I grew up in the 1950s and '60s, when it was almost a holiday when a black act would go on Ed Sullivan.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Ed Sullivan brought me to TV first in 1952, then Garry Moore's program gave me a lot of confidence and freedom.
I remember tap-dancing and singing in front of the TV when I was a kid, telling my dad to stop watching Ed Sullivan or Milton Berle and watch me.
I don't have to really be in the 60s. Every time I hail a cab in New York, and they pass me by and pick up the white person, then I get a dose of it. Or when they don't want to take you to Harlem. I grew up with that.
I'd always had a big thing for the '60s.
I did the Ed Sullivan show four times. I did the Steve Allen show. I did the Jackie Gleason show.
I imagine it was much different in the 1970s. That was the Renaissance for black actors, albeit in blaxploitation movies. There was a much greater preponderance of work then than there is now.
I grew up in the 1970s, but I don't think a whole lot had changed from the '60s. Oh, it had changed in the law books - but not in the kitchens of white homes.
I work in the '60s more than I've done anything else. I did a movie, called 'Down with Love', in the '60s. I did a movie for HBO about the Johnson administration in the '60s.
The '60s were an amazing time.
My dad was into the 1950s doo-wop era. If you look at those groups, or at James Brown, Jackie Wilson and the Temptations in the 1960s, you'll see you had to be sharp onstage.
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