In Black America; Haywood "Dwayne" Nelson

Music From the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas at Austin, this is in Black America. At that time I was on Broadway, I was in a play called entitled Thieves by Herb Gardner, and about that time I was at Norman Lear, saw me and brought me out to read for good

times and read, you know, me in Bernadette Stannis, we read, we got down to the last few days, they kept us over in LA and then when I got back I realized that I had not gotten the role they gave it to Ralph Carter who was in a race and in the sun on the way. So I went back to Broadway, finished doing Thieves at Blood Yorkin, who was a friend and a one-time partner of Norman Lear. He had also come to the play and seen me and I had to come out and read for series Grady and I got it as the grandson of Grady, the character of a fanfare that played Whitney Mayo who played Grady, I played his grandson on the show and we ran for like 10 weeks but we were canceled and it was at that time that Whitney Mayo came up to me and he said you got something else to do that, I think you need to know about it and I want you to go over there, you know I want you to check it out and flew back to New York and read for a coolie high, the television series. Haywood Dwayne Nelson, former child star who starred in two ABC television series was happening and was happening now.

For some making the transition from child star to adulthood can be difficult. Case in point, Gary Coleman and Todd Ridges, but many have no difficulties at all. Haywood Dwayne Nelson has made a name for himself in and outside of the television industry. Starting as a child actor at the age of five he has appeared in more than 30 national television commercials and roles in several feature films. Nelson has made good use of his college education and his currently executive vice president at MusicLink and incorporated a multi-medium online service for the entertainment industry. I'm John L. Hanson Jr. and welcome to another edition of in Black America. From this week's program, former child actor Haywood Dwayne Nelson in Black America. My whole family is musicians and singers and so I've come up around jazz musicians all of my life. Dad is a jazz drummer and pianist, my mom's a pianist. And all the members of the family they play horn, they sing and the opportunity came up for me to do some small time modeling for textbooks and I was quite young, I was

about five years old. And I started doing that and it was like a segue process. One thing just led to another and what was modeling became commercials which became film and television and Broadway and back to television, there's a process that everybody is not just me, anybody who's in it has gone through and I went through the process kind of at the early age. As an entertainer for more than 20 years, Nelson has worked for United Artists, ABC Television, Columbia Pictures and MTM Productions. He is recognized from his character Dwayne from the hit TV series, what's happening and what's happening now. Nelson has studied architecture, electronic engineering, information technology and visual effects and film productions. He is often asked to talk about being a child star and how he made the transition from teen idol to computer executive. Also Nelson is active in youth and preteen anti-drug programs in the New York City area. Currently he holds a position of executive vice president at MusicLink Incorporated.

Last year we presented an excerpt of our conversation with Mr. Nelson. On today's program, we present the entire interview. There's a lot of concern, you know. There's a lot of responsibility thrown on a young person. There's a great many disproportionate views of the younger individual as well as that young individuals view of themselves and how they place in their own family, place in society. There's concerns that economics, all the economics of this young person making so much money so quickly. There's a lot of, you know, immaturity, a lot of things have concerned. I think for me, I never viewed it as being a star, as a job, it's what I've been doing all my life. I come from an entertainment family from the music side. It was just what I did and I had tutors who saw I was still in school. I took a lot of, you know, just pride in doing the school work and I liked working with the tutor. I'd really got a kick out of it, having somebody one-on-one, you know, your studies.

And it was the same studies that the other students in my school here in New York were doing. So, you know, I wasn't like, in no way was I being isolated from my regular peers, but at the same time I was getting kind of preferential academic treatment and I kind of dug it, you know, I was a kick out of it and then at the same time to get away from school and go out on the set and do something technical. For me, no struggle there. Where I think the problems for me came were just the fact that I wanted to do some of the normal things like hang out with the boys. I was a motocross racer, my brother and I in New York, you know, in Long Island in New York City. So, he's a motocross race and by my having to go on location to shoot, I couldn't compete and I couldn't stay in the hunt and that kind of bothered me because I loved racing. You know, I wanted the trophies. I wanted to win. And then he owned camping with the uncle, things like that that I really loved fishing with my father. You know, I couldn't go do those things because I was away. But then I made up for it, you know, because then we only worked six months out the year

and the other six months I was back home and I didn't know her abundance when I got home. Okay. It was cool. It was all good, man. I have nothing bad to say about it. Did you all divide up the day, you had certain times you had to be on a set with a certain time that you had to be with the tutor? Yeah, required four hours minimum of a day of education. Okay. So, for four hours a day, however, the director broke it up. We had to be in the classroom with the tutor and it had to be four hours completed by three o'clock. So, you know, we went back and forth between class day and whenever you went into class day to let you stay, I forgot, I've forgotten the data on it with the exact amount of time they had to leave you in class, you know, they broke it up fairly so that we could do studies as well as get back to rehearsal and they kind of jockeyed the rehearsal time around any of the minors on the set, they're schedule. And who were the other characters? You had Ernest Thomas who played Roger. Right.

Shirley Hempel played Shirley. Right. Fred Barry was rerun. Naval King was in blows up, Mrs. Thomas. Right. You have an opportunity to run across them. I always are. Okay. Okay. I really like family. I mean, I don't get to see Mabel as often as I'd like to. I don't get to see Shirley hardly at all, which I really miss her. I talked to Danielle on occasion. Fred Barry has moved to New York City, so I see Fred, you know, intermittently, we go out and, you know, go dancing or something together every now and then. He also runs an acting school here in New York that I was teaching the children at. See, I get to see Fred Barry and Ernest Thomas who has been in New York for quite some time. He and I are seeing each other almost like every day. We're like hanging out and going through the movies and playing and cutting up and acting the fool as we do, man, and, but he's been on the road for the past year and a half with Bernadette Stanis from Good Times. They've been doing a play. They've been doing a number of plays together. And I'm really proud of both of them because they're really working hard, but they're getting a real good workout. They're really putting on some good performances. So, you know, again, I don't get to see everybody as I would like, but, you know, we stay

in touch. In fact, we're all going to be on Ken and Avi Wands next week together. Okay. Was it difficult for you to maintain a friendship with the individuals in which you grew up with? Being away for six months, or did they look at you differently once you became a fixture on television? You know, that's a real problem. I, you know, I had my friends at a hang with. We had gone to Europe together with the school, you know, so we did some traveling in Spain in France and came back and, you know, I mean, here we are, you know, African American males. We've traveled around the world together through our school and academics, we did our hanging out. We were on football teams together, you know. We played baseball together. I mean, we, we had a nice camaraderie. We were all basketball players, and then I always had to be pulled away. It was either whether it be that I'm in class and I had no addition in Manhattan, and since I lived in Long Island, I had to be pulled out of class at one o'clock so that I could make it to the city in time for my audition, which I had permission to do, but still had disrupted

my process a little bit. You know, and I may have made plans with a group after school, but those plans would be broken, you know, when I had to go for an audition, or the case of my being home for six months and then I had to leave to go shoot, you know, everybody knew they were, actually they were accustomed to me. They understood. But it did disrupt the normal flow because whenever I came back, I, I didn't just fit right back in. I was always over here. I hear Hollywood. He had to reacquaint yourself. He would. I didn't want to be Hollywood. You know, I wanted to be Hollywood, Hollywood, but you know, again, it, and it was all good, though. It all worked out. You know, my friends were straight up. They were fair. I didn't come back with any kind of blown up, blown out of proportion, views of myself. And it usually, within a week or so, we got right back to normal, you know. How does one handle the constant recognition once they go out into the real world? The autographed seekers, the groupies, the et cetera?

Oh, oh, does, does one handle it? I, you know, I'm sure everyone has some form of what they believe is their handling on it. Okay. How did you handle it? For me, you know, we're talking about many different periods of my life. We're talking about when it first occurred versus after being on a hit series for two years in a row versus now that I'm not on a series yet, I have this great recognizability, you know, name and face recognition and having a resurgence of my acting career and my production career. I mean, there was three different types of handlings for me as a teenager coming up. I loved it because I could have any phone number. Oh, at least I thought I could have it. I wanted. Okay. And I was not the case, but I enjoyed the popularity because it helped me meet Dr. Satex. That, that phase quickly passed and my privacy became a big issue. And once I lived, you know, on my own, in my own home, with my dog, my car, my stereo,

and my one girlfriend who I was monogamously committed to, now all of a sudden the attention became an issue because I didn't want it. I wanted my privacy. So I went to that phase where I had to handle it by just keeping a good strong attention on every time I arranged something, arranged it for the benefit of my keeping private. Later on I was in college, I didn't have time to deal with it. I didn't care. You know, people recognized me all through New York. I just always took the time to say hello because I appreciated their recognition, you know, and them giving me the kind of, you know, proper respect that my work had generated. But I was too busy to even deal with them. I was like, hey, look, I appreciate it. How you doing? Good talk to you. Good to see you. A lot of success to you too. Peace out. I was on my way to another class. After college and I got into the business world, I really didn't deal with it because, or I dealt with it, but I didn't tolerate it because I'm in business now. It's really no place for me to be sitting in a place of business, dealing in production,

you know, directing a film, or producing a film, and having to stop from directing and producing to have a conversation with somebody about Dwayne. Sorry. It just is no way it can happen. It's bad for the bottom line. And if you want to talk to me after hours, I'm open. But right now, while we do a production, go back to what you have to get done, and let me do what I have to do. Then I got to the point where now, you know, I've built a couple of companies, we have a multimedia communications company called Music Link, the Music Link Network, which we're busy putting online right now. I have a film and television distribution company to the farm market, which is growing rapidly. You know, I'm very busy, yet now I'm recognizing how valuable it is that people, even after so many years, still recognize me, and never has it been a bad thing. It's never been negative. Every time somebody's come to me, it's always been something of love and something positive. I appreciate that.

I'm 37 years old. I really appreciate that now. Now, I take the time when I see people in the street and I stop and we talk. I'll sign an autograph if only the person is willing to have a decent discussion. I'm generally the type that will turn down signing an autograph as, you know, if the whole thing is to end all and be all, just to sign my name. I tell them not, I'm sorry, I catch you another time, maybe we can talk. Because now I'm just getting into the communications, I'm loving it, you know. And it's just beautiful, it makes me feel really good. Tell us about Music Link, how did that start and exactly what does it do? Music Link, it's something that I'm very passionately committed to. It's my opportunity to make good on all my education. I went to school for architecture, for electrical engineering, and then I worked in telecommunications for quite a few years. I was at MCI Communications Corps. After getting my technical handling and starting to apply my education, I really wanted to do something that dealt with wide-scale telecommunications, online services, and computer services,

but for the entertainment industry. Okay. You know, and I had been seeking different ways in thinking about what to do, but a very close friend of mine, Michael Williams, who is in the music industry here in New York. He has a recording studio, a progenre recording up in Harlem. Michael had called me in California and said, look, I got an idea. He started throwing it down to me over the phone, and it made absolute sense. I put in all resignations in California, and jump ship came to New York. And I said, now, in two years, did analysis and research and development, got to all the big boys in the industry, and the MCIs, and AT&T's, and the digital equipment corporations, and all the people necessary to understand how you actually do this kind of a large multimedia project. And we put together a system which is a communications device on the computer for music professionals. That's everybody who's in a music label, independent or major, one who is a manager of an artist,

or everyone who's an artist. Musicians, concert promoters, entertainment attorneys, whoever, and however they are professionals in music business, this is a system for them to communicate faster, do the same thing that they're already doing, but do it with a great deal more efficiency, allowing them to enjoy their work and get a little more out of it. It's a full broadcast quality, full motion video, over the computer type system. And basically, preparing ourselves to start broadcasting over the computer, or an interactive television type system. Is there a distinct different, other than the climate itself, from one living in California and, or L.A. in New York City? It's a huge difference, California is not in New York, and definitely in New York is not California. They each have their properties that are great and beautiful, but to me they're distinctly very different.

The populations are different, and the lifestyles, I mean, one's a coastal. They're both coastal, but one's legitimately the public enjoying the actual coast. Right here in New York, I think the coast is part and partial of some of the productivity that we all feel. It's a shipping lane. We're trying to get things done in New York. Everybody's busy. Everybody is too busy to be worried about the person next to them, they're very preoccupied with what they've got to get done. California is a very, me, self kind of a place in a different way, in that everyone is really trying to, you know, get the environment, feel the environment, be free, you know, free expression type thing, and just very different kind of places. I like to be in Los Angeles when I'm working, that, you know, it's a nice place to go and get my work done. I like to be in New York when I'm building. We hear a lot of horror stories about young child stars, not being able to make the transition

from a child star to adulthood or another form of earning a living. Did you make an insert of effort at a young age or during your 10 years that this is what's not going to happen to, hey, with Dwayne Nelson? No, actually, I never thought about it. Okay. You know about it. Deep into my 20s, after college, realize how difficult it was. It's not easy. It's a hard one because the perception that people carry about you, it could be very different than what the reality is. Okay. So everywhere you go, you may go with good intentions, good skills, and actually good preparedness. But if the person's perception is otherwise of you, you get an unfair judgment against you. Oftentimes too, with child stars, you know, like, say they're not looking for secular work.

They're looking for more work and continued work as an actor. The difficulties are like in my case. I mean, I was tight cast. It's nothing to beat around the bush about. It was quite honest. It was tight cast. It was Dwayne. I feel I did my job fairly well. I'm comfortable with it. I enjoyed it. I had a very good time. Come time now to do something new. The public is still associating me with what I had already done. So there had to be a period of time where I had to allow myself to be patient because I had only one of two choices. Either I was going to do something new, totally break the Dwayne moral, shatter the image that the public had, and maybe do a drug addict or a drug dealer or something really wild. The opposite of what people are accustomed to seeing me do, or I was going to lay for a while, be a little patient, and wait until a better time to re-enact my acting career. With all the goodness that comes with the recognition, but with the understandable growth and changes that have come about in any individual.

I think that's what I've done, and it's not an easy thing to deal with, I'll be honest with you. But for me personally, I'm finding a great deal of success in what I have to do in my personal life, as well as in my business life, through a lot of the tools and technology that I've found available. I often speak to an individual who I refer to as a hero of mine, and he's an author and a humanitarian. His name is Elrond Hubbard, Elrond Hubbard to put together enough technology for the understanding of human behavior to allow me to delve into Haywood, and put together the kind of things that I need in my bag, in my pouch, to be the better Haywood. I had to start to handle some of the issues that I want to handle, and actually get accomplished things I'm trying to accomplish. It's been wonderful, I mean, there's a new campaign when there's a book that's available, Scientology, a New Slant on life, and that New Slant on life is absolutely a very, very easy to understand, but it surely brings about results in my own life.

Not just me, I mean, there's many, many others, I mean, there's children around the inner cities of America that are using LRH technology and study techniques to help kids better understand what they're reading and to gain a love of learning and actually teaching them to be their own teachers. These are some of the same things that I found happening in my own life, and they actually do bring about results verifiably. So for anybody who's a child actor or any type of other person who did something at one time and they're looking to migrate or move or grow into something else, as long as you've got your proper handling and your proper tools, you can handle any of the tasks that need to be accomplished. And sure enough, as long as you have a view of what it is you want to do, I know that the LRH coverage tools in Scientology definitely work, and I recommend them because they work for me. I'd love to see the African American community just take a look at it because when I look at our community of people who have been systematically disenfranchised by so many different groups

through history, and even now at times other African Americans are disenfranchising African Americans. But then there's so many who are trying to do such good work for our community, African American that is, that I think with these tools that they were instilled in our leaders and in our children, it could very well be that our community could come about with some of the results that mankind is suffering from, with some of the answers to the problems that man is suffering from, first and before any other group on the planet. And that's something that I individually stand by, whatever I can to help our communities get this technology because the technology works. It's not very much data out there that we as non-Scientologists have about it. So the key is first the Scientology to get the data to everybody, but the community has to be out looking at Scientology as an answer and not afraid to delve into it and see what it's really all about. And believe me, it's my view that if it's put in our community, our young people will,

they will achieve levels and heights far beyond anything I've achieved from myself. And they will come about with some answers for mankind that I believe everybody needs. I look forward to that happening. I believe it will happen, it's just a matter of time. How is it important to you to work with youth and pre-team anti-drug programs? It's absolutely imperative to my future and my survival. We're talking about society here. We've got the young kids who are beautiful. First of all, I don't know if I could have survived today being a teenager. Taking a real good view and a look at what it is they have to deal with. The things that they deal with were not around when I was a teenager, which was in the 70s. Yes, we had other issues, but they are dealing with so many attacks and so many things that are trying to drag them down. That first of all, I have a great deal of respect for all the young people. I really model in them. They also have gifts, many, many gifts of very beautiful natural ability.

They really have an understanding that they didn't create this society that we're all dealing with. Yet, they're being made to bear the brunt of it. I'll do anything I can in my life to help the teenagers and the younger ones have any kind of knowledge that they need up front to try and help handle any situations that they need to handle, because I think it's a shame that those who didn't ask for such problems are being made to have to live through them. I would love to do anything I can to help. I'm trying to keep them, if I can, drug-free, healthy, self-helping, and independent in that way. Also to promote mentoring, you can start to look at each other for the answers, so that the older ones can look back to the younger ones to give answers, so the younger ones can look to the older ones with respect for the answers, so that the responsibility starts, because there has to be a level of responsibility that takes over in the individual first, before

the community can become anything, so that the society can become anything, so that the planet can be what it needs to be. And so I will do whatever I can. I mean, as many others are trying to do, I mean, Isaac Hayes is a good friend of mine. He's here in New York. Isaac is doing such wonderful work with the world literacy crusade to help overcome illiteracy, to help those children alike find good study methods to read better, to understand what it is they have read, and to learn to apply it. And these are the many, many things that I've looked for over the years. Again, I always come right back in my own life, that it was only until I went to the Elrond Hubbard and the LRH technology that I found something that worked foolproof across the board. And doing such good in the community, a lot of people don't know how prevalent Scientology is in the community in different programs that are working to help our youth. And when I saw it working and I see a six-year-old telling me how difficult it was to read, but

now after the technology feels he, she could read almost anything and feels that they could have a discussion with almost anyone. And in fact, if somebody wants to talk to them about something that they don't know, it won't have that discussion. That's a little six-year-old. See, I like that. That's a young person thinking for themselves. Now the parent who, these parents, many parents, I'm a parent, we're concerned about our kids. I can't do what I want to do for my children because of the desires I have for them. Yet all parents try to do the most they can do. There's nothing that I can imagine warming a parent's heart more than knowing that you've taught your child, all that you can give them, and that you're in a program with them of continuing to keep them growing, but that when they're away from you, you know that they can handle themselves, that they have the responsibility and they have the cognizant skills to make their own choices about what's right and what's wrong. That's what I'm looking to try and get to the youth if I can.

And if I have to do it by using my example, that's what I do. If I have to do it by running myself ragged and going to every university to talk to freshmen, every high school, every junior high school, I'll do it. Because they need to know that there are some answers that do work, because I think hopelessness is something that is taken over with the youth, and to free them of that is to liberate them. It really is. Mr. Nelson, before we run out of time, how important were your parental support system to your success as of today? Absolutely important, absolutely imperative. If it wasn't for my mother and my father, continuing to just be the same mother and father I had prior to any exposure to the public, if it wasn't for my hands and my uncles and all my cousins, who's just treating me continuously the way I had been treated all along the way, which was something that became about as a result of who I was and what I brought about on myself from my family.

It never changed. It stayed the same. No treatment ever changed for me within my own ranks. That keeps me normal. And that's why today I'm Haywood Nelson. I'm a normal guy. I am the 37 year old I was supposed to be. Former child star Haywood Duane Nelson. If you have a question or comment or suggestions ask your future in Black America programs, write us. Also let us know what radio station you heard us over. The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin. Here we have the opportunity again for IBA technical producer David Alvarez. I'm John L. Hanson Jr. wishing you a happy new year. Thanks for joining us today and please join us again next week. Cassette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America cassettes, Communication Building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas 78712. From the University of Texas at Austin, this is the Longhorn Radio Network.

I'm John L. Hanson Jr. join me this week on in Black America. Former child star Haywood Duane Nelson. This week on in Black America.