Sep 1, 2019
Topics: Air Jordans, Whitney Houston, Sade, The Color Purple,
Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, Phylicia Rashad (Bonus Artist: Luck
Pacheco)
1985 Notes
General Snapshots
1. President: Ronald Reagan
2. Jan – In Hollywood,
California, the charity single "We Are the World" is recorded
by USA for Africa. The single raises money to combat
the ongoing famine in Ethiopia. The American act
consists of high-profile performers, including Michael
Jackson, Lionel Richie, Tina Turner, Cyndi Lauper and Diana
Ross.
3. Jan – The newest music video
channel, VH-1, begins broadcasting on American cable. It is aimed
at an older demographic than its sister station, MTV. The first
video played is Marvin Gaye's rendition of "The Star-Spangled
Banner".
4. Mar – WrestleMania debuts at
Madison Square Garden. In the main event, Hulk Hogan and Mr.
T defeated Paul Orndorff and Roddy Piper. The attendance for the
event was 19,121. The event was seen by over one million viewers
through closed-circuit television, making it the largest
pay-per-view showing of a wrestling event on closed-circuit
television in the United States at the time.
5. Apr – Coca-Cola changes its
recipe and releases New Coke. The response is overwhelmingly
negative, and the original formula is back on the market in less
than three months.
6. Aug - Ryan White who was
expelled from Western High School in Indiana is allowed to attend
his first day of classes via telephone.
7. Sep - The Farm Aid concert is
held in Champaign, Illinois, USA.
8. Oct – The Nintendo
Entertainment System is released in U.S. stores. By 1988, industry
observers stated that the NES's popularity had grown so quickly
that the market for Nintendo cartridges was larger than that for
all home computer software. The NES was released two years
after the North American video game crash of 1983, when many
retailers and adult consumers regarded electronic games as a
passing fad. With the NES, Nintendo also changed the relationship
between console manufacturers and third-party software developers
by restricting developers from publishing and distributing software
without licensed approval. This led to higher-quality games, which
helped change the attitude of a public that had grown weary from
poorly produced games for earlier systems.
9. Nov - Microsoft Corporation
releases the first version of Windows, Windows 1.0.
10. Open Comments:
11. Top 3 Pop Songs
12. 1 "Careless
Whisper" Wham!
13. 2 "Like a
Virgin" Madonna
14. 3 "Wake Me Up
Before You Go-Go" Wham!
15. Grammy Awards
16. Record of the Year: Quincy
Jones (producer) for "We Are the World"
17. Album of the Year: Phil
Collins (producer & artist) for No Jacket Required
18. Song of the Year: Michael
Jackson & Lionel Richie (songwriters) for "We Are the World"
19. Best New Artist: Sade
20. Top 3 Movies
21. Back to the Future
22. Rambo: First Blood Part
II
23. Rocky IV
24. Other Notables: The
Color Purple / Out of Africa / Cocoon / The Jewel of the Nile /
Witness / The Goonies / Spies Like Us / The Breakfast Club /
Brewster's Millions / St. Elmo's Fire / Krush Groove
25. Top 3 TV Shows
26. The Cosby Show
27. Family Ties
28. Murder, She Wrote
29. TV Debuts
30. Sep - What's Happening Now!! /
Stir Crazy
31. Black Snapshots
32. Feb - Whitney Houston
releases her debut album – Whitney Houston.
33. Mar – Mike Tyson makes
his professional debut in Albany, New York, a match which he wins
by a first-round knockout.
34. May - Michael Jordan is named
as the NBA's "Rookie of the Year."
35. May – Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania Mayor Wilson Goode, the first African American
to hold that office, orders police to storm the
headquarters of the black liberation/back-to-nature group MOVE to
end a stand-off over serving arrest warrants. (Due
process?!?!) The police drop 2 explosive devices into the
headquarters, killing 6 adults and 5 children, and destroyed an
additional 61 residental homes in the resulting fire. The survivors
filed a civil suit against the city and the police department, and
were awarded $1.5 million in 1996.
36. Jul - The final episode of The
Jeffersons airs. (1975-) 10 yrs
37. Aug - Fat Albert and the Cosby
Kids (1972-) 13 yrs
38. Nov - Ebony Man: EM
Magazine launches
39. Best Comedy Recording: Whoopi
Goldberg - Original Broadway Show Recording
40. Best R&B Vocal
Performance, Female: Aretha Franklin for "Freeway of Love"
41. Best R&B Vocal
Performance, Male: Stevie Wonder for In Square Circle
42. Best R&B Performance by a
Duo or Group with Vocal: Commodores for "Nightshift"
43. Economic Snapshot
44. Avg. Income = $22,138
45. House = $99,331
46. New Car = $9,531
47. Avg. Rent = $375
48. Tuition at Harvard =
$9,800
49. Movie Ticket = $2.75
50. Gas = $1.20
51. Stamp = $0.22
52. Socilal Scene: “Money, it's
gotta be da shoes!” - Mars Blackmon
53. The Air Jordan I was
originally released in 1985 and is almost single-handedly
responsible for modern-day sneaker culture. Michael Jordan
originally wanted to sign with either Converse or Adidas. But
Converse declined and according to a Wall Street Journal article
published in 2015 so did Adidas. Still MJ was not convinced. Only
when Nike, thinking they had nothing to loose, offered to give MJ
his own shoe- and clothing line did he change his mind. This was
unheard of at the time, no NBA player had an entire product line
named after them. As the first basketball player with his own
signature shoes Jordan would immediately become the king of
basketball sneaker advertising. Just to be on the safe side Nike
worked an out-clause into the contract: if Air Jordans didn’t earn
Nike $3 million in the first 3 years, or if Jordan didn’t make the
NBA All-Star Game in his first three years, Nike could dump him.
Jordan was voted into the All-Star Game as a Rookie starter and the
"Air Jordan 1" shoe made Nike $130 million in 1985 alone. The rest
is history.
54. Open Comments:
55. The pushback and common
critisisms
56. Extremely superficial
materialism is one of the only ways that many black Americans
express a sense of self worth.
57. When you live in a society
where nobody has a savings account, or a college degree, or has
traveled abroad, having a fresh pair of sneakers and a gold chain
shouldn't be your version of keeping up with the Joneses.
58. Liking shoes is as much of a
"black thing" as liking chicken is a "black thing". Everyone likes
both of these things.
59. Open Comments:
60. It became popular in the late
80s for people with moderate or low incomes to wear clothing
adorned with the names and logos of luxury, high-end brands. Then
all the luxury brands started making their own low-end,
logo-covered versions. You wear your favorite sports team to
affiliate yourself with them. It's the same thing with Tommy
Hilfiger, Gucci, Jordache, Guess, Wrangler, Levi, Gitano, Bonjour,
Sasson, etc., it's a way of signalling.
61. Question: We went from
tailored suits and dresses to baggy jeans and yoga pants. From
afro's and braids to fashioned bandanas and bleached blondes. From
the stylish Supremes and Tempations to tatooed faces and
pireced everytginhg. - What do you think is at the root of our
decisions? Are we victims of advertising?
62. Music Scene
63. Black Songs from the Top 40
(No Lionel Richie showed up!)
64. 5 "I Feel for
You" Chaka Khan
65. 6 "Out of
Touch" Hall & Oates
66. 12 "Easy
Lover" Philip Bailey and Phil Collins
67. 17
"Cherish" Kool & the Gang
68. 20 "We Are the
World" USA for Africa
69. 22 "Part-Time
Lover" Stevie Wonder
70. 23 "Saving All My
Love For You" Whitney Houston
71. 26 "Cool It
Now" New Edition
72. 28
"Loverboy" Billy Ocean
73. 29
"Lovergirl" Teena Marie
74. 31 "Oh
Sheila" Ready for the World
75. 32 "Rhythm of the
Night" DeBarge
76. 38 "Neutron
Dance" The Pointer Sisters
77. 40
"Nightshift" Commodores
78. Vote:
79. Top RnB Singles
80. Jan - "Operator"
Midnight Star
81. Jan - "Gotta Get You Home
Tonight" Eugene Wilde
82. Feb - "Mr. Telephone
Man" New Edition
83. Feb - "Missing You"
Diana Ross
84. Mar - "Nightshift"
The Commodores
85. Apr - "Back In Stride"
Maze featuring Frankie Beverly
86. Apr - "Rhythm Of the
Night" DeBarge
87. May - "We Are the World"
USA for Africa
88. May - "Fresh"
Kool & the Gang
89. May - "You Give Good
Love" Whitney Houston
90. Jun - "Rock Me Tonight (For
Old Times Sake)" Freddie Jackson
91. Jul - "Hangin' on a String
(Contemplating)" Loose Ends
92. Jul - "Save Your Love (For
#1)" René & Angela
93. Aug - "Freeway of Love"
Aretha Franklin
94. Sep - "Saving All My Love for
You" Whitney Houston
95. Sep - "Cherish"
Kool & the Gang
96. Sep - "Oh Sheila"
Ready For the World
97. Oct - "You Are My Lady"
Freddie Jackson
98. Oct - "Part-Time Lover"
Stevie Wonder
99. Nov - "Caravan of Love"
Isley-Jasper-Isley
100. Dec - "Don't Say No
Tonight" Eugene Wilde
101. Vote:
102. Top RnB Albums
103. Jan - New Edition
New Edition
104. Feb - Solid
Ashford & Simpson
105. Mar - Gap Band VI
The Gap Band
106. Mar p- Private Dancer
Tina Turner
107. Apr - Nightshift
The Commodores
108. Apr - Can't Stop the
Love Frankie Beverly and Maze
109. May - The Night I Fell in
Love Luther Vandross
110. Jun - Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston
111. Jun - Rock Me Tonight
Freddie Jackson
112. Nov - In Square Circle
Stevie Wonder
113. Vote
114. Featured Artists: Whitney
Houston and Sade
115. Whitney Elizabeth Houston,
@22 yrs old: Singer, actress, model, and producer, Whitney Houston
is one of the world’s most successful female entertainers of all
time.
116. Born and raised in Newark
NJ, she is the daughter of Grammy-award-winning gospel
singer, Emily “Cissy” Houston and John R. Houston, who managed his
daughter’s production company.
117. Childhood & Early Life
118. She was no stranger to the
entertainment industry, having come from a line of singers and
actresses. Not only did her mother’s vocal group, the ‘Sweet
Inspirations’, sing backup for Aretha Franklin, but her cousins
Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick are also renowned singers, as well as
her godmother, Darlene Love. She began performing in her church’s
gospel choir as a soloist at the age of eleven and learned to play
the piano. While attending Catholic school, she took voice lessons
from her mother, with whom she would occasionally perform in
nightclubs.
119. Career
120. In 1977 (@ 14 yrs old), she
was a backup singer for Michael Zager Band’s single ‘Life’s a
Party’ and the following year she sang on Chaka Khan’s single ‘I’m
Every Woman’. She was offered an opportunity to sign with a
recording company, but her mother declined so she would finish high
school. In the early 1980s, (@17 yrs old), she worked as a model,
appearing in several magazines including, ‘Seventeen’, where she
became the first African American to be featured on the cover. She
also took on acting gigs appearing in TV show episodes such as,
‘Gimme a Break’, while continuing to develop her vocal skills. In
1983,(@ 20yrs old) she was signed with ‘Arista Records’. President
Clive Davis spent the next couple years assembling lyricists and
producers to balance her gospel-like sound with contemporary
melodies. In 1985, her debut album, ‘Whitney Houston’ gradually
became the number one selling album of her career. She went
on to win two Emmy Awards, six Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music
Awards, 22 American Music Awards.
121. Open Comments:
122. A Hot Mess
123. On February 11th, 2012,
Whitney Houston (@ 48 yrs old) was found facedown in a
bathtub. Weeks later, an autopsy report would contribute
Houston’s death to accidental drowning, heart disease and cocaine
use. There were additional traces of a muscle relaxant, Xanax,
marijuana and an allergy medication in the singer’s
system.
125. Selected quotes from the
article:
126. What exactly killed Houston?
Why did she drown? How did she drown? Was she simply overwhelmed by
the controlling demands of her formidable mother, Cissy Houston,
Svengali Clive Davis, and her record company, Arista? Did the
aftermath of her toxic and co-dependent marriage to Bobby Brown
send her spiralling? Or was it the dissolution of her decades-old
lesbian relationship with her assistant Robyn Crawford? It’s
complicated, as documentarian Nick Broomfield discovered. “In
the end I think the divide between who she was and what her public
persona was became more and more difficult,” says
documentarian Nick Broomfield. “And she just went down,
127. The imploding relations
between Houston, Bobby Brown and Robyn Crawford. Brown told Us
Weekly magazine that Houston was bisexual and that she once had an
affair with Tupac Shakur. He went on to say that Houston kept her
relationship with Crawford hidden because of Cissy. “I really feel
that if Robyn was accepted into Whitney’s life, Whitney would still
be alive today,” Brown told the magazine. “She didn’t have close
friends with her anymore.”
128. From Cissy’s notorious 2013
interview with Oprah Winfrey: “Would it have bothered you if
your daughter was gay?” “Absolutely,” Cissy snapped back.
“You wouldn’t have condoned it?” continued an incredulous Oprah.
“Not at all.” ...“I didn’t particularly like [Crawford],” Cissy
told the talk show queen. “She just spoke too much, disrespectful
sometimes, like she had something over Nippy (Houston’s nickname),
and I didn’t like that at all. She was all right, she turned out to
be all right, I guess. That was her friend.”
129. Houston and Crawford first
bonded while they were teenagers working at a community centre in
East Orange, New Jersey. When Houston’s modelling career began to
take off, she’d face bullying in school, and Crawford, who was
originally a friend of Houston’s older brothers Michael and Gary,
would frequently come to the rescue. When Houston moved out of her
family home, she shared her first apartment with Crawford. Deep
into Houston and Brown’s 14-year marriage, Crawford remained a
fixture in Houston’s domestic arrangements.
130. Houston’s marriage to Brown,
understandably, made for an uneasy romantic trinity. In Derrick
Handspike’s unauthorised 2008 biography, Bobby Brown: The Truth,
The Whole Truth and Nothing But . . ., the author quotes Brown as
saying: “Now I realise Whitney had a different agenda than I did
when we got married. I believe her agenda was to clean up her image
while mine was to be loved and have children. “Whitney felt she had
to make rumours of a lesbian affair go away. Since she was the
American Sweetheart and all, that didn’t go too well with her
image. In Whitney’s situation the only solution was to get married
and have kids. That would kill all speculation whether it was true
or not.”
131. Supermarket tabloids did a
brisk trade during the 1990s by peddling the idea that Houston’s
life spiralled into addiction after she married Brown. She was the
gospel-singing good girl – the church-going daughter of Cissy and a
cousin of Dionne Warwick. He was a bad boy who, aged 20, when they
first met, had already been shot and stabbed in the shoulder. Their
tumultuous marriage (from 1992 to 2007), characterised by drug use,
infidelity and a costly entourage, was seldom out of the headlines.
But contrary to popular belief, Brown did not introduce his
troubled wife to cocaine. Houston first dabbled with drugs with her
brothers, Michael and Gary, as a teenager. The truth is that
Houston was always as “street“ as her R&B star husband. But
that part of her personal history didn’t fit with what Broomfield
calls “the Whitney character”. As Pattie Howard, Houston’s
backing vocalist, notes: “People may not know it but Whitney was
from the ‘hood’. They wanted to present her as the princess. And
that’s what white America was presented with.” Kenneth Reynolds,
who worked in marketing for Arista Records recalls that: “Anything
that was too black sounding was sent back. We wanted Joni Mitchell.
We wanted Barbra Streisand. ” “She was very carefully groomed for
nearly two years before the first album came out,” explains
Broomfield. “So every aspect of her was carefully considered. She
was a major project. A lot of money was spent on her. Anything that
was too R&B was out. They didn’t want a female James Brown.
That was not part of their vision. Which, of course, was a very
successful vision.”
132. In 1989, just as Houston
topped 25 million in album sales and surpassed the Beatles’s record
with seven consecutive number one hits, she attended the Soul Train
awards where, in response to her “white” music, she was roundly
booed. Pre-Beyoncé and Mariah Carey, “crossover” was synonymous
with cultural betrayal. People shouted “Oreo” – brown on the
outside, white on the inside – as her nomination for Best Female
Vocalist was announced. “It’s not a good feeling,” says Houston, in
Can I Be Me. “It’s horrible and kind of funny. You think: ‘Are they
booing me?’ And you have to sit there and be cordial and smiley.
And you feel like: ‘Oh my God’.” Kirk Whalum, the saxophonist who
toured with Houston for more than seven years recalls that night,
which coincidentally, was the first time she met Brown. “It was
devastating [for her],” says Whalum.
133. By the end of the 90s,
Houston found herself at the centre of a perfect storm of ongoing
racial friction, marital troubles and drug abuse. Friends, unable
to watch Houston’s decline, began to drift away. Her father, John,
died in 2003, but not before his management company, John Houston
Entertainment LLC, filed a $100 million lawsuit against his own
daughter. Months before his death, he made a public appeal on the
syndicated show, Celebrity Justice: “You get your act together,
honey, and you pay me the money that you owe me.” Robyn Crawford’s
departure in 2000, too, prompted a new, crippling dependency on
crack-cocaine and other substances. - “Robyn was the one who was
keeping her together,” says writer Allison Samuels. “That’s when
drugs became so important to her.”
134. Open Comments:
135. The Smooth Operator -Helen
Folasade Adu, professionally known as Sade (@26 yrs old)
136. Sade is an internationally
renowned, multi-Grammy award winning singer who is known for her
smooth, melodic vocals and the seamless incorporation of different
styles of music. She was born in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria on
January 16, 1959. Her father Adebisi Adu, a Nigerian lecturer of
economics, and her mother Anne Hayes, a district nurse, had met in
London. Sade was the couple’s second child. Shortly after her
birth, Sade’s parents separated and she and her brother followed
their mother to Colchester, Essex, England. There, the children
were raised by their mother as well as their maternal grandfather.
Upon finishing her education at Clacton County High School in
Colchester, she enrolled at Central St. Martin’s College of Art and
Design in London to pursue fashion and design. After completion of
her program, she worked as a model and menswear
designer.
137. Sade entered the music scene
around 1980 when she started singing harmony for Arriva, a Latin
funk band. She joined another funk band called Pride and was a
background singer for the group. Pride garnered much attention from
record companies due to their performances around London.
Eventually Sade and fellow bandmates, Stuart Matthewman, Paul
Denma, and Andrew Hale signed a deal with the U.K. division of Epic
Records and formed the band Sade. In 1984 the band’s debut album,
Diamond Life, was released to much critical success and was
bolstered by singles such as “Hang On to Your Love” and “Smooth
Operator.” The band followed up their debut with their next album,
Promise, which was released the following year. “The Sweetest
Taboo,” a single from Promise, was on the U.S. Hot 100 for six
months. She was awarded the Grammy for best new artist of
1985.
138. Open Comments:
139. Selected quote about her
sound
140. Let's get this into context.
With Sade it's unlikely there will ever be a full, naked baring of
the soul. In terms of contemporary icons, it's better to listen to
Mary J for stories of drama and shattered devotion. But Sade,
today, is all about the acknowledged presence of absence. What's
missing in her music is as important as what's present. - The
Fader
141. A small, yet important, fact:
When Sade signed her first record deal with Epic in the early '80s,
she accepted a small advance, worth ~$70,000 in exchange for an
unusually high cut of sales for a new artist—15 percent. It was a
deal that ended up proving immensely lucrative, and it has freed
her from many of the commercial demands that often encumber
artists. Put simply, she only works when and how she wants to. As
one executive at her label, Epic, put it to me: "Who's going to
argue with a woman who's sold 50 million albums? She's more
powerful than anyone working at the label, including the
[President]." - The Fader
142. Question: Does the Sade sound
ever wear out?
143. The Movie Scene
144. The Color Purple/Film
synopsis
145. An epic tale spanning forty
years in the life of Celie (Whoopi Goldberg), an African-American
woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and
bigotry. After Celie's abusive father marries her off to the
equally debasing "Mister" Albert Johnson (Danny Glover), things go
from bad to worse, leaving Celie to find companionship anywhere she
can. She perseveres, holding on to her dream of one day being
reunited with her sister in Africa. Based on the novel by Alice
Walker.
146. Review by Roger Ebert
147. Returning to "The Color
Purple" after almost 20 years, I can see its flaws more easily than
when I named it the best film of 1985, but I can also understand
why it moved me so deeply, and why the greatness of some films
depends not on their perfection or logic, but on their heart. The
movie may have inconsistencies, confusions and improbabilities, but
there is one perfect thing at its center, and that is the character
of Celie, as played by Whoopi Goldberg. "Here is this year's winner
for best actress," I wrote in my original review, and that should
have been true, but although "The Color Purple" had 11 nominations,
it won not a single Oscar. When a movie character is really
working, we become that character. That's what the movies offer:
Escapism into lives other than our own. I am not female, I am not
black, I am not Celie, but for a time during "The Color Purple," my
mind deceives me that I am all of those things, and as I empathize
with her struggle and victory I learn something about what it must
have been like to be her. - Roger Ebert
148. Selected Quotes
150. I was born a few years after
the film was released. However, I can credit much of my self
discovery to the many times I’ve watched it. My favorite quotes
from the movie taught me valuable lessons about Black womanhood,
faith, and self love. And these 10 are the ones I’ll never
forget.
151. “Girl, you oughta bash
Mister’s head open and think about heaven later.” By Oprah Winfrey
- In a film where women are treated like inferiors, Sofia breaks
the mold by refusing to be her husband's punching bag. This
scene-stealing monologue, with its rage filled entrance by the O of
O, is an act of defiance—especially one committed in early 20th
century Georgia. It was powerful and necessary to see a Black woman
go against the grain on screen. And to me, it was a call to action
to be fearless.
152. "I'm poor, Black, I may even
be ugly, but dear God, I’m here! I’m here!" By Whoopi Goldberg -
What a victorious statement this was by Celie, who, up until this
point, had spent most of her life feeling unworthy and invisible.
It reminded me that even with our flaws and imperfections, we still
deserve to show up in our own lives.
153. "Until you do right by me,
everything you think about is going to crumble." By - Whoopi
Goldberg - With these words, Celie breaks a cycle of abuse from
Mister and sticks up for herself. I interpreted this line as a sign
that I don’t have to carry the weight of people who have caused my
pain; life will take care of everything.
154. “Miss Celie, why you always
covering up your smile?” By Desreta Jackson - Growing up, I was
very insecure about my smile. And when Shug Avery posed this
question to Miss Celie, it also made me turn to myself. When Shug
encourages Celie to smile, I learned that there’s no need to cover
up my own
155. Open Comments:
156. Featured Artist
157. Caryn Elaine Johnson, a.k.a.
Whoopi Goldberg (@ 30 yrs old): an American comedian, actress,
singer-songwriter, Broadway star, political activist, author and
talk show host, she is one of the most successful and established
African American actresses of her time.
158. Born and raised in Manhattan,
she is one of 14 entertainers ever to have won an Emmy, Grammy,
Oscar and Tony. What differentiates Goldberg from her
contemporaries is the excellence that she portrayed in all the
mediums of entertainment, be it television, theatre, films or
radio.
159. Childhood & Early Life
160. Her mother was a nurse and a
teacher while her father served as a clergyman. She was raised in
the Chelsea-Elliot Houses by her mother alone after her father
disbanded the family when she was young. She studied until her teen
years and later dropped out of school. Her started acting started
at a young age. It was during her stage performance that people
complimented her by saying that she looked like whoopee cushion. It
was from there that she took the stage name Whoopi and adopted
Goldberg as her surname to sound more Jewish.
161. Career
162. In 1974, (@ age 19) she moved
to California and thereafter lived in various cities such as Los
Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco. It was during this time that
she honed her acting skills and developed her talent as a stand-up
comedian. However, soon thereafter, she returned to New York
and started receiving training under acting coach Uta Hagen. Her
first ever appearance on screen was for William Farley’s feature,
‘Citizen: I'm Not Losing My Mind, I'm Giving It Away’ in 1982 (@
27). In 1983, she created, starred and directed a ‘The Spook Show’,
a one-woman show that addressed the issue of race in American but
in a unique and innovative style. Next, she created other
off-Broadway productions such as ‘Little Girl’ an African-American
child obsessed with having blond hair and ‘Fontaine’ a junkie who
also happens to hold a doctorate in literature. The innovative
presentation and sense of wit and style in her shows impressed
director Mike Nicholas who offered to take ‘The Spook Show’ to the
Broadway. The show which ran for 156 performances, met with much
acclaim both commercially and critically. It went on to earn her a
Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. The eye-catching performance
and amazing positive reception of the show earned her attention of
the Hollywood bigwigs. It helped her bag a role in the Steven
Spielberg film, ‘The Color Purple’, released in 1985. The movie met
with resounding success, clutching 11 Academy Awards nominations
and she won her first Golden Globe award.
163. Open Comments:
164. Oprah Gail Winfrey , a.k.a.
Oprah Winfrey (@ 31 yrs old): Talk show host, actress, producer and
philanthropist.
165. Childhood & Early Life
166. Born in Kosciusko,
Mississippi, on a small family farm, to an unwed mother who had a
short relationship with a soldier stationed nearby, Oprah grew up
in dire poverty, and was primarily raised by her grandmother.
Sexually abused and mistreated as a child, Winfrey rose above
adversity to focus on her primary and high school
education.
167. Career
168. When she was still a
teenager, the local CBS television station in Nashville, Tennessee
offered her a job as a co-anchor. She turned it down three times.
At age 19, Oprah Winfrey said yes after the fourth offer. She
failed the interview, but instead was offered a job as a full-time
reporter for a Baltimore television news channel. She did poorly as
a reporter, and by age 22 she was fired from the news division. The
director of the station gave Winfrey a boost by selecting her to
anchor a morning talk show entitled ‘People are Talking’. For the
next seven years, her talk show enjoyed excellent ratings. In 1981,
(@ 27) she moved to Chicago to host a talk show entitled ‘A.M.
Chicago’. Four years later, (1985) after a tremendous boost in the
ratings, the producers changed the name to ‘The Oprah Winfrey
Show’. She caught the attention of Quincy Jones, a Chicago native,
and he cast her as Sofia for the first movie he produced, 'The
Color Purple'. The following year ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ was
broadcast nationally.
169. Open Comments:
170. TV Scene:
171. Featured Actor: Phylician
Ayers Allen, a.k.a Phylicia Rashad is an Emmy-nominated American
actress, singer, and director.
172. Her multi-faceted career
began with Broadway before she branched into television and films.
She is best remembered for her character as Claire Huxtable in the
NBC sitcom ‘The Cosby Show’, which ran for eight years. The series
brought Phylicia much deserved recognition, also earning her two
Emmy nominations. Phylicia, however, is immortalized for her rich
performances on the stage as an artist. She starred in several
lavish musicals and dramas, all praised highly by critics. She
became the first African American actress to walk away with a Tony
Award for her performance in Lorraine Hansberry’s ‘Raisin in The
Sun’. Subsequently, she was venerated within the African
American acting community at the NAACP Awards, where she was called
‘The Mother’ of the Black Community. Her other popular plays
include ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’, ‘August: Osage Country’, and ‘Gem
of the Ocean’. She has tried her hand at stage direction and has
successfully directed hit plays at prominent stages. Over the
course of her career, Rashad has starred in several television
series and voiced many characters. Her prolific output continues to
be on the rise as she is still an active part of the entertainment
industry.
173. Childhood & Early Life:
174. Phylicia Rashad was born
Phylician Ayers Allen on June 19, 1948, in Houston, Texas to Vivian
Ayers and Andrew Arthur Allen. Her mother was a prize-winning poet
and artist, while her father was a reputed orthodontist. She has
three siblings: Andrew Arthur Allen Jr., Debbie Allen, and Hugh
Allen. Phylicia was raised in the United States and Mexico. She
studied at Howard University, Washington D.C. and graduated with a
bachelor’s degree in theatre in 1970. During her university days,
she was inculcated into the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.
175. Career
176. After graduating with a
degree in theatre, Phylicia immediately joined the Negro Ensemble
Company in New York. She toured the city and was seen in several
plays under this troupe. Her Broadway debut occurred in 1972 and
she was seen in several minor roles for hit musicals, including
‘The Wiz’ (1975) and ‘Dreamgirls’ (1981). In 1978, Rashad tried her
hand at something new by releasing the concept album ‘Josephine
Superstar’, an album that was based on Josephine Baker’s life. She
decided to embark on an alternative career in television owing to
the scarcity of good roles given to her. In 1982, after moving to
television, Rashad landed a recurring role in the series ‘One Life
to Live’ as Courtney Wright, a publicist. In 1984, Phylicia Rashad
was roped in to play the role of Clair Huxtable, an attorney, in
the hit comedy ‘The Cosby Show’. The show starred Bill Cosby in the
lead role and Phylicia played his wife. The series ran for over
eight years and was a critical and commercial success. Phylicia’s
role as Clair proved to be the highest point in her career, earning
her two Emmy Award nominations.
177. Open Comments
178. Question: Is she a good
actor? Do you buy her in other roles?
179. Vote: Best Pop Culture
item/event for 1985