? Didn't give him time. Say what? Well, he should have double pumped the wide receiver then the tight end would have time to get in position. I see. I'll see you guys after lunch. Dorsey said he had to talk to me about something.

You're a boy. Wouldn't want to interfere with a quarter back reunion. You might want your advice on, uh, double pumping to those wide receivers. Roger E. Mosley is currently co-star of the television series Magnum P.I. The veteran actor has appeared in over 12 motion pictures and over 35 television programs, including his recent starring role in the television movie Attica. Roger, who also teaches acting, is founder and co-director of the Watts Repertory Company. This week, Black actor Roger E. Mosley in Black America. In Black America, reflections of the Black experience in American society with John Henson. Roger E. Mosley. You've seen his face in numerous movies, both on television and in motion pictures. And if you're a person who frequent the theater, you'll also see him on stage.

His versatility as an actor has been seen in memorable roles, ranging from a hitman preacher in Sweet Jesus preacher man to the Hollywood Clang portrayal of a legendary led belly. Roger also starred in the ABC movie of the week Attica. He co-starred in the ABC movie of the week Cruise Into Terror, the NBC movie of the week the other side of hell, for television series The Rookies, Streets of San Francisco, The Rockford Files, and Kojak. Roger was told by his peers as he embarked upon his acting career that he would have trouble finding work because he was too big physically. Roger E. Mosley was not too big, but he is steadily growing as an actor and getting bigger all the time. In his first film, Roger found himself working with one of Hollywood's greats, George C. Scott. Since that time, he has starred with some of the best. John Wayne, Bert Reynolds, James Earl Jones, Matt Sinclair, George Stafford Brown, Sicily Tyson, and many others. In 1980, Roger landed the co-starring role in the new hit television series for CBS Magnum PI

as the character TC, a helicopter pilot. Besides acting, Roger is a businessman and co-director of the Watts Repertory Company. I caught up with Roger at the Tony Dorset Pro Lion Tennis tournament held recently in Dallas. Roger, why are you participating in the Tony Dorset Pro Lion Tennis tournament? It's the fundraiser for Bishop College, which is a predominantly black college, and there's a great need for black colleges to service our young people coming up. We see through the media that a lot of colleges are now closing their doors to the minority students. But there's a lot that can be offered to our students in the black college system. And we don't want to lose that. We really don't. So Bishop College is a worthwhile institution to support. Last year, we went and did the same thing in Waco, Texas for Paul Quinn College. And in the past, as you know, I've worked to donate my time to help Houston Tillerson. And I worked with various other black colleges.

And this is just another in a long line of causes that I feel are worthwhile. And that whatever little bit I can do as a result of whatever notoriety I can generate as a result of being on Magnum P.I. or whatever other movies I've done in and around the Dallas area or wherever. Well, I'm glad to do it. That's why I'm here. You're also involved in a lot of organizations out in Los Angeles. You put together a theatrical company. Why did you feel there was a need for young black actors to get some type of professional training? Well, as a lot of people know, a lot of the films that we have seen with a black thing. And some areas lack of a sense of professionalism. I almost create a new word there, professionalism. And that comes through time. And so someone who has the expertise in the area has to donate the time. And that's what I felt I did. There was a theater workshop in the Watts area when I always come up and they didn't charge me.

And I learned a lot from it. And I felt that I should return the favor. Plus, we're not only working in the front end of it, the actors. We're working in the behind the scenes aspect of it, too. I recently finished a film that I directed and employed a large number of blacks behind the camera. And writing, electricians, set designers, grips. Those are people who set up the different things that are necessary for a film to work and make the lighting right. And script supervisors and wardrobe and makeup. And this is also true in theater. We work in a lot of areas to provide a form for black writers to present their material, which they don't always have in the quote, great white way of Broadway. We see a lot of recycling of old plays that were originally designed for whites. But we don't see a lot of original black plays anymore. So we provide a platform for that for the black writer. So it's not just for actors, it's for technicians, too. Of all the television programs, series that we have running,

maybe about 10 blacks are regularly seen weekly on television. Are you particularly concerned about the minute number of minorities, particularly blacks on television series? Yeah, but the concern really is not, we have the cart in front of the horse. The minute number of blacks isn't really a result of the minute, I have to get this right. So who's ever out there listening to this should understand why I'm taking my time because I want, because it's been said wrong so many times. Everybody figures that there should be more blacks in front of on the two. But there's a problem with that when the person producing the show is white or non-black. When the person directing the show is non-black, when the writer who originates the story from the very beginning is non-black. If a writer says down in his non-black, he's more than likely going to write a story that he understands, which would be about non-black.

So from the very beginning, there's no room for blacks to be on television because he aren't even written for it. And so then when the producer starts to cast and get his people, he's going to look for non-black. Because he's dealing with a non-black theme. There's no need for him to look for blacks. And then you have a director who's going to select actors for the role. He's going to look for non-black. Because the script and the producer are dealing with a show that has nothing to do with non-black. When you have blacks is when you start at the beginning and devise or originate conceptions on paper that initially start out with blacks in the part. Then automatically by the time you get rid of the cast, you've got to find blacks for this part. So we need more people behind the scenes, production or writing on television. Once we solve that problem, then we'll have more blacks. And blacks need, in the audience, need to do something too. They don't write. They don't write. It's amazing. The small amount of fan mail I give from blacks. Most of my fan mail is from whites. And that bothers me. Not that I want blacks to send me a lot of fan mail.

But it's that I know they're watching because they come up and talk to me. But when they don't let the studios know, when they don't let the networks know, then as far as the networks and studios are concerned, blacks aren't watching this show anyway. So let's cater to whites. And people say, well, why don't you do more on Magma? Why don't you have more of a role? Because there's no demand for it. If there were demand for more, just like we'll take the case of Robert Gulliam on Benson. On soap, when he was reaching on soap, there was a demand for more of what he was doing. But it was more of a demand, surprisingly enough by white people. That's why Benson is now a show with one blacks round about a lot of whites. When that would never be true, you never would never would see a show with one whites round about all blacks. You mentioned the point about the whole problem starts with doing with the writer. Couldn't write us write story themes that are optional as far as the actors and actresses performing in white or black. That's why I included the producer. Say that you wrote a non-descript character. You said a policeman was arresting the criminal when I'm your producer. And you live in Bel Air.

And every policeman you ever seen is white. And every time you've ever seen a policeman pull somebody over, the person they pull over was black. Well, in his mind, when he sees the scene, he's going to automatically think of a white policeman. If you were in Japan and you wrote that a policeman arrests the criminal. And you were Japanese and you lived in Japan. Are you lived in the Chinatown section of any major city? And all you saw was Chinese policemen and Chinese people being arrested. You would think that way. Now, you have frequently the black community. I don't know if you live there, but you know the area. So when you think of a cop arresting a black person, you might quite conceivably think of a black cop arresting a black person. So you would put that down. But when your mind doesn't even go that way. And let somebody say, hey, why don't you make this guy black? Then you might go, oh, yeah, okay. But just left on your own nine times out of ten, the producer, the director will think in what they're accustomed to thinking. And that will be a non-black person. So that's why I said not just the writer.

But we have to go. Not only from the concept, but we have to go from the producer on. Other than that, the person will think toward what's natural to him. Is it difficult doing a TV series weekend and week out some of the problems enjoying doing it? Yeah, yeah. It's very hard to come up with something interesting every week and to be original, be consistent, but yet still be original and innovative when you're doing 44 shows. 22 shows, excuse me, a season. And then you start to go three or four years. Well, how many ways can TC get in and out of a helicopter? We got some things that we burned out. Like we burned out the theme of a magnum always O and TC some money. And then they got it kind of to be overhead, you know. It was interesting at first. So now we got to come up with something different, you know. How many ways can you fly it back and forth across Hawaii and make it interesting? And so then it becomes hard. The first couple of seasons were easy because it was all new to us too.

But now you start to do the same thing over and over and over again. It's like a disc jockey. If a disc jockey only could play the same records every week and people could listen to us stations. It was a good thing that other people come up with new records. So the big trick is to come up with new scripts. And then what makes it hard is when you realize that there are a lot of other detective type shows. And everything that we don't get, maybe somebody else on another station is getting it and so by the time we get to it, it's over half, we got to keep coming with something different. The thing that helps us though is a locale since we're in Hawaii. That makes us different from most everyone else. Is it fun working in Hawaii? Yeah, yeah, it's fun working in Hawaii. I get a chance to see a lot of Hawaii. I'm a big city person. Hawaii is a little bit slow for me. There are not that many things geared towards blacks. So that kind of, I enjoy being black. I enjoy being around black people. I enjoy listening to music geared toward black audiences and dancing the dances that black audiences create and all like that. When I get to Hawaii, I miss that. It's just alien to my nature. I like living in the heart of a big city.

So I miss that and that doesn't make it as enjoyable as it could be. I would be just content to have the show shot at Los Angeles at Malibu Beach with a few palm trees. We wouldn't tell anybody what in Hawaii. Is it different acting on stage versus acting before camera? On film, you do the scene. There's a crew of people who shoot the film. Who's seen all kinds of acting. So they're really not that impressed. You finish the scene, everybody kind of says, okay, let's go shoot the next scene and that's the end of it. And you never really get to see what you did or get the response to what you did because all actors work on an ego. You have to have an ego. And people say it like we've done something wrong by having an ego but that's not right. We thrive on having an ego. That's what makes us go out and do what we do. Just long we don't let it get out of control. But at any rate, you have no reward for what you did until you maybe you see it six or seven months later on TV or on film or whatever. Where's in theater?

As soon as you do a scene, that's really good. You get the immediate response from the audience. The only problem that develops there though is after you finish that nice performance, it might be a great performance and then it's gone. It's gone into the air. It's just gone. And you never get that chance to see that performance or feel that performance again. Whereas on film, you have a recorder for posterity. For posterity. And you can look at it 10, 15 years from now and see your performance. Of course, now if your performance is bad 10, 15 years, you keep seeing the same bad performance too. You start in the motion picture, let Belly. What did that particularly do for you as an actor and as a person? Made me know for a fact that I could act and that I was good. And that's not being over complimentary to myself. As an actor, you have to know when you're good because you are the product you're selling. And just as you know when you're good, you also know when you're bad. So on that particular show, I knew that I could be good.

And it put more responsibility on me to not do mediocre jobs anymore as far as my ability, not mediocre movies. You don't have any control over everything after it's edited. Things are cut out and all that kind of stuff. But I knew that I could act. And all this time, I thought I could. When I got to a led belly, I knew I could. And so I worked now to continue to be able to do a good job of acting. I understand that your parents are from Louisiana and they somewhere along the land, grandparents, new led belly at the time. Yeah, my father did. He was aware of led belly and his sister, which is my auntie, had known led belly. And I could identify with led belly because he was a realist, which I think is the reason that he got into so much trouble was because he dealt with things realistically. He didn't shrink back from being a man. He didn't shrink back from being an artist. He didn't shrink back from feeling that his music should be played any and wherever he wanted to.

And so as I read the script and my approach that I found as many parallels, most actors, good actors, when reading a script, we'll try to find how many parallels there are in their life and their characters' life. And that way they can make the characters real as possible. And I found an amazing amount of parallels in his life and where he confronted things in my life and where I can find the things. Is there any type of repertoire between director and star of a movie? I experienced something where we were going in parts that I had never had a chance to experience in film before because garden parks was the first black director I ever worked on. I had done a lot of films as supposedly about blacks, but all the directors were white and garden parks were the first black director I ever worked on. And see between a director and an actor, there must be a paternal relationship, which had nothing to do with age. It has to do with the relationship between the director and actor because on film you're trying to interpret life, right?

And the director has the final say so as to how you interpret that life. If you go to do a scene this way, he can say, well, no, it shouldn't be done this way. It should be done this way. And the only other people in life to ever tell you that are your mother and father. Now, this relationship could never develop between me and a white director. I might respect that person, but I could never accept him paternaly as a person that can tell me as a black man how I should interpret life. I would second-guess him. He could even be right, but I would have a tendency to second-guess him. But with garden, being a black man, knowing about that period, knowing what blacks must have experienced at that period, I couldn't second-guess him so I could put myself comfortable. Whatever it was that he finally said, and there were times when he had to say, well, this is where it's going to be. I had no squawk. I could say, all right, you know, I could accept it just as I were from my father. And that's important, and yeah, that has to go beyond that. And he still takes out the belt and spanks me every once in a while.

Have you written any series for Magnum since it's been on the air? No, not yet. There have been a couple of concepts running around in my head that I'm thinking about doing, but we haven't gotten to that point yet. We went to a series of incidents. When we first did Magnum, we were coming right out of Actor's Strike. So we were hustling as best we could to just get the show done. And if you remember, right immediately after the first season, we had a director's strike. So we had a writer's strike, and a director's strike. So we couldn't submit any scripts. This will be the first complete season. This will be the first complete season that we will be able to do the show. And then we will have a chance to look into other areas of the show. We might want to engage in it. Roger module is one of the few actors that's available to tame work in motion pictures and film.

To what do you attribute that? Talent. Talent. That's all it is. I didn't know anybody in Hollywood. So I didn't go and have any friends who helped me out. I'm from the Watts area. I mean, this is as far as removed from Hollywood as Dallas Texas is. I didn't know anybody. Nobody helped me out. But I worked hard at my craft. And the reason why I say that is because there's anyone that's listening, I want them to realize what it is that gets you over. It's talent. So there's no need for anybody saying, well, you know, they read in these, you know, these different movie tabloids. Exposate things. You go sleep with somebody. And that's how you get a role. Somebody had a lot of money. And it's not like that. But if you just work on your talent and learn how to act, then that's your best shot. That's the only way I made it. I sure as heck didn't have anything else going for me. I attribute my success at being Roger E. Mosley to being a realist. Because I've always dealt with things realistically. I've always dealt with myself realistically.

My position in life realistically. I've never deluded myself. And to believing I was anything but Roger E. Mosley. And taking that one thing and trying to make it make myself as much aware of myself as possible. I was always able to put myself in situations that were realistic to me. Things that I could feel honest about. A very honest person. A lot of people misinterpret my honesty for being arrogance or being boastful or being straightforward or whatever. One anticipating becoming an actor or an actress is it feasible to say go to college and major in drama or being workshops. Whenever a way is best for you, I really, there is no formula. I guess there's no formula for just like there's no distinct formula for a person becoming a professional football player. You know, you can say you go to college and go through the ranks and be a high as a trophy winner. Or you can just be a walk-on on the spring train and there. On Dallas Cowboys, there's college graduates and walk-ons

that are playing first team now. I just walk on there and got it. So who knows? You know. Does an actor doing a film on location have to have some certain type of mental fortitude is getting a job done or being an actor? Period. Okay. I'm not nitpicking, but I guess for the millions of people out there who are listening to your show or whatever, I think I want to say clear to you. I would like for you to say, do I, as opposed to a doesn't actor, because some actors, I don't know how in the world, they came with a conclusion to do some of the things that they've done. But for me, I adjust to each character. I think let Belly was about the ninth movie I had done. And since then, I've done 12 movies. And 35 television shows and all the major shows. In each character, I approach with that character's attribute. And that would dictate what frame of mind that I have.

Like, okay, I have three movies coming out. And it's funny. One movie I play led Belly, a man in the South in the early 1900s, who is trying to fight the system. In another movie, you might see me in, I play a black man in the 70s who is trying to overthrow the establishment. In another movie, which would be out this month, I play a black man in the South who many people would call an uncle Tom mainly because he don't call us in no ways. He's got a job. He makes weekly paycheck. He works with his white man. And as far as he's concerned, that's heaven. And he doesn't want to upset that. And in the context of the movie, the situation comes along that led Belly would have treated one way. This character, that was a quote, militant in the other movie, would have treated another way. And this other character would have avoided the situation

altogether. And two of these movies, I did almost simultaneously. I was in Birmingham doing one movie and then I got a break to go back to Los Angeles to do the other movie. And then come back to Birmingham and finish the character in one movie. And one would be considered an uncle Tom. The other one would be considered a militant. So yes, in the plane flip trip from LA to Birmingham, I had to change my approach to the character. And in the plane trip back, a lot of people say that's hard. And it's no because I worked a long time at my craft before I ever got into the filmmaking and into an idea a lot of stage works. So yes, I as an actor do go through middle preparation in relation to the character that I'm playing. Not just for the sake of saying what I'm an actor and I'm doing a role so I have to really concentrate. You can wear yourself out like that. Plus I can take the actor off. I can take the character off, excuse me. I admire George C. Scott for that as an actor. He can take a character off.

He doesn't have to live the character every five seconds. Actor Roger E. Mosley, co-star of the television program, Magnum PI. If you have a comment or would like to purchase a cassette copy of this program, write us. Your dress is in Black America, Longhorn Radio Network, UT Austin, 78712. That address again is in Black America, Longhorn Radio Network, UT Austin, 78712. For in Black America's technical producer, Scott Compton, I'm John Hansen. Join us next week. You've been listening to, in Black America, Reflections of the Black Experience in American Society. In Black America is produced and distributed by the Center for Telecommunication Services at UT Austin and does not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Texas at Austin or the station. This is the Longhorn Radio Network.